Agriculture: Animal Feed

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, on instigating this short debate and on the way she introduced it. She made a powerful case for change and asked valid questions on, for example, what is being done to encourage supermarkets to divert more food waste for animal feed. I also agree that more research is needed on feeding catering waste to animals. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, supported her and wanted more to be done to reduce food waste in the first place, although I felt that he advocated a little more caution. The noble Baroness, Lady Byford, then went much further down the caution spectrum in harmony with the National Farmers’ Union. Finally, the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, gave an equally well informed speech inspired by the work of Tristram Stuart. Her contribution was particularly important in articulating some of the environmental arguments. For my part, it is clear that this is a very sensitive issue; sensitive for consumers and producers alike. At one level, it could be thought that this is quite simple and a win-win-win for producers, consumers and the environment that has been turned into a lose-lose-lose for all three by dint of risk-averse stable-door regulation—and, indeed, the argument is tempting. Each year, as we have heard and according to the Farmers Guardian, some 16 million tonnes of food is wasted in this country at a cost of £22 billion. That is truly shocking and the Government need to explain how they hope to reduce it. A couple of weeks ago I was talking to a friend who lives with a somewhat obsessive son in his early 20s who is now a ““freetarian””. He will only eat free food. I gather that a couple of times a week he goes out in the small hours in his van and sees what he can find in the skips at the back of supermarkets. His family and their friends now rarely buy food. They already have the Christmas turkey in the freezer and some whole cheeses, while the rugby club has a good supply of out-of-date beer. Some supermarkets are apparently much better than others. I gather that Marks & Spencer very rarely throws away anything that is edible. It is not for me to comment on the safety or legality of this practice, but it demonstrates that a lot of food is thrown away and, in this case, is being used for human consumption with no ill effect that I am aware of. The argument goes that if all this food is being thrown away, why not feed it to animals under a regulatory regime that protects human and animal health? Would not that be better for the environment than putting it into landfill? We have heard those arguments articulated very well this evening. Indeed, as the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, particularly made clear, the environment would also win because the feed would displace costly imports, especially of soya. I read an article in the May edition of Farmers Weekly by the much quoted Tristram Stuart in which he stated that, "““the EU imports 40 million tonnes of soya a year. Producing that soya comes at a huge environmental cost. If we made use of waste food for animal feed, we could substantially reduce pig farmers’ costs of production as well as having a significant environmental impact””." This is exacerbated by the shortage in availability of GM-free animal feed protein, which causes prices to rocket while imported products are allowed in, despite having been fed GM diets. Perhaps in passing the Minister could answer the questions put by the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, on essentially whether there are plans to level the playing field for producers. Or, perhaps, given what I saw today on the BBC website around the difficulty of banning the import of illegally produced eggs from battery hens, it might be in Defra’s ““too difficult”” drawer. I am sure that the Minister will enlighten us. On the face of it, waste food that is being thrown away could be fed to livestock that currently are being fed expensive, environmentally damaging food. It looks like a win-win-win, for producers, environmentalists and consumers. This is reinforced by other academics. I saw a paper this evening by Elferink, Nonhebel and Moll—I think they are Dutch—in 2007, which concluded that, "““the use of current food residue keeps the environmental impact of livestock foods relatively low””." However, as the National Farmers’ Union points out, it is not as simple as that. As we have heard, the practice of feeding waste food from home kitchens and catering establishments was banned following the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak. With the devastation caused by that outbreak, I think it is right to be cautious. It is also the case that over a million tonnes of co- and by-products from food manufacturing are already used by the pig industry, and that was detailed in the speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Byford. As she said, all products have to be Feed Materials Assurance Scheme-assured, and the use of waste products as animal feed is fine as long as it is properly audited. The risk of going further is that the risks of cross-contamination with meat products increase and we have another animal health disaster. If a viable scheme were possible, with supermarkets that separated food waste so that only suitable waste went to livestock, would the retailer risk the reputational damage if anything went wrong? What if one of their staff accidentally sorted the waste wrongly? If hobbyist pig farmers—I know this was in the NFU briefing—saw that supermarket food waste was being fed to animals, would they go back to feeding their animals anything and regarding pigs as a natural dustbin? That would be a disastrous outcome. We, therefore, need to proceed with care. That is why, in the end, I am more at the Byford end of the caution spectrum. The obscene levels of food waste need to be tackled. I ask the Minister what his Government's proposals are to tackle it. Is this something the grocers’ adjudicator could also report on? Are there going to be incentives for others uses of food waste? We have heard a little about anaerobic digestion, and had some enthusiasm from one or two of the supermarket chains about it. Could that be encouraged by Defra and DECC? As others have said, what can be done in relation to biofuels? Are there more industries that have food waste as a by-product that could dispose of their food by feeding it to livestock? I end by repeating some of the questions raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, around research. Is the department funding research into sterilization of some food to make this possible? As we have heard tonight, there are conflicting claims about the scientific evidence that proved the feeding of waste food to pigs links to foot and mouth or swine fever. Is the Minister confident of the scientific link? If not, is the chief vet ensuring the research is being done? This is not straightforward. It is right to take a precautionary approach, however tempting it is to go for the win-win-win. The Government need to take a lead, and reassure producers and consumers that they will be led by the science. We need to be reassured that the Minister then has the budget to ensure the science is being done.