Agriculture Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Craig Tracey and Philip Dunne

Thursday 25th October 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Dunne]

Q Ms Browning, you might want to come back to procurement, but my question relates to your role in the Soil Association. You used the word “biodiversity” earlier. Do you think there is enough in the Bill to allow for R&D and greater understanding of soil composition? My sense is that we have much less understanding of the biology and chemistry of our soil than we do of many other areas of life. Does the Bill facilitate a greater understanding among farmers of what is going on in their land?

Helen Browning: I was surprised that soils were not mentioned explicitly in the list of public goods. As I said earlier, it mentions land but not soil. You are right that, on an R&D front, there is still a lot to learn on the biology side, but there is a lot that is already known that could be implemented quite quickly.

I was surprised because the Minister has been so vocal about soils. I would like to ensure that it is absolutely core within the Bill, that we are specific about that and that we start to set ourselves some targets for reversing the decline in our soil, particularly in the organic matter levels in our soil.

[Craig Tracey]

Q My question follows on nicely from your last point, because, as you say, the Minister has emphasised the importance of soil health. Measures to promote it are covered by the purposes of clause 1(1)(c) —I think it is in the additional provisions. What sort of specific interventions do you think would best deliver improvements in soil health?

Helen Browning: Jack may want to come in on this as well. Generally, it would be about moving into more rotational farming systems, which is usually integrating grassland with growing cover crops. Reducing tillage can sometimes help, although it is not always the way through. Some of the agroforestry opportunities are there too. Rotational farming systems usually improve soil health.

Another is making sure that manures and other inputs are going back on to the soil. One of the things that I have a complete hysteria about is the burning of straw for fuel, when it should be going back to the land—that carbon should be going back to the land. It is about making sure that carbon-based inputs are being recycled into our soils and that we are not damaging those soils by over-heavy machinery, which is a big problem—I am looking forward to the days of little robots running around doing our work for us, rather than all the great machines that are crushing our soils to death—or about leaving soils bare over the winter or even during the summer months.

There is a whole host of well-known factors. A lot of those come together, obviously, within an organic farming system, which is demonstrated to have much higher levels of soil organic matter on average, which is the key indicator that we are looking at in our soil. We know how to do some of those basics.

Moving towards targets for soils at a farm level is difficult, because every soil type is different and will have different capabilities, so we need to be careful about how we use the metrics. We know enough about what husbandry methods we need to be encouraging, however. Good mixed farming is a good place to start.