A growing dilemma

Aug 17 2009 Agenda

The world is changing – and farming has a new role to play. Martin Haworth reports.

The West Midlands produces some of the best and highest quality food in the world. According to figures from the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ June 2008 Agricultural and Horticultural Survey, nearly 965,000 hectares of land in the region are farmed – just over ten per cent of England’s farmed area. More than a quarter of England’s soft fruit, like strawberries and blueberries, are grown here as well as a quarter of England’s top fruit, which includes apples and pears, and a significant amount of potatoes, other vegetables and salad crops.

But the region’s farmers and growers, across the country, are facing a major challenge – to produce more food to feed an increasing world population while reducing agriculture’s environmental impact and using fewer inputs like fertiliser and water. While UK agriculture is ready and willing to meet these challenges, they cannot be met by farmers on their own. Producing more while impacting less is a challenge that requires the involvement of the whole supply chain, from the Government down.

Last month’s report from the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee said the UK had a moral duty to help grow food to feed the growing global population and called on Defra to refocus its attention on food and lead the charge for a reversal in the real decline in publicly-funded research and development in production agriculture. The publication this week of a large collection of food-related papers by Defra shows that Government is finally recognising the central role UK farming can play in tackling these challenges.

At a time when farm-gate prices are still generally unsatisfactory it may seem strange to predict a brighter future for British farming. But there now seems to be some genuine room for optimism that Government attitudes about farming are changing and perhaps, in the future, the documents published this week will be seen as one of the defining milestones on the journey.

The UN predicts the world will have to produce 70 per cent more food by 2050. Everyone else puts the figure at 100 per cent. Food security sceptics will say that at any time in the last 50 years you could have made the same prediction and the world’s farmers have always delivered.

But this time things are different. In the past we relied on huge leaps in science and technology. The huge decline in public and private spending on research for yield growth, and the 20-year time lag between research and practical application, mean that no such rescue can be expected in the near future. At the same time, climate change and water depletion are likely to reduce capacity. Couple that with new demand for renewable energy spurred by ambitious mandatory targets on both sides of the Atlantic and you have the recipe for the “perfect storm” that the Government’s chief science advisor Professor John Beddington has warned about.

Innovations like polytunnels have helped to extend growing seasons for certain crops and increase production. But to meet the production challenges the world faces significant scientific and technological innovation is needed. Last October the NFU launched its Why Science Matters for Farming campaign which highlighted the need for more to be spent on research.

At the launch NFU President Peter Kendall said: “We are faced with the unique challenge of needing to produce more food using less land, water and other inputs. Therefore we need to embrace science, research and technology more than ever before to increase production while preserving our environment and dealing with climate change.”

The views outlined in the campaign were echoed by Warwickshire livestock farmer and NFU member Adam Quinney in The Birmingham Post, when he said: “Either profitability on farms has to go up or there has got to be Government investment in food research to improve food production.

“If you went back 30 years there were research institutions all around the UK but we’re down to one now.

“We need research into better ways of producing food and that has to be Government working with industry support. And we need the marketplace to respond so that farmers put the investment into their farms to increase food production.”

The development and implementation of technology like smart plant breeding to create crops which can produce increased yields and are more resistant to the volatile climatic conditions we face is going to be vital. But it is also important that farmers receive a fair price for what they produce to give them the confidence to invest in businesses that have a viable and sustainable long-term future.

This week’s food papers show a real change in Defra’s thinking. Only three years ago UK food security was dismissed as merely a matter of trade – we are a rich country; we can always buy our way out of trouble. Now there is recognition that UK production, and our contribution to global food security, is important. Ministers, at least, seem to have got the message that farming matters. So where do these food papers lead us? A lot of the discussion is about sustainability, and that is perfectly fair. We will leave a disastrous legacy if our practices produce for this generation but not the next. It is important, though, to realise that there is no magic key that will instantly unlock sustainability. It is a long process of gathering and transmitting knowledge and adopting new and smarter technology. Here, again, science is absolutely key.

The other concern about sustainability is the issue that the papers skirt with but never tackle head-on. How do you deal with imports? In our reaction this week we said it will make no sense whatsoever to insist that our domestic production is sustainable but rely increasingly on imports that aren’t.

So, there is cause for optimism, but there is still some way to go.

The real concern is what we are experiencing now – price volatility. The big price spikes of 2007/08 produced the inevitable production response, while the global credit crunch cut demand. Result: big price falls.

Economists predict future prices on average higher, but more volatile. The real policy challenge will be how to enable farmers to manage those risks and make long-term business and investment decisions.

* Martin Haworth is the NFU’s Director of Policy