Natural England - ‘Can farming lead the way back to prosperity?’
‘Can farming lead the way back to prosperity?’
9 February 2009
Poul Christensen’s speech at the Sentry farming conference.
Thank you to David Richardson and Sentry for inviting me to speak to you today.
In the 70s and early80s it was all about production at any cost, we were paid to grub up hedgerows, to plough up grassland and to drain natural wetlands.
In the 90s and well into the ‘noughties’ the importance of farming, or at least it’s perceived importance, fell – food security wasn’t a concern, there were mountains of butter and lakes of wine.
Throughout this period, although the environment grew in importance, the policy objective remained the modest one of damage limitation.
The situation now
Now we find ourselves in very different times. The title of today’s conference says it all really – ‘Can farming lead the way back to prosperity?’
We meet at a time when farmers and farming are very much back under the spotlight.
You might even say we are back in fashion – there are twenty year waiting lists for allotments, you can’t turn on the telly without seeing a celebrity chef showing you his vegetable garden, and a former colleague of mine of the Board at Natural England has half of Lancashire planting spuds and beans on roundabouts and at bus stops.
Not for negative reasons but because people are coming to realise the hugely important role farming plays in national life – both for the food produce AND for the wide range of other services that farming provides.
But behind this good life renaissance, farmers need to earn a profit both from the food they produce AND from the environmental services they provide.
I was asked to talk today about ‘Maintaining the balance’ – I’m not so sure that balance is the right word –it implies that there is a choice between food and environmental security.
The two are interdependent, and the only sensible course in the future is to fully integrate production and environmental conservation.
Securing water resources; looking after most of the land around the water courses and river catchments helping manage flood waters; storing climate changing carbon; maintaining healthy soils for future food production; providing habitats for much-loved native wildlife; and maintaining the fabric and character of our landscapes, providing places for people to explore and enjoy.
You will hear these called environmental and cultural services, or eco-system services – whichever buzz word you choose, there is no denying that these are all essentials. A world without them looks very bleak indeed.
At the moment the market only delivers rewards for the food produced. The other environmental goods and services demanded by society are classic non-market public goods.
In fact the market encourages production of one to the detriment of the other.
As I am sure many of you know, Natural England offers agri-environment schemes, providing an income stream to encourage people to provide a wider-range of services.
In fact we have over 50 000 agreements bringing 67% of the land under some form of environmental management.
In some case these schemes can make a huge difference . The South West Farmland Bird initiative bringing farmers and landowners together across the Cotswolds, North Wessex, Cranborne and Dorset is an excellent example as is the Catchment Sensitive Farming Scheme working with 6000 farmers across 50 river catchments across the country. On an individual basis Brian Waller from Bucks , leading the CFE in Berks, Bucks and Oxon and an environmental award winner successfully incorporates fantastic environmental schemes in a very successful business.
But if we are to rise to the long-list of challenges that we have heard about today, we are going to have to bring these schemes into the mainstream rather than offer them an optional extras.
The ‘land’ challenge
The relationship between land-use and biodiversity has as much to do with post-war economics and politics as with biological and agricultural sciences.
After the Second World War the main objective was national food security.
At the same time the Huxley Report advocated establishing the first National Nature Reserves and National Parks – recognising that the natural environment needed some protection.
The segregation of food production and the environment dates back to this period.
In one of the most densely populated countries on earth, with high standards of living, and blessed with an ideal climate for agriculture, it is inevitable that land is in short supply.
The scarcity of land means that the complete segregation of agriculture and the environment is not a viable long term option.
It is interesting to compare the situation here in England with Iowa where Bill Northey hails from. Iowa has 33 million acres of farmland, a third more land for farming than in England with c.23 million acres.
But we have over twice as many holdings with 208 thousand holdings against 80 000 plus farms (note not holdings).
The population in Iowa is a little over 3 million, we have around 61 million!
The time has come for us to integrate, or reintegrate our production systems with environment, not segregate.
And reassess the way that we use the land.
If you accept that the whole range of products and services derived from the land are important – and only in the realms of science fiction can you live without food, water, air and our natural resources - then it follows that you need a comprehensive land-use strategy to make sure that these essentials are delivered.
Food security now versus food security in the future
Agricultural productivity will need to increase in the long-term, to deal with:
population growth - set to rise to 10 billion people by 2050;
rising demand for a protein-based diet in places like China and India;
and the global implications of shifting weather patterns and climate change on agricultural production.
Of course, the world population will only meet the predicted increases if we can feed them, and there has to be some questions on what the sustainable world population is. A few people in high places are beginning to challenge the assumptions that we just go on increasing in number. Population is the elephant in the room and we seem to be hearing less about two and a half planets to sustain us than only two years ago. The solution to a world recession is seen as ‘growth’ and that does not sit easily with one planet living and sustainability! It has to be Sustainable Growth.
60% of the ecosystems examined for the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment were being degraded or used unsustainably.
70% of global freshwater withdrawal is already used for agriculture.
Land degradation and desertification threatens the livelihoods of around a billion people who rely on land – two thirds of Africa is desert or drylands. In China, since the 1950s, expanding deserts have reduced cultivated land areas by almost 700,000 hectares.
But before decisions are taken about where and how to produce more, the waste in the current food system needs tackling.
In total, food waste in the UK is estimated to be 18-20 million tonnes. Although household food waste makes the largest single contribution (8.3 million tonnes) more than half of this is food wasted in the supply chain.
Of which 65% is avoidable – this represents £12 billion, or £480 for the average household every year.
Health experts warn that 60% of us will be obese by 2050. It is estimated that 1 billion people on earth are undernourished and a further 1 billion are ‘overnourished’ now. (We seem to live in a mad house!)
This is a luxury in which we can ill afford to indulge.
Mark [Price] from Waitrose has already talked of the important role that food retailers can play.
Informing consumers about the environmental footprint of the food they are taking home – helping them make sustainable choices and creating demand for high-quality, home grown produce.
The need to do things differently
To succeed in the long run will require us to accept that we are going to have to farm differently.
It is possible to maintain productivity with lower inputs, and therefore costs and impacts on the natural environment. We have seen the potential that precision farming has to offer in ensuring ‘optimum’ inputs to increase outputs with minimum waste and environmental impact.
It is interesting to hear an increasing consensus that organic farming and ‘conventional farming’ have a lot to learn from each other.
But it will mean moving to different model of agriculture – alongside its primary role of producing food and other products, agriculture will be concerned with providing a whole range of products and services.
The industry is constantly innovating and refining its techniques.
To succeed in the future we will need to continue to innovate to find ways to:
reduce its dependency on fossil fuels and other exhaustible resources;
have a lower environmental impact from less diffuse water pollution, such as through better nutrient management and precision farming;
develop and adopt alternative ways of controlling pest and diseases, such as via integrated pest management and biological controls;
be more water efficient, through increased storage and more efficient use, such as using drip irrigators rather than spray ones;
use and manage soils more sustainably, through practices as minimum and no-tillage and rotations.
Just last week Australian scientists produced new evidence that suggested that in Europe we are expending soil fertility 18 times faster than natural processes can replace it – using up a resource that has taken thousands of years to create.produce less Green House Gases overall and per unit of output;
better inform consumers of the origin and production methods of foods, and increase education and engagement with the public about food, farming and the environment;
invest in research into agro-ecological designs, practices, technologies, and systems, as well as high tech plant breeding and biotech.
Agro-technology will have an important role to play in the future. But there needs to be a degree of certainty that we are sure we know what we are doing, and what the likely effects might be. The rewards are potentially enormous but we may need a new approach to certification in order to protect our natural environment.
We need to be cautious too that we work with, not against our stock of agricultural biodiversity, the locally adapted genetic traits developed over 10s of 1000s of years. These local adaptations could help respond to shifting weather patterns and changing climates.
You can launch a new Nokia safe in the knowledge that it can recalled at will, and will be superseded by the next model three week later anyway – the impact of new genetic material is far harder to get back onto the shelves!
Policy challenges in the future
The big policy challenge for the future, particularly as we move towards a review of the Common Agricultural Policy, is to develop new mechanisms and improve the tools we have to incentivise farmers to provide the full range of environmental services. And, most importantly, to ensure such measures are adequately funded as part of the budget settlement for the next programming period.
Since the early 1990s, the CAP has slowly changed, with pillar 1 funds , the Single Payment , now being ‘decoupled’ from agricultural production and an increasingly active European environmentalist lobby began to shape policy making.
Whether by co-incidence or not the Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) outbreak of 2001 is a good marker in the sand for this policy shift. This terrible event, coupled with BSE, marked a low water mark for public confidence and perception in the UK Agriculture. And illustrated the very real need for farmers to highlight the public goods that they provided through environmental land management.
It was at this time that the Curry report emerged, calling for the focus of subsidies to shift from production alone to protecting the wider countryside, for a reconnection of farming to its markets, and a reconnection of people with farming.
In the UK we have gone further than many of our European colleagues by introducing incentives for farmers to adopt environmentally-friendly practices funded through pillar 2 of CAP.
And today over 67% of the England’s Utilisable Agricultural Land is managed under one or other of these schemes, run by Natural England.
The spread of agri-environment schemes across much of rural England has gone some way to integrated production with nature conservation and environmental protection.
The importance of a wide-reaching partnership to deliver
Initiatives like the Campaign for the Farmed Environment – launched back in November and led by the NFU and CLA in partnership with Natural England and other environmental groups to retain and exceed the environmental benefits of set-aside through voluntary actions by farmers – are hugely encouraging.
Here, I hope, we are seeing the development of a wide-reaching land based partnership that can lead the way to a more integrated model of agriculture. If successful, and I believe it will be, this has the potential to be in the vanguard of a movement, led by the industry, which embodies real care for the natural environment embedded into the very heart of managing efficient, productive and profitable businesses. Care for the environment will be a core, central part of the farm plan – not something which is added on as an afterthought if time or inclination permit.
This will be an example to the rest of Industry, commerce and financial institutions. To the rest of the Country, in fact.
This is an important step because farmers, working with conservationists, are voluntarily stepping up and developing a supply chain for environmental services that policy makers and the public are increasingly turning to farmers to deliver.
Already 40 000 farmers with over 10ha of land have been contacted by the Campaign and urged to put management measures in place on their farm to improve habitats and food sources for farmland birds and other wildlife, as well as providing greater protection to environmental resources.
Again agri-environment schemes provide the incentive mechanism. But to ensure long-term food and environmental security, and safeguard the wide-range of services provided by un-developed land and naturally functioning eco-systems, we are going to need to go further.
At the moment the schemes play second fiddle to demand for production – a break on intensification rather than a grand, unifying mechanism.
The range of markets for environmental products has yet to fully develop –which makes it difficult for farmers as key suppliers of these ecosystem services to develop appropriate business models that commoditise their (environmental) product.
And then there is climate change
Farmers, as well as being on the frontline in the food security debate, find themselves at the centre of the climate change debate.
It is something that will affect us all – different weather patterns, levels of rainfall, seasonal changes, rising sea levels mean that farmers will have to adapt, and be flexible.
Agri-environment measures within the second pillar of the CAP are already making a substantial contribution to help tackle climate change.
We have estimated that the combined uptake of these types of agri-environment scheme options increases the amount of carbon stored in England’s agricultural soils by around 700,000 tonnes CO2 a year, which is equivalent to the annual carbon emissions from over 100,000 UK households.
And the restoration of degraded habitats and creation of new habitats on agricultural land through Environmental Stewardship delivers carbon savings of just under 1 million tonnes CO2 a year. For example, 90,000 hectares of carbon-rich upland peat moorlands are being restored by the scheme.
I know that some worry that farmers in England are unfairly burdened with environmental responsibilities.
The reality is that ALL countries are going to have to respond to these global challenges.
Other countries in Europe are taking our lead - in Wales, a new scheme, Glastir, is planned for launch in 2012. It will have climate change measures at its heart, reflecting the new direction given by the CAP Health Check.
And they are developing a new Agricultural Carbon Reduction and Energy Scheme.
In Germany they are using agri-environment schemes to encourage the conservation and accumulation of soil carbon through new soil conservation techniques such as direct seeding, mulching and planting. There is also support for the use of equipment that helps to apply liquid manure close to the ground and immediately mix it with the soil to reduce emissions of nitrous oxide.
In Italy, Pillar 2 is used to encourage carbon sequestration in soils and the establishment of new forests. In total, Italy is spending 140.8 million Euro on these climate change actions, about 18% of its total RDP budget. And in Austria their Environment Agency is running a project to evaluate the potential of carbon sequestration and the enhancement of soil carbon content from different management systems.
In know that farmers in England sometimes worry about the regulatory burden they are asked to carry. In Germany they have implemented the Nitrates Directive by setting up a licensing system for milling wheat. Where ground water has been polluted by agricultural operations the state has compulsorily purchased land around boreholes and planted it with trees.
Here we want more of light-touch solution, using incentive payments rather than regulatory burden.
In conclusion
This is pivotal year:
Farming is at the centre of a web of complex, international debates – including food security, climate change, environmental protection, patterns of land use, settlement and development.
And CAP reform is looming on the horizon – in a context where the European Parliament will have an equal say with the Council of Agricultural Ministers, and where both will need to be mindful of the need to justify every Euro of public expenditure, given the straightened circumstances that the EU and many of its members now find themselves in.
There is growing recognition that farming businesses deliver much more than food.
Farmers are the biggest suppliers of ecosystem services that provide the foundation for future prosperity and growth.
Agri-environment schemes provide a good basis on which to develop future models. They deliver on several fronts and offer good value for money. For example a shelter belt of trees can offer carbon sequestration, soil stabilisation, reduce wind erosion, provide shelter for animals. Restoring upland peat bogs store carbon and clean water.
But beyond these relatively modest support system a formal supply chain for these services doesn’t exist. Nor do the markets that would enable to farmers to commoditise their environmental work.
The challenge for policy makers is to establish the framework that would allow farmers to commoditise the environmental services they provide, AND/OR to restructure the market for food products to factor in the environmental costs that are currently hidden.
This would provide a degree of certainty on which farm businesses could make vital decisions about where and how to invest for the future.
What we can’t afford – big business or family farmer – is a haphazard, and sometimes contradictory approach, to the management of the natural environment.
It’s no good for business and it won’t save valuable natural resources.
And a healthy and diverse natural environment is one thing that we can’t do without if we want long term food security.
The question posed in the title of today’s conference is ‘Can farming lead the way back to prosperity’?
On its own – No.
But it is a strange question because without successful land management in its widest sense, producing food and all the other essential outputs I have listed, we don’t have a prosperous future – we don’t even have a future.
Most of what we use in our everyday lives comes from finite sources. Oil, of course but also coal and gas. Even uranium is finite. We know that many precious metals are becoming scarcer and as a farmer the thought of phosphates running out in 60 years in terrifying.
As a species we will increasingly have to turn back to the genes contained in all the species that exist in the natural world to survive.
We will need to use that genetic material for our food, fuel, drugs, plastics, paints and dyes, clothing and pretty well everything else. Stewarding out natural resources is not an optional extra - it is an absolute necessity if we are not to sell future generations down the river.
Farmers have an awesome responsibility given that they control and ,manage over 70% of the land are of England. Land use is not about food production or environmental management , it is both and lots more besides. If we get to a time when we have to make a choice it will be too late.
