Agriculture Bill (Fourth sitting)

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 13th February 2020 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

I call Danny Kruger, and this will have to be the last question.

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

Q I asked your Welsh counterparts this question this morning. Mr Hall, you talked about the transition from an area-based to an activity-based subsidy regime. There is also an outcome-based regime. I am interested in your view on the right principles that should guide us in designing a regime that has public good as its objective. Do you think we are sufficiently clear at this stage about whether farmers should be rewarded for what they do, or for what the outcomes of their work are?

Jonnie Hall: I think it is a very important point for the future direction of agricultural policy anywhere. I would say at the outset that blunt area payments reflect neither activity nor outcomes; they are simply a ticket to receive an income by declaring an area of land and doing some compliance. We really need to work on a system that recognises the actions that deliver an outcome; you then pay for the actions that deliver the outcomes you require. If it were exclusively about delivering outcomes, that is a very risky situation for farmers and crofters in Scotland. We probably need a combination of both systems, and we are piloting various things in Scotland—for example, an outcome-based approach to agri-environment in different parts of the country.

It is about actions on climate change and so forth. How do we encourage more efficient production systems, soil management and extensive grazing systems? That is within the gift of the farmer or crofter. What is not in their gift is the precise outcome that we get from that. We might think that we will get the right outcome, but we do not 100% know. There are lots of forces at play in agricultural land management, and the risks need to be managed carefully. The key thing is to move away from area-based payments in the first place, with actions then delivering the outcomes and objectives that you want.

[The Chair]

Order. I am afraid that brings us to the end of this panel. On behalf of the Committee, I thank the witnesses for coming along this afternoon.

Examination of Witness

George Monbiot gave evidence.

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[Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

Q Hi George. There has been a lot of publicity about the carbon footprints of different types of food. For example, 1 kg of vegetables produces approximately 2 kg of carbon dioxide, whereas 1 kg of beef produces about 27 kg of carbon dioxide. Do you think the Bill should go a step further and focus on those who produce foodstuffs with low carbon footprints rather than those who produce foodstuffs with higher carbon footprints?

George Monbiot: I think this should be the perspective through which we start to see everything. This is the greatest crisis humanity has ever faced: the breakdown of our life-support systems. The Governments that will be judged favourably by future generations are those that put that issue front and centre. Other things are subsidiary to our survival. It is imperative that we should start favouring a low-carbon diet and use public policy to disfavour a high-carbon diet. Whether through farm subsidies—I think that does play a role—or meat taxes, which I think could also play a role, we should find all the instruments possible to steer and encourage people to reduce the environmental impacts of their diets.

The most important metric here is what scientists call carbon opportunity costs, which is basically, “What could you be doing on that land if you weren’t doing this?” If, for instance, you are producing beef or lamb on this piece of land, what is the carbon opportunity cost of that? What would be the carbon storage if, instead, trees and wild habitats were allowed to return? There has been some new research just published, or a new compilation of research, on Our World in Data showing that when you look at the carbon opportunity costs, those of beef and lamb are massively greater than those of anything else we eat. It is really, really huge. Even when you take food miles into account, they are tiny by comparison to those carbon costs, and that is what we should focus on.

[Danny Kruger]

Q I have one yes/no question and then a slightly fuller question. The yes/no question is, did you say that we should take food production out of the Bill? Food production is something that has been added, as an objective of the new system, and I think you said that it should not be an objective of the Bill.

George Monbiot: It should certainly not be linked to the public goods agenda; it should not be seen as a public good.

[Danny Kruger]

Q It should not be seen as a public good. Okay. Thank you.

My next question is this: do you agree that a grass-fed cattle herd on open pasture in Wiltshire has a net positive effect in terms of carbon capture? I appreciate that you have an argument about opportunity costs—missed opportunities from grazing—but the terrible carbon impact of beef is because of intensively farmed, closely packed cattle—

George Monbiot: No, that is not true at all.

[Danny Kruger]

Q However, a good pasture-fed, grass-fed cattle herd has a net positive effect in terms of carbon. Do you not agree?

George Monbiot: No, that is simply not true. That claim has been made many times, and it is now basically reaching the level of climate denial—climate science denial—because it is so far removed from what the science base actually tells us.

I can pass the papers on to you if you wish. There has been a meta-study done by the Food Climate Research Network that looked at those claims. It investigated 300 sources and found that in none of the cases that it looked at was carbon sequestration in the soil under pasture compensating for carbon losses. The highest level of compensation was 20% to 60% of the overall carbon losses; there is a net loss in every case. The extensive grazing systems also have a higher net loss and a higher carbon opportunity cost than even the intensive grain-fed systems.

There is a paper by Balmford et al in Nature, I believe. There is another one by Blomqvist et al—I think it is in Science of the Total Environment. They show that, paradoxically—unexpectedly, perhaps—intensive systems per kilo of beef produced are less carbon-damaging than extensive systems per kilo, and that is simply because of the amount of land that they occupy.

[Deidre Brock]

Q You were speaking just then about the conflict between natural heritage and cultural heritage, and you will know that the highlands in Scotland still have a wonderful cultural heritage, despite what was at times a quite systematic depopulation of the area. I wondered what sort of future you envisage for the people who live there now if they turn from being farmers on the uplands, which, as you know, are basically largely suitable for rough grazing—that is one of the reasons why sheep, and to a lesser extent cattle, are grazed there. If they do that, what do they then become? Just on a practical, day-to-day level, what do they then become—just land managers, because they get subsidies for food production, which only supplements part of their income? What do those people do, and how do we keep them there so that we still have communities in the highlands?

George Monbiot: I would see them as ecological restorers—people who have a different but very rich relationship with the land, bringing back wildlife and ecosystems. We would hopefully see a constant racking-up of ambition as time goes by.

It is hard to universalise it, but there is now quite a big literature on nature-based economies, showing that, certainly in some circumstances, they can employ a lot more people than farm-based economies, even in quite fertile areas. For instance, I was at Gelderse Poort in the Netherlands last year, in an area that was previously dairy and maize farms. For the purposes of creating more room for the river, the dykes were taken a mile or so back from the river and the land was rewilded. The farmers were saying there would be a loss of employment. In fact, it turns out that there was an increase of between five and six times the total employment as a result of the tourists who have come in to see the wildlife, the bed and breakfasts, the cafes and the rest of the things associated with that. The farmers have done very well out of it.

I do not know the answer to whether we can replicate that everywhere, but we should be urgently investigating other new rural economies based around the restoration of wildlife and nature. Given that we are competing here with a loss-making economy—an economy where the farmers would make more money if they took the subsidy and stopped farming—it is not a very steep competition that we have to win if we are to show that nature-based economies are more productive in terms of employment and income.

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[Abena Oppong-Asare]

Q Am I correct in assuming that you are very much in favour of natural, organic farming? One of the things that I am concerned about, particularly in this Bill, is that there farmers are being subjected to a lot of expectations to deliver sustainably, and as you know that costs a lot of money. Do you feel that the Bill should provide more information or support, in terms of how people can do organic farming in a way that is not going to affect us, particularly given the concerns about imported food, which will make it very difficult. Does that make sense?

Professor Keevil: Yes, it does. As a microbiologist, I support the safe production and supply of microbiologically safe food. One of the problems is that when we import food, there is a potential issue. If that means that that food is cheaper than what can be produced by UK farmers, the Bill must address that, because otherwise they could be at a financial disadvantage. The UK has always prided itself on quality, and I know that British farmers would like to maintain that reputation for quality. Perhaps the food they supply may be a little more expensive, but in a way that can be reassuring. If it means that the customer has to pay more, that is something that the Government have to look at within the Bill. When they talk about subsidies and remuneration, can it be facilitated that farmers who produce to the highest-quality standards are in some way remunerated for that?

[Danny Kruger]

Q You spoke about the physical method for dealing with listeria and salmonella and some of these new pathogens that are emerging. Can you give us your sense of the global architecture for managing this, and what prospects you see for new global agreements on how to deliver high-quality food hygiene? Does the opportunity we now have to be part of the global trade conversation give us the opportunity to improve global standards? What are the architecture and institutions, and what is your sense of where the leadership on this is coming from globally?

Professor Keevil: A lot of it is price driven, not surprisingly. Certain countries say, “We are in a competitive economy, and we believe we can supply food safely for a lower cost.” That is what our research and that of others is starting to challenge.

In terms of global supply, we talk a lot now about international jet travel. For example, we can travel around the world in 12 hours or what have you, hence the current problems with coronavirus, but many people forget about migratory birds. We know that some birds fly thousands of miles north and south, east and west. They can bring disease with them. That is partly why we have the problem of emerging diseases that we must be conscious of for the future. We have had concerns, for example, with avian flu and DEFRA maintained high surveillance of the farms where avian flu had an impact, to ensure that it did not decimate the poultry industry in the UK.

Those are all issues that we will have to face. We do not live in a sterile world. We have mass migration of people and particularly of wild birds. We must allow for that in all our farming practices and ecosystems services. I maintain that good husbandry practice is the way forward. The previous speaker mentioned factory production, and I agree with him in that very good supply chains are now being established for vegan burgers, much of which is produced from bacteria and fungi. That is a good thing.

Vertical farming is starting to become more prevalent. That is the horticulture where crops such as salads are grown in an aquaculture-based system, and everything is stacked up. We are now seeing very large factories where they control the quality of the water, the lighting regime and so on. That seems to be a very safe, nutritious way to produce salads. In the winter the UK imports a lot of salads from the Mediterranean countries—we used to import a lot from Kenya, but I think that is reduced now. We used to import a lot from Florida and California, and that is a carbon footprint, but if we can do more vertical farming ourselves, particularly in the winter, that is a substitute. We can get this mix of what we might call modern biotechnology with more traditional farming.

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

Q In the Bill, there is a requirement to report on food security every five years. What are your thoughts on that timescale?

Professor Keevil: To my mind, every five years should be the minimum frequency. That is because, as I have said, we are continually beset with emerging diseases and we have to be able to respond rapidly. The Food Standards Agency reports much more regularly than that, so in a way we already have inbuilt mechanisms to supply the information. It is true that the Bill says it should be every five years as a minimum, but I think DEFRA and the food standards agencies report more frequently. Whether that should be incorporated within the Bill is up for discussion, but we have good reporting.

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[Abena Oppong-Asare]

Q My question is targeted at Jyoti. Do you as a smallholder famer feel that the Bill is wide enough to support those with small farms, compared with those with bigger farms?

Jyoti Fernandes: Our union represents all scales of farms: we are all agroecological farms, family farms and mixed farms. As smallholder farmers, this is something we are particularly interested in. We also represent a lot of horticulturalists, who grow fruit and veg, and it is possible to grow a lot of fruit and veg on a very small acreage.

To date, we have been really disadvantaged by the payment schemes that are out there. There is a 5-hectare threshold, which cuts people off from getting payments if they have less than 5 hectares. If someone has a large landholding that is used extensively for beef, they can get quite a lot of subsidy, but if they have less than 5 hectares and use it for intensive market gardening—providing the fresh fruit and veg that we need—they get nothing. That means that 85% of our membership have never received subsidies before. That puts us at a serious disadvantage, even though we as small farms provide a huge amount of public goods—we directly provide fresh food, the sorts of fresh fruit and veg that we need for healthier diets—to communities. In the transition around climate change, we need to eat more fruit and veg and less meat. That is the sort of thing that we can be in a position to do.

There is nothing in the Bill that specifically directs towards helping smaller farms, though the focus on public goods would enable us to do that, if we get the right schemes in place. We are working with DEFRA to try to ensure that the schemes it rolls out will benefit horticulture and fruit and veg. One amendment that we suggested was about affordable access to food. We would like to see some acknowledgment that agriculture is about producing food and that everyone needs food. While food itself might be a business like any other—bought, sold and traded—access to food is not. Having good, nutritious food available to everyone is something we strongly believe in.

If that was in the Bill, a lot of our farms, which provide a social outcome directly to consumers at an affordable price—from fresh fruit and veg, to milk and pasture-fed, free-range meat—could be enabled to develop those marketing mechanisms. That would help us out quite a lot. That means community supported agriculture, direct supply chain stuff and doorstep delivery of unpasteurised, raw, wholesome milk, or whatever it may be. That would enable those small businesses that work directly for our food supply in our local communities to get support. It would also support community farms that integrate social measures. They might, for example, have green gyms, work with horticultural therapy or bring people form disadvantaged backgrounds into the countryside to learn where their food comes from and join in that process. Food has a much wider remit than just being something that farmers gain an income from. A lot of us produce food because we believe it is important to our society.

[Danny Kruger]

Q This is for Diana. You mentioned this when you spoke about wages, but could you explain a bit more about why you think agricultural workers need a different protection regime than workers in other sectors?

Diana Holland: Obviously, all workers deserve overall protection. Many workers have additional forms of collective bargaining or representation through different structures. Agricultural workers in some areas are an example of an extremely fragmented and isolated group of workers; in other areas, there are big concentrations for small periods of time. The work is seasonal and there is insecurity.

The issues they have experienced over many years are well-documented. I think that singles them out to require more than the basic national minimum wage, working time regulations etc., to take account of the fact that people may have accommodation tied to their role, which could be their permanent home or temporary accommodation for a seasonal role, or that transport could be provided, which, in extreme circumstances, is used to keep people on site beyond the time that they should be there or is denied to them. Those kinds of things mean that there is intense pressure.

[Danny Kruger]

Q You mean they are particularly vulnerable?

Diana Holland: They are particularly vulnerable to abuse. Therefore, it continues to be recognised that they need to be identified within labour market protection. In Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, they have additional protections to those that apply in England. We think that needs to be put right.

While, of course, at the time, in 2010, a number of things identified as red tape, burdens and so on were got rid of, there was general shock throughout the sector—across the board—that it could have been done like that to the Agricultural Wages Board, with a two-week consultation period, given that it had existed all that time and had all that experience. It needs to be put right.

[Dave Doogan]

Q Diana, you talked very clearly about the effect of the removal of the Agricultural Wages Board and its replacement with the dysfunctional—in the context of agricultural workers—minimum wage. Are the three devolved Administrations broadly similar? Do you suggest that including in the Bill an instrument to replicate the provision of the Agricultural Wages Board would be relatively straightforward for Ministers to do?

Diana Holland: I would say so, yes. It has been done recently; obviously, the original legislation covered England and Wales, so extricating Wales and doing that separately has been done in recent times. My answer would be yes.

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[Fay Jones]

Q I have a question about kitemarks found on products, such as Red Tractor and RSPCA Assured. How could future Government policy recognise that?

If I may, Mr Stringer, I have a small supplementary. In Compassion’s written submission, you welcomed the Secretary of State’s ability to make regulations regarding farming method in relation to labelling. Could you elaborate on that, please?

James West: We submitted details to DEFRA a while ago. Essentially it would be different labels indicating the method of production. The range of methods of production would differ according to species, but in effect you would indicate whether it had been produced, say, intensively indoors versus extensively outdoors and everything in between. That would be on the packet, so when you go to the supermarket or shop you can see how the product was produced. As Nick was saying, with eggs that moved the market towards free-range eggs and away from caged egg sales—barn egg sales in the UK are low—to the extent that roughly half the supermarkets have phased out caged egg sales and the other half plan to do so by 2025.

It goes back to the point that you need to support the farmers in the subsidy scheme we introduce, but there also needs to be an outlet for them to show that they are delivering at a level that consumers may want. It does not mean that consumers have to buy it—they can see the stuff produced to a lower standard and still choose that—but at least they are informed. At the moment, it is really hard to find meat or dairy products labelled as to method of production. Possibly the only other one is outdoor-bred and outdoor-reared for pork; other than that, it is essentially free range/organic or you are in the dark. It would cover the whole spectrum.

Dr Palmer: That is also really important when you come to trade, because if we are to sign a free trade agreement with the United States or other countries, we really need to give our negotiators a clear steer on what we collectively are willing to see. If we have an evolving labelling scheme, we have a basis for doing that. As you know, international trade negotiations usually start from the point that each side says what their red lines are and what they cannot move on and the negotiations operate around those to see what is possible. We are keen to see specifications in the Bill on minimum standards for animal welfare—Ministers have said this many times—so that our negotiators can say to their American, Brazilian or other counterparts, “I’d love to help you, but I’m afraid I can’t because it is in the legislation.” That would give farmers and consumers the reassurance that we are absolutely not going to end up with British farming being undercut by what you vulgarly call cheap and nasty imports.

Vicki Hird: I think that goes for other aspects of food standards and production standards. I totally agree with Nick. It is very important that we see something in the Bill around trade—I am sure you have heard this a lot over the last week—so that we have a way to stop agri-food imports produced to lower standards of food, animal welfare and environmental production systems. I would add labour standards as well.

One of our members is supporting the idea of an 100% grass-fed label, because there is some confusion about grass-fed labels and claims being made. There is a very good Pasture-Fed Livestock Association producing animals with really strong environmental, as well as animal welfare, benefits. It is only fair that that should be recognised through a proper labelling scheme.

[Danny Kruger]

Q We had George Monbiot here earlier; I do not know if you were listening. What did you think about his point about grass-fed beef?

Vicki Hird: There is a balance to be struck. People are still going to eat meat. It is a highly nutritious product and there are people who want to eat it. Recognising that, we should be eating much less but better meat, produced here in ways that we can recognise, enforce and celebrate, alongside the rewilding that can go along with those animals.

[Danny Kruger]

Q And carbon capture of beef herds?

Vicki Hird: There is a lot of science, and people pick the science they want to use. There are a lot of differences. You can go from one meter in one field, to another meter, and it can be a different carbon reading. We have to be careful with this and not throw the baby out with the bathwater. For instance, small-scale producers will not be able measure their carbon with expensive tools, so we need to make sure we are doing right but also supporting farmers for agroforesty, for rewilding with animals and for silvopasture, which is fantastic and can have big animal welfare gains. There is a spectrum that we need to recognise.

George has a particular approach and we do have a crisis ahead. We need to recognise that, but we take a less is better approach. We can envisage the Bill supporting farmers to deliver that. It does not include factory farms, I have to say.

Dr Palmer: I am not sure I fully answered your question regarding Compassion’s submission on labelling. This is an area where the international debate is moving very rapidly. France now has a very extensive scheme, pioneered by Carrefour and Casino, two of the big supermarket chains. Germany is proposing that the European Union as a whole looks at labelling, specifically for animal welfare. There are also schemes in Italy and Denmark. It is important that we do not fall behind the curve here. People are looking at us and asking, after Brexit, are we going to be better or going to have to fall behind? This is a classic example. The Bill offers the opportunity to pin down some of the reassurance that people are looking for.

[Mr Goodwill]

Q Just before we finish on the issue of labelling, I see that France has introduced regulations to allow misleading words, such as sausage, burger or steak, to be used in connection with non-meat products. Do you think we should follow that lead?

Dr Palmer: Personally, I would not go in for legislating on what people call things, unless there is a deliberate attempt to defraud. If someone goes to the vegan section in Sainsbury’s and sees a sausage, it is unlikely that they will say, “Aha! That’s a pig.” I do not feel it is worth parliamentary time. Companies are quite capable of making clear what it is they are selling.