Farming

Debate between George Freeman and Mark Menzies

Monday 4th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[George Freeman]

I agree. If we are to lead the world in net zero agriculture, it is all about metrics and data. It is about picking up a pint of milk, a potato or a loaf of bread and knowing its environmental footprint. With that, we can start to give the sector incentives and rewards for driving down the environmental footprint. Without it, we are condemned to follow environmental policies that are emotional and not connected to proper science and research. If we get that right, the UK could be a leader in setting those environmental metrics.

That brings me to water quality. I commend the fact that UK agriculture has achieved a 75% reduction in pollution—that is very right. In our part of the world, the nutrient neutrality muddle has been a serious blow to farmers who are taking water quality seriously by reducing pig effluent and trying to get the balance right. Clunky, bureaucratic, big schemes in Whitehall that were not thought through properly are causing chaos in our part of the world in both agriculture and housing.

That brings me to flooding, on which I agree with the hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty (Keir Mather)—it is good to hear colleagues from all corners of this House getting the problem. Large parts of Mid Norfolk are currently under water. That is not good for agricultural productivity. Farms are holding water, for which they receive no support. There has been a lot of talk recently of “from the river to the sea.” The basics of drainage are that rivers are there to drain water off the land into the sea, and we could do with the Environment Agency putting dredging and the clearing of rivers at the top of the priority list to ensure that we get the water off the land properly.

[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. That issue is not just limited to Norfolk. The Secretary of State will know, being a Fylde lad, that it is affecting my farmers. We are crying out for water draining off land and letting farmers farm.

[George Freeman]

I could not agree more. The Secretary of State, whose constituency is North East Cambridgeshire, has lived the reality of getting water off the land as much as anybody.

That brings me to labour shortages. We have had real problems in the last few years: post Brexit, post pandemic and with the minimum wage, farmers are struggling. When a horticultural grower of the calibre of Andy Allen has to plough his prime English asparagus crop back into the land because he cannot find anyone to cut it, we are in real trouble. Some of our agricultural colleges are fantastic—I think I still have a place at Harper Adams if this career does not work out—but I worry that Easton College in Mid Norfolk is not properly anticipating the future needs of a high technology agricultural industry. We need to nurture the skills of tomorrow. Our young farmers get it, but we need to give them the courses.

I echo the comments that a number of Members have made about the difference between landowners and farmers. They are not the same thing. Many farmers I see are contract farmers—they are working 24/7, covering huge amounts of land and operating with higher and higher costs. The environmental payments tend to go to the landowners. We need to look after the farmers: the people who are developing those skills and inspiring the next generation to come into this great industry. If we end up with an industry where the hedge funds own all the land and no one is able to farm it, we will have done ourselves no favours. Quite a lot of those pressures explain why we have such a problem with mental health in agriculture. One farmer a week is taking their life. We need to think about what is driving that.

I applaud the Government’s work on production standards. We have a great opportunity in free trade deals to set the higher standards and to show the world how the UK produces more with less. I would offer a zero tariff only to those who are using the world’s very best technologies for zero-emission agriculture, and create a market for the exporting of our net zero technologies. Sustainable intensification—delivering more with less—is not just a strapline. The world desperately needs us to help deliver that. In our sector we have huge strength: the John Innes Centre at the Norwich Research Park, the Sainsbury Laboratory in Aberystwyth, and at Roslin and Wellesbourne. We are a global powerhouse in science research. We spend about half a billion a year on it, but it does not yet feel like the agricultural sector is underpinned by a half a billion of research. I know that the Secretary of State is thinking hard about how that science and research is better pulled through.

That brings me to agritech—a huge global sector. I was proud to set up our first agritech industrial strategy, the catalyst fund and the centres with my noble Friend Lord Willetts. We have some amazing agritech companies, but the key is to adopt the technologies they are producing. I pay tribute to companies such as Tropic Biosciences and to the work going on at Rothamsted. But when a company like the Small Robot Company develops brilliant technology but cannot find a market here to use it, I think that tells us as policymakers that we have to create a market in which those technologies are commercially viable and adoptable—otherwise we will end up incubating the rest of the world’s agritech sectors and not actually deploying the technologies here.

I will close by mentioning gene editing, which is a huge strength here in the UK—not just in disease resistance and drought-resistant crops, and shifting from chemical to biological control systems, but in nutraceuticals, functional foods and novel foods. We could lead the world in a whole new sector of agriculture, but that regulatory leadership is key.

The opportunity that people voted for eight years ago is still there. It is being born slowly and there have been many disruptions, but it is exciting. If we get this right, we could trigger and be the crucible of a new agricultural revolution in which we show the world how to deliver high-quality, safe, highly productive, low-input agriculture based on innovation with science, data and metrics. The UK could export that around the world. The alternative is that we create a jungle of well-intended green tape that gets in the way of a fundamentally commercial sector leading us into that new dawn. I know that DEFRA Ministers understand that. My job is to speak for the people of Mid Norfolk, and to ensure that we in this House show that we get it and that we are there for a new generation, who want to do the right thing for this country and for the globe.