Agriculture Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Danny Kruger and Abena Oppong-Asare

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

[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.

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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.

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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.