Biotechnology and Food Security Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Gary Streeter
Main Page: Gary Streeter (Conservative - South West Devon)Department Debates - View all Gary Streeter's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Gary Streeter (in the Chair)
Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, who is making an impressive speech, but there are too many references to “you”. Members should always refer to each other as hon. Members or hon. Friends.
Mr Spencer
I am grateful to you for your intervention, Mr Streeter.
World energy prices are very much linked to the issues that we face. The simple fact is that the price of petroleum directly affects the price of agricultural fertilisers and pesticides and has a knock-on effect on them.
Energy production itself requires land usage. Erecting a wind turbine takes out land that could be used for agricultural food production. The erection of a refinery takes land out of agricultural food production and uses it for industrial purposes. More importantly, as we move towards sustainable energy sources, such as bioethanol and biodiesel produced from rape seed, we will be using agricultural crops to produce those biofuels, taking land out of food production and putting it into energy production. That might seem like a wonderful, modern technology and a wonderful, modern thing to do, but when my grandfather started farming in the 1930s, 30% of his land was used to produce oats, which were the energy source for the horses that he used to pull the ploughs. There is, therefore, nothing new in farmers using land for energy production. What has changed, however, is the number of people we have to feed and produce for. The changes will be quite dramatic, and we need to make sure that we have technologies available to assist us.
The Government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir John Beddington, said:
“by 2030 we need to be producing 50% more food. At the same time, we will need 50% more energy, and 30% more fresh water.”
Those are dramatic statistics. If we are to solve such problems, we really will have to set our stall out and meet those challenges. I hope that we all recognise that there are enormous challenges out there.