Agriculture

My Lords, I join with other noble Lords in thanking my noble friend Lord Vinson. Like some other speakers, I declare an interest as a farmer. I should also declare an interest as a trustee funding agricultural research because my remarks will be concerned with the role of agricultural research, particularly that funded by the public. It is common ground between all of the speakers so far that the whole agricultural sector is recognised to be in a state of transition—and inevitably so because it was anticipated many years ago with the reform of the common agricultural policy, with the Doha round and with much else besides. Many of us were urging for that for a long time and it is irrelevant now to ask whether or not the agricultural sector, the Government or others have put in place suitable measures. However, when the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, takes to task those who failed to establish co-operatives, I remember that the first co-operatives were called marketing boards. They were phased out because they were incompatible with the European Union, or the EEC as it was. We had something called Milk Marque, which, can you imagine, had to be closed down because of the unfair competition that the farmers would exert on the multiple retail outlets. That was an example, I fear, of co-operation which should have been allowed, but certainly was not. In a situation where the sector is in a state of transition and falling incomes, it is important to establish what it is that you can reasonably ask the Government to do—and I accept that farmers very often are unreasonable in their demands—what it is reasonable for the sector to do and what might be the long-term strategy to which everyone, with some measure of agreement, can sign up to. In the 1950s, of course, it was much simpler. It was quite clear that the Government and the public knew that food security was an issue and that increased production of safe, nutritious food was clearly required. It was fairly uncomplicated. The farming sector got credit from George Brown and others in the National Plan and ““Food From Our Own Resources””. A number of measures, which were successful from the point of the view of the consumer as well as the farmer, were used to achieve this. These included capital grants, production support and, above all, investment in agricultural research and development. I recognise that we will not go back to deficiency payments, however much my noble friend Lord Vinson might wish it. I recognise also that the imperatives of the World Trade Organisation require us to be highly competitive, albeit very much more environmentally aware than we were in those halcyon days of the 1950s and the 1960s. So there is a very clear and reasonable challenge to agriculture: you have got to be competitive. You are not going to get the same support but the Government can perhaps still help in certain respects—not least in helping to set the vision, the strategy, and in producing a coherent base for research and development. Not all of this, I hasten to say, must be funded by government. Others can and should contribute. With regard to the biological sciences funded by the Research Council under the ministerial supervision of the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, the Government have achieved a very creditable record. The science base has expanded through funding research councils such as the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the Natural Environment Research Council, which have been able to increase their expenditure in real terms. The problem in the agricultural research sector dates back—this may sound as though I am harping back into history—into the early 1970s under Lord Rothschild’s customer/contractor principle. Your Lordships may remember that he came up with what I suspect is now a disastrous concept of taking money away from the research councils and giving it not to the farmers or their organisations to spend but to the ministry of the day, which was MAFF—the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The argument was that the farmers would be incapable of organising themselves to administer this research, and so £19 million was moved out of the research councils and was given to MAFF. That was 25 or 30 years ago. What has happened to that money over the years? It has been transferred by degrees to the policy objectives of Defra—a different ministry with highly laudable objectives. The sum of money is now, in real terms, about one-fifth of what it was. So it has disappeared. Lord Rothschild’s concept of having a vicarious customer, someone who could act as a sponsor, has been disastrous. If you accept my thesis that the agricultural sector, above all, has to be seen to be embracing new technology, taking on the fundamentals of environmental considerations, nutrition, linkages with other biological sciences and contributing to some of the wider objectives of the National Health Service—all of which I believe the research councils are undertaking in a co-ordinated way—you will find that the old Research Council institutes, such as Rothamsted Research, the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research at Aberystwyth and North Wyke in Devon and the Institute of Animal Health, are withering on the vine—and they are withering on the vine because Defra has withdrawn support. It says, ““These are not our institutes and not our responsibility. They are the research councils’ institutes. We have no overall strategy and do not feel responsible for the redundancies or the lack of ability to maintain this infrastructure””. It can be argued that by competitive bidding, you can go to universities and get the work done elsewhere and that no one should assume that they have an automatic right to funding from Defra or anyone else. That may be true if you think you can buy the research elsewhere. Supporting a sector such as agriculture needs farms, extremely expensive animal facilities and the infrastructure we were proud of in the 1970s and 1980s but which is now at dire risk. There is every likelihood, because of yet further withdrawal of funding by Defra, that IGER and Rothamsted will be merged into one funding stream. Those further cuts will tell farmers that although they need research and should be funding part of it themselves, Defra does not have the vision to understand how it should be playing its part in underpinning the infrastructure for research. We should be proud of our great tradition of agricultural research. We now have new Ministers—I am deeply impressed by the Secretary of State’s blog, which I read carefully; it is quite open and transparent. I hope that before the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, gets too deeply immersed in the conventional wisdom of Defra, he will find the time to visit these research institutes and ask them whether they can justify continued funding. If the noble Lord will do that, I will give him no further trouble.