Debate on the Address

My Lords, I have retired from farming but my family are deeply involved in farming in Scotland and elsewhere, so I have a definite interest in farming to declare. The world population has, as has been said many times in this debate, expanded enormously, much of it due to people living a long time. I am now 88, and one might say that I should have been shot some time ago, but at the moment I am hanging on. Given the present way of farming, the population all over the world is now really beyond feeding itself and we must seriously consider how this will be coped with. The question of land is very important. In this country and all over Europe, people—rich people, farmers and anyone who can grab a small piece of land—are buying land because they think that it will rise in price, which it has been doing. I have some shares in a company that dealt in precious metal. It has now been liquidated, with a good profit, and is going into buying land. It is a pretty serious business when land goes to £5,000 an acre; at 5 per cent, the rent is £250. Not many farmers can afford to pay that, so we are left with a situation in which people own the land but do not farm it; they simply hold it for its capital appreciation. The farmers who buy most of the land for sale are in the main big farmers who want to reduce their overheads. They are farming extensively. They are growing good crops of grain. But if this country is to feed itself, which I think it can, it will need land to be properly managed and a lot of small farmers on the land to take up new and intensive forms of producing food. To do that, a method will need to be found of discouraging the buying of land or of seeing that that does not make a profit. This is an impossible problem, but it has to be tackled. The production of food in the world depends largely on artificial fertilisers, which produce the necessary nitrogen, phosphates and potash. Artificial manure comes largely from oil, so oil is again vital for the production of the artificial manures that are needed to grow big crops. Organic farming often produces very good and tasty food, but it does not produce a lot of food per acre. We will depend largely on commercial farming for growing the wheat, oats and other straightforward crops that we need. I do not suggest that this cannot be done. This country could feed itself, but land has to be taken care of. For example, the green belt must be preserved for farming as well as for a certain amount of show. It is very important that we use all the land in this country. Many interesting things are going on in the production of power. It is said that the way to produce enormous amounts of power is to cover deserts with solar panels. All these things need to be investigated on an international scale, but our Government need to look at agriculture at home and ensure that it is efficient, properly managed and properly protected from the eagles that surround the business.