Agriculture: Royal Society Report

My Lords, this is a timely debate, initiated by my noble friend Lady Byford. As we all know, the Copenhagen conference on climate change is now in progress, which in turn is timely since the future problems of the globe will be upon us in a matter of a generation. As has been mentioned, by 2050 some 9 billion people will inhabit our planet; the issues that growth raises are global in nature and in urgent need of attention. Other speakers have therefore mentioned global warming, environmental degradation, water shortages and even social unrest, which is already upon us in certain countries. Such burgeoning populations will demand new approaches to food production and security, as well as to disease control. In his foreword to the Royal Society report, the president, the noble Lord, Lord Rees of Ludlow, notes that a multi-pronged approach that includes using essential modern genetic technology is identified. He notes the, ""big gap between sophisticated UK laboratories and the reality of subsistence farming in Africa"." I would add that there are other areas of the world, such as parts of Asia and South America, where farming is still carried out at the subsistence level. Ronan Keating, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s goodwill ambassador, has stated quite bluntly that the fundamental way to address global poverty and food security must begin with putting agriculture back at the top of the international development agenda. Some 500 million peasant farmers across the developing world face a daily struggle to produce and provide enough food for their families and the people they support. The report identifies the issues that lead to food insecurity, and I wish to deal with two of the eight that are listed. The first is the increasing demand for livestock products—meat and dairy—especially from animals fed on grain, and the second is the growing demand for biofuels. My noble friend Lord Plumb illustrated the amount of grain that is grown by farmers globally. It comes as no surprise that 90 per cent of the world’s soy is destined for animal feed and that for every kilogram of beef produced, nine kilograms of soy have to be used. Livestock have come in for serious criticism because of their consumption of grass, their production of methane and for other reasons, but it should not be forgotten that in many parts of the developing world livestock are absolutely essential to provide the draught power for cultivation. Animals such as oxen, yaks, buffaloes, donkeys, camels and, occasionally, elephants, are essential providers of energy without which sustainable agriculture would not be possible. The other driver of chronic food insecurity on which I wish to dwell is the use of food crops for biofuels. Again, this has been identified by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and several international institutions as a key cause of the food crisis by increasing the demand for crops such as grain and corn and increasing competition for land between food and fuel producers. As has been detailed, intensive fuel production destroys the livelihoods of small-scale farmers in places such as Brazil. Of course, not all biofuel production should be dismissed. Marginal land, properly used, can probably be used to produce biofuel crops. Alain Lipietz, a French MEP, poses the question: ""How can we dedicate land to biofuel production when 25,000 people are dying from hunger each day?"." In a world where 1.4 billion hectares are cultivated, this statistic is alarming—and yet 4 per cent of crops that are grown for food are dedicated to biofuel production. The Royal Society report maintains that many areas can be addressed by scientists in this country. The executive director of the European Environment Agency has said that Europe should seek to generate as much bioenergy as possible itself without compromising the situation elsewhere in the world, and has given some hard-headed facts about this. The first is that business as usual cannot attain, and the second is that bold imagination and action are necessary. The report contains bold suggestions and is worthy of close attention and, I hope, action.