Food Security Policy

Earl of Selborne Excerpts

Thursday 24th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Selborne]

My Lords, I start by congratulating my noble friend Lady Miller on the way in which she has introduced this important debate and given us an opportunity to address this critical issue. I declare an interest as a farmer; as the chair of Living with Environmental Change, which is a partnership of government-funded research; and as a trustee of East Malling Research. I will confine my remarks to global food security issues.

As my noble friend reminded us, the agenda was helpfully set out by Sir John Beddington, the Government Chief Scientific Adviser, and his colleagues in the Foresight report, The Future of Food and Farming. This report was addressed not just to government but also to the private sector and civil society. It was a comprehensive agenda for achieving global food security. Indeed, as we were reminded just now, it is part of a convoy of reports, committees and meetings which have come in something of a rush. Sir John Beddington also chaired the latest report, produced by the international Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change, which had the advantage of a much greater international dimension and the participation of both developing and developed economies. However, the essential message of both reports was the same—that humanity faces very difficult trade-offs in producing sufficient food to feed the growing global population.

Our present food system is clearly unsustainable, inadequate and failing in some respects. It does not provide adequate nutrition for all. Through inappropriate subsidies and adverse financial instruments, it disadvantages producers in some regions suffering food insecurity. Agriculture contributes to a loss of biodiversity and leads to leaks into the soil, air and water, not least of greenhouse gases. Agricultural systems also often lack resilience to climate change, natural disasters and other shocks and stresses. However, although it is easy to blame agriculture for a multitude of sins, one must recognise that as soon as you start manipulating the environment, there will inevitably be leakages and a loss of biodiversity. The question is not whether agriculture is guilty of causing these, but whether there are better production systems that can reduce the adverse effects and, in some ways, ameliorate the situation and contribute to the green economy, which agriculture around the world can certainly do.

In looking at the essential components of sustainable agriculture we must, first and foremost, simply look at the economics. Unless it is profitable for a producer on any scale—whether global agriculture, a large corporate company or a small-scale farmer—and there is an adequate return on their investment, there simply will not be sustainable agriculture. It will stop. That is a fundamental law of economics.

We must recognise that now, for the first time in the history of the world, we have a population that is centred more on urban areas than in rural communities. Therefore, it follows that the rural communities must be able to support those who live in cities. This requires appropriate investment, governance—equitable land tenure is often a problem—and, above all, infrastructure in the form of roads, storage and market information. It also requires access to extension services and education. We must not ignore the fact that the ability to control human fertility—or at least for a family to control its own fertility—is clearly something that must be taken seriously and considered carefully. All this must be underpinned by appropriate agricultural research and development.

The other elements of sustainable agriculture include a move towards reducing dependence on fossil fuels; reducing the unsustainable exploitation of natural resources; a more economic use of available water, 70% of which is used in irrigation around the world; and contributing to carbon storage through increased use of biomass and reducing leakages.

The problems of food security are very different in different parts of the world. In south-east Asia, which is clearly one area where food insecurity can be a major issue, the problem is to do with urbanisation. There are already large cities, which are getting larger. Problems arise from the disease of crops, pollution and the steady increase in urbanisation. The issues in Africa, where there is perhaps greater insecurity, often arise from the lack of economic opportunity, the lack of fertiliser and massive urbanisation—starting from a much lower base, admittedly—which has increased by around 50% in the past 10 years or so. You can see dramatic changes. A question arises: how will this massively changing demography in Africa and elsewhere be supported? Who will be able to do the production? Agricultural systems that are fit for purpose will be needed. Agriculture will change, whatever the scale on which it operates.

Therefore, there are opportunities for the rest of the world, not least the United Kingdom, to participate in supporting and underpinning the agricultural sciences. That will involve the biological sciences, the use of water and furthering our understanding of nitrogen. We have been exploring that for many years but we are only beginning to understand some of the opportunities to use more efficient systems. Genomics and other new sciences are already showing benefits in animal and plant breeding, even with so-called orphan crops—those that are not so readily traded in international markets. On emerging technologies, my noble friend referred to GM but one could refer also to nanotechnology and others. It would be simply rash, to say the least, to say that none of these was appropriate. They may or may not be appropriate; there must be a proper risk assessment.

It will not be agricultural science that delivers totally. Financial services, the communications sector and a whole raft of interventions—political, economic, sociological and technological—will be involved. I gather that there will be a new version of the Foresight report soon, which I am delighted to hear. It must spell out in detail the targets and measurements of success for each of those interventions.