My hon. Friend makes a good point. I congratulate him on chairing the all-party group. We need to bring to the attention of the world what is needed, with biotechnology. We have a moral duty not only to look after the environment but to feed people. As there is more and more global warming, northern Europe, and we in particular, will need to produce more and more food, and using biotechnology is the way forward. Europe, however, has dragged its feet, as has this country. The debate would be worth having if the potential for environmental and productive gains and slightly cheaper food could be presented to the British public, and if they could see some financial benefits—people’s hearts are on the left and their pockets are on the right.
If we look at the protein that we feed our chickens, our pigs in particular, and our dairy cows, most comes from South America and America, and most is genetically modified soya, so the idea that we are living in a world free from GM is absolutely wrong. The Americans, dare I say it—I never was politically correct—may in part be slightly overweight, but they have not actually died from eating GM products, which have been used to good effect in America. If we want a more competitive agriculture in Europe and Britain, denying ourselves GM in the future would be wrong. A Government who brought up that subject for debate would be brave, although I think that the public might just about be ready for it. I am interested in what our new Agriculture Minister will say. I am tempting him, ever so slightly, to comment on the subject.
We have some good stewardship schemes in this country, probably among the best in Europe. The trouble is that the Ciolos reform is trying to go down to the lowest common denominator. Of the 27 countries, some have monocultures of maize, maize and more maize, so Ciolos is trying to bring in such things as a four-crop rotation, but if we have land in stewardship schemes or permanent pasture, or hill land that is extremely valuable for its landscape, the last thing we want to do is to encourage farmers to plough up part of it. Some of
what is coming through from Ciolos, therefore, is complete madness. One idea is that every farm has to have 7% set aside, but some farms have anywhere between 20% and 40% of their land in a stewardship scheme—some more—while other, highly productive farms are much better off producing food and getting on with it, as I said before. That is why “one size fits all” is not the way forward, as my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton said.
We will have to fight hard in Europe—I look forward to the Minister fighting his corner—because in this country we run very productive farms. We actually farm pretty competitively. When some of my farmers in the west country get excited if the Commission talks about small farmers, I warn them, “Don’t get too excited”, because the Commission means farmers of about 5 acres, or 2 hectares, not farmers of 50, 100 or 150 acres. Poland has more farmers than the whole of the rest of the European Union, or certainly did when it entered, because it has so many small farms. Be careful when the Commission offers handouts to small farmers, because it does not mean ours.
That brings me to a key point. As we green the CAP, what is needed is agricultural environmental policy, and at the moment too much social policy is involved. Many member states will talk about labour requirements that very much favour the huge amount of labour on the very small farms in some countries, which will put British farming at a disadvantage. That will also take the CAP from where we want it to go, because the whole idea—probably with cross-party support—is to see farmers not only farming in a green way but producing food competitively, and we also want them to get more money out of the marketplace. That is where I disagree with the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford), who spoke before me. It is not a matter of finding more money from the CAP to support farming; it is about enabling farmers to be competitive and produce food well. I do, however, agree with the need to look much more at what land is given the CAP payments; that is where Scotland may well benefit.