We are unlikely to be able to feed an increasing global population

HAVING seen a response in the WSG letter page to the future of British agriculture, I would like to develop this a little further. The first question I'd like to address is whether we should be aiming for an increase in domestic food production - after all, until recently that hasn't been the view.

Agriculture has tended to be seen as, at best, a rather inconvenient by-product of land and countryside management; we are a trading nation and our own food security was not in danger.

So, are we right to aim for an increase in domestic food production? Should it be a priority at all?

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There are four main reasons why I think it should. First, it’s what the great British consumer wants. A report by the IGD earlier this year showed that the proportion of shoppers specifically buying local food has doubled over the last five years.

According to the report, the credit crunch has awakened a form of food-patriotism among shoppers keen to support their local economy; and they expect it to be long-lasting.

That trend is borne out by the deals being struck by manufacturers and retailers.

Hovis, with their recent switch to 100 per cent British wheat in their loaves, Carling with 100 per cent British barley in their lager, Morrisons with 100 per cent British fresh beef, lamb and pork in their stores.

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I think we can be fairly confident that doesn’t happen unless it’s good for business; unless it’s what their customers want.

Second reason is that primary food production is good for the economy; linking in with the first point, primary production is the platform that supports the largest manufacturing sector in the UK; the food and drink industry, which is worth some £23bn to the economy each year.

Primary producers’ share of that is around £7 billion; it’s held up well during the recession and it’s still holding up well and did you notice food and farming products heading the list of the big ticket deals signed during the UK’s biggest ever trade mission to China earlier this month? High genetic value breeding pigs, Scotch whisky, all good catalysts for increased home production and certainly on the breeding pig’s side, further cutting edge development.

Third reason is that it is what the Government wants. One of the first things Caroline Spelman, Defra Secretary of State said when she took office was that she wanted to work across government and beyond to ‘respond to the challenges of increasing food production’. David Cameron made a similar point when he spoke at the NFU’s centenary conference in 2008.

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He said: “We need to strip away the barriers to successful domestic food and farming that stand in the way of achieving greater food security.”

This is supported by all parties; the previous administration’s cross-government Food 2030 strategy was testament to that. So, I’m not surprised to see the newly published ‘Defra business plan 2011-2015’ focussing on promoting increased domestic food production.

Fourthly and finally, it wouldn’t be right for the UK to sit back as its own population increases (which is set to rise within 50 years to around 77 million, from 61 million today); and expect the rest of the world to feed it.

It seems to me that if, as Norman Borlaug said not long before he died last year, we’re going to have to produce more food in the next 50 years than we have in the last 10,000 years; the UK should play its part.

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A recent piece of academic research from Humboldt University in Berlin gives the scale of the challenge. 

They calculate that the EU, now a substantial net importer of food, relies on the output of 35 million ‘virtual hectares’ in the rest of the world to meet its needs.

That’s an area almost twice the size of the UK’s agricultural land area; as the researchers conclude “The food needs of the world can only be met when the rich countries produce more, and not less, as is sometimes argued.” Of course it’s a global challenge, but it’s a local response that’s needed, including from the UK.

So, what is the problem? Unfortunately, it’s not quite that easy. We can’t simply repeat the green revolution that was so successful in making sure that grain production kept pace with the post-war population boom. At a global level we’ve got population growth meeting global warming; rising energy demand meeting fossil fuel depletion; increasing and changing demand for food meeting water scarcity, soil erosion and biodiversity loss, and all against a worrying economic background that adds a further constraint.

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So, how are we going to achieve that increase in food production and do it in a genuinely sustainable way?

I’m really quite encouraged and excited about what’s happening in farming at the moment.

As I travel round the country meeting NFU members, I get a real sense of opportunities being grabbed with both hands. Some of those are production-related, some linked to the wider low-carbon economy agenda and others are about reducing resource use.

Almost all are about improving the bottom line and increasing our competitiveness. After all, we are businesses, and agriculture is a business sector that is investing.

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On the latest figures, we’re investing around 35 per cent of our gross value added as a sector. That is significantly more than many other industries, and this is not slash and burn investment.

The new poultry sheds that are going up are state of the art, high-tech buildings which are insulated to reduce energy use, recycling water for bird drinkers, equipped with special filters to cut ammonia emissions.

The new kit arable farmers are buying, with GPS applications, ‘controlled traffic systems’, which mean that they can map soils, better target nitrogen and other nutrient applications, cutting pollution from run-off, which means less fuel use per tonne of crop, less soil compaction.

Then we’ve got water-dependent soft fruit growers moving from sprinkler irrigation to computer-controlled, remote trickle irrigation systems, which means less water use, better quality fruit and improved yields.

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That’s giving us a triple win. A better bottom line, a lower environmental impact, and because of that, an overall economic gain. It is not a case of producing less to impact less- we can produce more, and impact less, if we get it right.

So where are the gaps? What’s going to stop us doing it, and where do we need help, from the scientific community, policy-makers, and from within our own sector. Farmers have always been consumers of innovation, particularly if it makes business sense. We’re also investors in R&D, through for example the levies we pay to the Agriculture & Horticulture Development Board or the British Beet Research Organisation, and we’re certainly promoters of science. We are one of the sponsors (along with other organisations, like the Crop Protection Association and the Agricultural Industries Confederation) of the All-Parliamentary Science & Technology in Agriculture group.

But as an industry, we’ve not always been in a position to make the most of developments.

The bridge between research and its application in the field has been eroded. We need to address that, especially given the challenges ahead. When the Royal Society, in its ‘Reaping the Benefits’ report last year, said that ‘the future challenge to feed an increased global population is unlikely to be met by existing technology’ it is time to act.

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