Agriculture: Royal Society Report

My Lords, almost exactly 10 months ago, on 12 February, I rose to my feet in a debate on another outstanding report produced by a different team of concerned experts, the Good Childhood report. Reaping the Benefits is about a different problem in a different context but it, too, deals with a situation that will simply not go away. It also lays down imperatives for the Government. It is well written, packed with facts and punctuated with recommendations that certainly make sense to me. This report has appeared just as the Royal Society celebrates its 350th anniversary. It is a worthy tribute to the work of the society, and has been produced at a time of great importance in the history of our planet. I am quite prepared to believe that the subject was chosen carefully to chime in with the society’s celebrations but I think the heavens themselves must have had a hand in the conjunction with the climate change summit in Copenhagen. It is an impressive text to accompany such vital discussions. Looked at in one way, the past 50 years of global agriculture is a tale of surprising progress. Population has more than doubled, but the amount of food available has risen too. The greatest improvements have been in China and in Asia generally, but the Americas are also on a rising trend. Figures for Africa are no better than they were in 1960, while figures in Europe have declined slightly in recent years. In the UK, according to the 2008 agricultural statistics, the trade gap in food, feed and drink has widened by 52 per cent in real terms since 1998 to £15.2 billion. At the same time, self-sufficiency in indigenous food has fallen by 9 per cent, from 82 per cent in 1998 to 73 per cent in 2008. The number of dairy cows has fallen by 22 per cent, beef cows by 13 per cent and pigs by 40 per cent. I could continue giving such figures about a variety of other items. Clearly this situation is unsustainable in the long term and the report reiterates the challenges we face. The National Farmers’ Union publication, Why Farming Matters More Than Ever, points out that relying on trade and imports to buy our way out of any possible food shortages is naive in the extreme. If food worldwide becomes really scarce, there is nothing to stop countries from placing restrictions on their food exports. The World Bank counted 31 countries in July 2008 that had reduced or suspended their exports. We cannot simply continue to rely on importing food as and when we need it. The question is not how the world can continue to produce food for the UK market but rather what the UK can contribute to world food supplies. In his foreword to Why Science Matters, NFU president Peter Kendall stated: ""Funding priorities should include proper resources given to applied science and translation to practice on the ground"." This call for practical transfer of knowledge to farmers and the need for increasing UK skill levels is reflected in recommendation 5 of the Royal Society’s report. There a call is made to reverse the decline in subjects such as agronomy, plant physiology, pathology and general botany science. The need for these skills was raised with me by the principal of Harper Adams, who explained the difficulty in accessing higher education funding. So the challenge is to develop the science base and provide a workforce able to understand and implement the new innovations through Defra, the BBSCR, universities and specialist agricultural colleges. The need to work together across all departments is restated in the Royal Society’s first recommendation, which calls for research councils to develop a cross-council "grand challenge" on global food crop security. It believes that it will require between £50 million and £100 million per year of new government money in addition to the existing research spending. It urges central government, DfID and Defra to work closely together and calls for the benefits of such research to be made available to the poorer farmers. The report clearly states that our technology should be harnessed to improve productivity overseas. This is particularly important in the struggle against the big bad trio of weeds, pests and diseases, which the report blames for up to 40 per cent of the losses worldwide over eight major crops, with the rider that without chemicals, resistant breeds and crop rotations, those losses could be between 50 per cent and 80 per cent. In some parts of the developing world, crop losses are also caused by the lack of basic infrastructure, such as poor quality roads, no piped water and no organised way to put one’s produce up for sale. Farmers in the UK are aware of the difficulties faced by African families and in 1988, in response to their dilemma, a group of dairy farmers came together and sent pregnant cows to Uganda. Six years later, after experiencing a number of setbacks, they amended their arrangements so that the livestock were given to the woman of the household. Three years after that, they put in place a social development team to train the recipients of the cows in organic agriculture, environmental sustainability and livestock husbandry. It has been a wonderful success and is all written up in a set of papers called the Foundation Series. GM crops have become well established in parts of the world and will surely be an important contributor to world food expansion. I was fortunate enough to pay a visit to the John Innes Centre at Norwich earlier this year to learn about the plant breeding programmes on which it is currently working. Although the European Union has so far decided against the importation of GM crops, many of us feel that this technology has much to offer. We should perhaps look at the possibility of having perennial wheat crops. I was also pleased to see that more than 100 scientists from overseas were working at the centre on up-to-date research. Over the years, UK farmers have responded to the lead given them by Governments. UK food production doubled between the 1940s and the 1980s. Wheat, barley and oats increased sixfold after 1945 but UK yields have now levelled off, falling from a 4 per cent annual increase up to the 1980s to around 1 per cent. Today, we expect farmers to produce food sustainably. In other words, we expect them to have regard for the environment and biodiversity. As the president of LEAF, I am a firm believer in integrated farm management systems. It would be difficult to imagine returning to prairie-type farming with the accompanying sacrifice of wildlife and biodiversity. The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust also believes in farming in a sustainable manner. On its farm in Loddington, minimum tillage instead of deep ploughing, the planting of ground cover in the early stages of producing a wheat crop and the use of beetle banks are all part of its current research themes. Individual farmers are also committed to looking at new ways of producing food in order to benefit society as a whole. In the past, UK farmers have not been known for close collaboration but this, too, is changing. For example, the Plumgarth Hub is a facility for farmers and cottage industries to reconnect to their food chain within the Lake District National Park. This was established in 2001 in response to consumers’ interest in locally produced, fully traceable food. Food security is not simply about producing the basic commodities; it should also allow consumer choice. Key to that choice is proper commodity labelling—an issue which I believe the Government have not taken on board—and country of origin labelling should be mandatory. The world population will go on increasing for at least the next 40 years. At the same time, interruptions to the established pattern of weather, temperature and rainfall—what we call climate—are expected to continue and may well become more marked. Effects will be felt all across the globe but will impact differently in different parts of it. There can be no one solution, as this report makes abundantly clear. It is also now obvious that developments that earlier were hailed as miracle workers—nitrogenous fertilisers, certain types of fishing nets and equipment that allowed fields to be tilled to the very roots of the hedges—have had unimagined and unhealthy side-effects. We are in the unfortunate position of having to cope with both the onset of the unexpected and the ramifications of our own mistakes. The situation is grave; it may even be very grave. However, this learned report, in all its erudition, gives me great cause to hope that if those who govern us and those who have the required knowledge and experience will only study what is written and act upon it, things will start to improve. Having said that, I stress that everyone can play a part, however small. For example, we can all turn off lights at home, when we leave the office and when we go into the garden; we can have a quicker shower in the morning, wash the dishes in a bowl instead of using running water, make a new year resolution to ban the sprinkler from the lawn and recycle our Christmas cards. In addition, all of us could waste less food—in this country, we waste a third of all we produce. Industry has been aware for a while of what faces us. Glancing at year-end reports and accounts tells a story of diversification—of oil companies growing vegetation for biofuels and construction companies testing solar and photovoltaic equipment. I think I am right in remembering that K-glass was a private invention, but it is now a standard for replacement windows. Companies in the animal feed and animal health businesses have been prolific in their advances. Thank goodness they have, as with the speed at which disease is travelling around the world with the changing climate, they will need greater agility in the future. On the crop side, the discovery of plant genomes and how to unlock them has already resulted in considerable advances. However, I am assured that there is much more to come. As I said, GM crops have become established in some parts of the world and will surely be an important contributor to world food expansion. So, too, will research into tillage systems designed to conserve soil quality. Concentration on the environment and how to operate in harmony with it is not a new phenomenon, and, as I said earlier, I am proud to be associated with LEAF here in the UK. The world has a problem with food supply, and the UK has the knowledge and expertise that can help to defeat that problem. There is a need for co-ordinating effort, for pump-priming and for development funding that cannot be undertaken purely by private companies —in other words, there is a need for input from government. However, that input has to be effective. There will be a place for targets and monitoring but, most importantly, there must be involvement, encouragement and resources so that there is no let-up in constructing the solutions. The next farming generation does not expect subsidies but it does want the Government to recognise the importance of farming and food production for the welfare of the nation. That next generation looks to have less unnecessary regulation and desires more joined-up thinking across government departments. I apologise that I did not declare at the start my family’s farming interest and my interest in many rural communities. Here in Reaping the Benefits is the blueprint. I hope that, unlike 10 months ago, the Government are listening and that they will resolve to take the Royal Society’s message on board. I beg to move.