Agriculture and Horticulture

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, for initiating this debate today and for the insight and knowledge he and other noble Lords have brought to the discussion. As everybody else has been declaring interests, I feel that I ought to find one to declare. The best I can come up with is that I am the daughter of an official of what was then known as the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and I spent my years growing up in the rather beautiful Vale of Glamorgan. I could not have had a nicer place as my playground in my formative years.

I feel rather sorry for the Minister in having to reply to this debate. There are such huge challenges to be answered in the light of the EU Brexit vote, and I doubt whether he can say very much with certainty at this stage. However, things need to be said and clarified soon, to provide some reassurance for the 9 million people who live in rural areas, and specifically to those contributing to the food and farming sector, which is worth some £108 billion to the UK economy.

As a fervent remain supporter, I could use my time to score lots of political points about the hollow Brexit promises made to farmers during the campaign about protecting their interests and their lifestyles. To be honest, I am not sure that the farming community put too much weight on those promises. Whatever their motives—we have heard a number of different interpretations around the Chamber today—they, like me and other noble Lords, are left with a whole pile of questions about the practicalities of leaving the EU and what the future holds.

For example, what will happen to the 10,000 or so pieces of EU legislation which impact on farming life? Will the EU-funded rural payment scheme be protected? Will a future UK farming strategy have the same commitment to environmental protection, or will those commitments be discarded as being perceived somehow as unnecessary red tape? Will we still be in the single market, or will farmers have to find new markets elsewhere in the world—a real problem for us when we look at how much we rely on the EU currently?

Will we be able to impose higher tariffs on food imports that do not meet our welfare and public health standards? What will be the impact on the availability of seasonal labour if freedom of movement to the UK is restricted? What will happen to the unprofitable upland farms whose very existence is kept alive by the EU subsidies? As my noble friend Lord Clark and others have said, they also add so much to the landscape that attracts and builds a vibrant tourist industry.

Like a number of other industries, the farming sector relies on long-term planning and investment, so we cannot afford to have an investment freeze while we await the outcome of potentially two years of negotiation. Perhaps the Minister could clarify what work is taking place in the department to give some urgent guidance to farmers on these issues. Could he also clarify the status of the 25-year food and farming strategy, which we understood was to be published shortly? Is it now being revised in the light of the referendum decision?

Even without the complications of Brexit the farming community, as we have heard this afternoon, has been faced with some difficult challenges. Falling global prices and overproduction of milk have seen profits fall and many producers exiting the market. At the same time UK food self-sufficiency has dropped from 80% to 62% and continues to fall. If, as a result of Brexit, we are to be more isolated in the world, it is even more imperative that the Government give priority to ensuring that the UK has enough safe, affordable and nutritious food to feed its population.

Clearly, as noble Lords said, one part of that solution is to harness the outcome of research and technology to increase yields. We welcome the Government’s investment in agricultural innovation—the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, referred to a number of schemes. For example, there is the funding of three centres looking at crop health and protection, livestock technology and precision agriculture. Of course, these centres will help to build on our global reputation for agricultural innovation. Apart from helping to increase crop yields and improve pest control, they should also lead to better lives for our livestock and healthier animals. These developments will build on our scientific breakthroughs in such areas as nutrition, genetics, satellite imagery, meteorology and vaccination, which are already having an impact on farming efficiency. However, these initiatives must be set against the potential loss of EU-funded research projects such as Horizon 2020 and other EU innovation partnerships.

A number of noble Lords mentioned GM crops. We had a useful debate a few weeks ago about the opportunities and concerns arising from GM insects and GM crops. As I made clear at the time, it is important that all these developments are rooted in science and evidence, but are also combined with robust safety controls and underpinned by a fully informed public debate. That is why we are also supportive of the work of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics and others who have sought to increase public understanding and raise public awareness of the ethical issues arising from techniques such as gene editing. Could the Minister confirm that the Government will work closely with Nuffield and others to ensure that our scientific advances are firmly rooted in public awareness and ethical scrutiny?

We also urge policymakers and innovators to focus their efforts on the concept of sustainable farming. There is increasing evidence of the damage that intensive farming can do to the longer-term viability of the land. The overuse of pesticides and the destruction of local habitats will have an adverse impact on yields. We need to value pollinators and bird life more, which spread natural reseeding. The hedges and woodland that make rural areas attractive places to visit and work also provide a healthy, balanced ecology which is resilient and abundant. We need to value that more. Our scientific progress must be centred on the essence of long-term, sustainable farming practice rather than short-term profits.

If we are serious about sustainable farming, we also need a bigger rethink about the behaviours we encourage as both producers and consumers. We have a generation who have no understanding of food production systems. Cheap food and obesity go hand in hand. We currently spend £6 billion a year on health issues caused by bad diets, with the cost to the economy as a whole set to rise to about £50 billion annually by 2050. While the introduction of a sugar tax on sugary drinks is welcome, we need a much bigger eating revolution. We need to make healthy food choices more appealing. Seasonality and provenance need to be valued more and consumers need confidence in robust labelling controls—with no more invented Tesco farms.

We must also bite the bullet that no Government have been prepared to face up to until now: large-scale consumption of animal protein is incompatible with sustainable farming and food security. Put simply, people must be encouraged to eat less meat. It is not the best use of our limited land resources, and livestock contributes 15% to global greenhouse gases, making our Paris commitments even more unattainable. At the same time, we must address the inefficiencies throughout the food chain that lead to an estimated 16 million tonnes of food waste being generated each year—a waste of energy and precious resources. Could the noble Lord confirm the Government’s commitment to sustainable farming combined with a focus on healthier eating and less food waste?

Finally, our strategy for innovation in the rural economy needs to be focused on the impact of climate change. We saw last winter how ill prepared we were for changing weather patterns, which resulted in the large-scale floods. We need a more profound rethink which goes further than building higher flood defences. On the one hand, we need an urgent plan to implement our Paris commitments to cut CO₂ emissions. Sadly, I have to say that DECC has been noticeably slow in coming forward with any concrete proposals in this regard. On the other hand, we need to adapt to the effects of a changing climate on our landscape. Despite our growing frustration that we will never see a summer this year, we have to recognise that overall the trend to higher temperatures and reduced summer rainfall will increase the need for irrigation of crops and water for livestock. Some crops will be become less viable; other new species might thrive. At the same time, flooding of farmland could become more frequent and new pests and diseases could pose additional risks to trees, crops and livestock. Yet the Committee on Climate Change’s latest report in 2015 highlights that there has actually been a decline in investment in research and development on new approaches and technologies that would boost the resilience of agriculture and forestry to climate change. This seems particularly short-sighted, so could the Minister explain what steps are being taken to invest in solutions to this challenge?

I have been able to focus on only a few of the key challenges identified by noble Lords, but I think we have had an excellent debate and I look forward to the Minister’s response.