Adapting to Climate Change: EU Agriculture and Forestry (EUC Report)

Earl of Selborne Excerpts

Thursday 24th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Selborne]

My Lords, the House will wish to join me in thanking my noble friend Lady Sharp for the authoritative way in which she has introduced this important report. I wish to thank all members of the committee who contributed, a year ago now, to this report and I am grateful that we at last have an opportunity to debate it.

I warm to the concept enunciated by my noble friend of sustainable intensification, which is the key to future common agricultural farming policy in Europe. European farming has to be considered in a long-term context and needs to be reviewed in the light of adapting to climate change.

I declare two interests: I chair the Living With Environmental Change programme, which is a partnership of major UK public sector funders of environmental research; and I am a farmer.

The role that Europeans and the global population might expect to be the contribution of Europe to meeting the global needs of food production after 2013 needs to be put into the context of not only climate change but of environmental, economic and demographic change, and over a much longer period than in the past the CAP has been considered; it is perfectly reasonable to think in terms of 40 years. Of course, when we are thinking about food security, as we are in a global sense, we have to recognise that there is absolutely no validity in simply considering national food security, or even continental food security. It all has to be looked at in terms of the needs of the world. If we look at the rather chequered career of previous common agricultural policies, we recognise that the obsession, which was perhaps understandable, of trying to achieve European food security in some ways exacerbated the problems in poorer countries by undermining local production by subsidised exports and import tariffs. So the concept that the committee enunciates of sustainable intensification is not, quite frankly, a policy that in some member states will chime very warmly—but for all that it needs to be promoted very strenuously.

The issues that will face us over the 30 or 40 years, which we can predict fairly confidently, bear repeating. There will be a population of 9 billion or more, with increased purchasing power. That is a positive factor; it is excellent that there are now opportunities for people to assume the nutritional levels that we take for granted. It is not to say that the millennium goal of 2,100 calories per capita will be met in many parts of the world, but at least there will be very significant populations that will eat more meat and therefore will need more animal feed, so the demand for feed will increase. We know also—or it is perfectly reasonable to assume—that the land area for crops will decline, at the very best. If it increased, it would be clearly at the expense of environmental issues, not least the loss of biodiversity. The urbanisation of so many parts of the world demonstrates that it is highly improbable to expect new cropped areas. So there will be severe limits in reclaiming for agriculture new land areas, and there will be a limitation of other natural resources—water above all, but also fertilisers and fossil fuels, which we would wish to limit because of their impact on climate change.

To go back to water, one of the most critical of those natural resources, we must remember that of the available fresh water already 70 per cent is used on a global scale in agriculture, although not of course in this country. The figure is relatively low in this country. But when you look at how you are going to increase production, you have to recognise that fresh water is a finite resource and that innovation is clearly required. Against that there is the issue, which we have discussed regularly, about the increased demand for biofuels, which has land use implications, and the need for agriculture, to make a contribution and to reduce its adverse impacts, in terms of not only climate change but environmental pollution to soil and water.

Above all, the requirement is to ensure that with the new agricultural systems that we anticipate having to be produced through new technologies, we must ensure that the price of food remains within the capacity of the poorer countries, which at the moment find it difficult sometimes to compete for food. Indeed, the higher food prices threaten their development.

In the developed world, as opposed to the developing world, we face increased volatility in food prices, which arises quite rapidly and unexpectedly sometimes, as we saw last year, with food bans from Russia, Ukraine and other countries. In 2009, Chatham House said very reasonably that we can no longer afford to take our European food supplies for granted. We may not be short of food ourselves, but our purchasing power of European consumers leads to these adverse impacts, export bans and food droughts, which we have seen since 2009, as a direct consequence of our reliance on food that we can purchase more rapidly than others. Over the next 40 or 50 years, we need in Europe to promote increased production, particularly in countries where consumption will increase—that is, we want to promote production in poorer countries and reduce price volatility, which helps no one. Above all, we want to develop lower cost production systems, or low-cost production systems at any rate, because I fear that they will not be lower than at present. We need to reduce our dependence on inputs, particularly of fossil fuel, and to make much better use of water. That is what we mean by sustainable intensification, which has to be done with the same or a reduced land area. The bulk of future increases in production will thus have to come by greater output per hectare, which means higher yields and a dependence on good quality soils, adequate amounts of water and the development of appropriate technology.

Chapter 6 of this helpful report deals at some length with the research and development requirements. This is where, with our own role in the United Kingdom, we recognise that we are the repository of much of the underpinning science. That is certainly relevant to other European countries, if perhaps to a lesser extent. While it is true that applied agricultural research has declined over the past 20 years, the same has not been true of the biological sciences as a whole. All credit to the previous Administration, particularly while the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, was Science Minister. He did a lot to underpin the basic sciences. The tragedy is that much of that basic science is not being adequately applied in ways which are relevant to these production areas where we see problems looming ahead, so we need to build those bridges.

We need technology transfer that is appropriate to the users. I remember that when Archbishop Tutu was asked what had been the greatest and most important advance in Africa over the past 10 years, or perhaps in his lifetime, he said that it was the mobile telephone. That is because many African farmers will have access to a mobile telephone with a camera on it. Being able to photograph the crop or the disease, they can get instant transfer with the sort of technology they are looking for. Above all, we need the infrastructure to ensure that the development work moves the science, which has moved so fast. In molecular biology, we now have knowledge of the plant and animal genomes. All that gives us a great opportunity and there is huge potential for innovative approaches.

The problem is that we have not been prepared to embrace some of those new technologies, an obvious example being GM soya. We have to rely on imported protein for animal feed, which we cannot grow competitively in Europe. Soya is now largely grown as genetically modified. If we insist on importing the non-genetically modified, our production systems will simply be more expensive. Of course there is a great deal of hypocrisy anyway, because we import meat that has been fed with GM soya—in fact we cannot tell whether it has or not. That is simply a case of not embracing a new technology for reasons that are nothing to do with either the science or the risk.

New technologies that will be relevant are no-till agriculture, which has already been widely adopted in Europe and certainly has much more application elsewhere around the world, and better irrigation systems, where the report refers to the technologies developed in the Middle East. I particularly draw attention to the excellent work done is Israel in developing irrigation systems that have far less loss through evaporation. Above all, there is integrated cost protection. All of those lead to lower input farming systems and cost minimisation.

We need to fund this strategic and applied agricultural research. Over the past 20 years, we have lost momentum. I have heard of and read many reports, and it is encouraging to hear Ministers say that they recognise that this now needs to be addressed, but it takes 20 years to move from basic research right through to the applied end of the spectrum. We need to understand that it should surely be part of our overall assistance to developing countries around the world. We are the repositories of so much of this science and we have an obligation to make sure that it is properly transferred.