GREATER communication and co-operation among all those in the UK food chain is needed to stop increasing reliance on imports.

Speaker after speaker drove home that message at a conference in York, organised by the British Grassland Society and British Society of Animal Science, to examine how to reconnect the food chain and link farmers, scientists and consumers.

Prof Richard Ellis, of Reading University, said farmers and scientists were too detached from the consumer. "Salmonella, BSE, foot-and-mouth and CAP costs have exacerbated this, and unfortunately the mud sticks at the farmer's door," he said.

Mike Segal, head of livestock strategy at Defra, said that, with 32m overnight stops and 1.4bn day trips to the countryside, the tourist spend in the British countryside was far greater than that on the food produced there.

"The shopping and eating experience has changed so much since the Fifties when our agricultural policy was formed," he said. "The factors that influence food purchase now are overwhelmingly price, taste, quality and convenience. In unprompted surveys, only 3pc of people cited country of origin as important and just 2pc that the fact that food was produced locally as important.

"The public now assume they can get food from abroad, of the same quality but more cheaply. Even more worryingly, two- thirds of respondents in one survey thought it more important for farmers to look after the countryside, than to produce food."

Sheila McKechnie, director of the Consumers' Association, said the key objective for the UK agricultural industry was to restore confidence, after all the highly-publicised food scares.

The CA wanted the CAP abolished. Post-war, producers could drive the agenda but the balance of power had shifted to buyers, and the CAP had no relevance.

Christine Taon, head of Farmcare, said farmers were being squeezed from all sides and had no power to retaliate.

"It is clear we cannot go on as we are. Farmers have got to produce for the consumer, and not for the subsidy," she said. "While I acknowledge CAP reform will be painful for many, this may be the impetus we need to produce a more market-focused industry."

Agricultural communications specialist Denis Chamberlain said reconnection could happen only if all elements of the chain worked together and if all were profitable - no profits meant no reinvestment or progress.

In a country with 60m consumers on its doorstep, and a good climate, farmers should be able to produce a world class product that could compete with imports. But at the moment, when caterers preferred to obtain their steaks from the other side of the world, this just was not happening.

"The industry has been very bad at self promotion - and farmers still come over as a motley band of martyred moaners," said Mr Chamberlain.

"Someone has to say we have learned our lesson, we are sorry, we have identified the cause and culprit, and we are working hard to put things right," he said.