Agriculture: Royal Society Report

My Lords, I declare my interest as a farmer and a grower. We are members of LEAF, the organisation that links farming and the environment, and of which my noble friend Lady Byford has spoken as its president. I have for a long time, like other noble Lords, been involved with organisations connected to the industry, and have maintained my involvement with many of them. I thank my noble friend Lady Byford, as have many noble Lords, for introducing this important debate. Noble Lords’ contributions have set a very high standard. They have been authoritative and have covered the wide range of the subject area. They also reflect the authority of the Royal Society’s report, Reaping the Benefits. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Rees of Ludlow, who unfortunately is not in his place, and Sir David Baulcombe, the chairman of the committee that produced this great and seminal work. It crowns the 350-year existence of the society with a work in an area of immense importance. Together with the concept of the perfect storm of John Beddington, the Government’s chief scientist, it sets the agenda of feeding the world against a background of climate change, soil degradation, water shortage and population growth. Food security is a topic of our time. There is a moral imperative on British agriculture to seek to address it. Only today in the Metro newspaper, which many noble Lords will have picked up on their way here, there is talk of 100 million people starving as a result of climate change. I did not see the "Horizon" programme that showed just how great the pressures are on the world’s food resources, but it was reported to me earlier today. The theme of this report is the international nature of agricultural research and science. It is of global relevance. We heard very evocative speeches from my noble friend the Duke of Montrose, my noble friend Lord Caithness and the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, about the ways in which British science and what we do in the United Kingdom can support, and is vital for, continents such as Africa and others where food security is an even greater threat than it is to this country. There is strong consensus across the Chamber on this matter. Earlier today I spoke at a Lantra conference where I reminded the delegates of the importance of agricultural skills. I said that I did not think the Minister would be greatly out of sympathy with the views expressed by noble Lords, and I expect that will be so. However, it has not always been the case. It is only a relatively short time since the former Secretary of State, Margaret Beckett, suggested that it would be possible for the United Kingdom to feed itself in a world market, for it was perceived that there was a world market of plenty. Those days and those perceptions are gone for good but their consequences are serious. My noble friend Lady Byford gave the relevant figures. A reduction in self-sufficiency of 1 per cent per annum over the past 10 years is a serious loss to the resources of this country. University faculties have been run down, as have research institutes. I was a trustee of the Glasshouse Crops Research Institute, which has gone. My local experimental horticultural station became part of the Institute of Horticultural Research at Kirton in Lincolnshire, which has gone. Indeed, the Institute of Horticultural Research at Wellesbourne is under threat—I spoke to Professor Stuart Palmer only the other day—as a consequence of lack of funding. Lack of funding is causing stress on research facilities. I was taken to task by the Minister in another place, Mr Jim Fitzpatrick, for saying that the Government had failed to support research and development. However, Defra funding has declined dramatically, as the noble Lord, Lord Livsey, indicated. Much of the funding lies with DBIS and is difficult to trace and sometimes difficult to use. Levy boards, now combined with the AHDB, are looking at ways in which they can joint fund, with the Technology Strategy Board, projects across the range of agriculture and horticulture. However, their levies are considered to be a proto-fiscal tax and therefore joint funding with government funding is not allowed under competition laws, so there is no possibility of a partnership between the growers of this country and the Technology Strategy Board. That money which the Government are setting great store by cannot be used in the most effective manner unless they solve this problem. It must be a nonsense. Returning to Lantra, I should say that skills play a key part in making the most of farming as a resource. In this matter, the Principal Secretary of State, the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, has decided that there should be only six skills groups, rather than the industry-based groups, as at present. There may be room for some rationalisation. There are, after all, three media-training groups; but it is not even clear to Lantra where it fits within this grand design—if at all. How can we give priority to food security without recognising the importance of skills in the sector? While on funding, I heard this morning from a very authoritative source that, under yesterday’s Pre-Budget Report, £81 million has been taken back into the Treasury from the Rural Development Programme for England, whose funds are important for training and knowledge transfer. I should be grateful if the Minister could advise me whether that assertion is correct. I certainly hope that it is not, as this is an important element in technology transfer—getting the work from the scientists to farmers and our horticultural growers. We have talked about technology transfer, because it is important to understand that science on its own is not sufficient. It needs to be applied on farms and taken up by growers. In the ideal solution, science should work alongside farmers and growers. My noble friends Lord Selborne and Lord Plumb pointed out that this is very important to any way of increasing the productivity of British agriculture. Farmers should be confident of their role as feeders of the nation—and they should be proud of it—because this is good for science, good for the industry and good for consumers and the country. We should seek to build more competitive, efficient and productive agriculture in this country, within a sustainable environment. I conclude by thanking the Royal Society for providing, through its report, the catalyst for change. I should thank it for pointing out the imperative of doing something about the issue and outlining the opportunities for which a future Government must prepare.