Agriculture and Horticulture

Lord Clark of Windermere Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, and congratulate him on initiating this debate, which is particularly timely in view of the Brexit decision 10 days ago, to which he alluded.

When I speak in the Chamber on rural issues, I am always conscious that I see things from a slightly different perspective from many colleagues on either side of the House. I am not a landowner but I was born in the countryside, grew up there and live in the countryside today. I will defend with them the critical role of the agricultural community, in particular, to survive and prosper in this country. I am grateful for this debate.

I am also conscious, however, that the previous census, in 2011, showed that more than one in five still live in rural areas. Having said that, we are a heavily urban-based society. Clearly, because of that, most of our citizens are influenced by the environment in which they live. It is incumbent on those of us who think we understand the countryside to try to explain to them the difficulties, the potential and the opportunities for those of us who live in the countryside, so I am doubly grateful for the opportunity to take part in this debate.

Having said that, things are changing in agriculture, and have changed in my lifetime beyond what I could comprehend. Science and technology will have to be harnessed even more in the years ahead if we are to sustain a role for agriculture, and we do need to sustain it in our rural areas. Broadband, as the noble Lord indicated, has not been universally successful in many rural areas. In some it works; in others it does not. It causes a problem for modern businesses operating in rural areas.

Perhaps I can emphasise that by giving one example of the impact of technology. I shall talk about forestry because I started my working life as a forestry worker and then had the dream job to which I aspired, as chair of the Forestry Commission. When I retired in 2009 after eight years, it was decided that I would cut down one of the trees that I had planted 50-odd years previously. That was significant in many ways for showing forestry as providing a living crop that had its life and had then to be harvested. I did it in a way that I would never have dreamed of doing it. I was sitting in a state-of-the-art machine which cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, and which was guided by a computer. Within five minutes, I had chopped down the tree, stripped it of its branches and we had cut it up into lengths to be sent off to the factory.

I contrasted that with the position 50 years previously when I planted the tree. Then, it would have taken two of us a whole day to do that job. We would have had to cut down the tree with a crosscut saw—this was in the days before even the chainsaw, which was a remarkable piece of technology that has had such an effect on the lives of everyone in the countryside: farmers, foresters, horticulturists and everyone. Then we would have to strip the branches, then cut it up and then get it ready for loading on to the tractor to go. That just showed how productivity can be so enhanced beyond our wildest dreams by modern technology. I use that as an example.

What is true in forestry is true in agriculture. It is laughable now to think of people milking cows by hand. Cows virtually milk themselves these days. Having said that, as the noble Lord indicated, life is still hard for those of us who work in agriculture and rural areas. He mentioned farmers with livestock. That is doubly difficult. I think of the upland farmers with sheep. Of course, technology has revolutionised that in a very basic way in that the farmers now have quad bikes to go up into the hills. Nevertheless, they still need the old and trusted Border collies—the cleverest of all dogs. Without those dogs, they could not do the job. I do not foresee it, but perhaps one day we may have a machine that does that. It will have to be pretty good to run 100 miles a day to bring in the sheep from the hills. That emphasises how hard life is for farmers, particularly with livestock.

We face a big challenge at the moment. The noble Lord mentioned Brexit. I remember the referendum of 40 years ago. The issue then was so much to do with agriculture: the sugar from Australia and the West Indies, and the lamb from New Zealand and the Commonwealth countries. Agriculture and farming dominated that debate in many ways. I know that the NFU took a position officially to endorse remain but, according to the opinion polls, about 50% of farmers voted to leave. The CAP, with all its shortcomings, had pluses. We are now going back to the annual agricultural review. I recall all the hardship and anguish that the annual review caused, not only to we politicians but especially to the farmers. There were those months of uncertainty and bargaining. It was not a very successful means. We will have to reinvent our own agricultural support system. Each of the constituent Governments in the UK will need their own system.

I also agree very much with what the noble Lord said about food production. I am a great environmentalist but I have always accepted that at the end of the day we need to produce as much food as we possibly can. It is silly to try and produce food that we cannot grow efficiently, but with science and technology there are things we can grow now that possibly would have been very difficult 40 or 50 years ago. I was interested to see this week that our own Select Committee on Science and Technology was looking at driverless vehicles. One aspect it looked at was how that could revolutionise agriculture and farming. I am moving away from the stock farmer to the arable farmer. Clearly, with modern technology and driverless vehicles you can spray crops—and the machine will pick out which is a weed to spray and which is the crop. With investment and experiment, that could revolutionise the way we do our arable production.

We then have the challenges of climate change. I looked at the Veterinary Record this week, which discussed how even in a cold climate between January and April there were 14 investigations into exotic diseases, many of them—such as blue tooth—affected by and coming into our country because of changes in climate. Those are other challenges we must take on board when trying to get the right balance of support. There needs to be support for the agricultural industry.

While agriculture is critical and provides the backbone of many of our rural communities, in terms of jobs so much depends on the tourist industry. I speak here as chair of the Lake District National Park Partnership, which oversees the work of the national park. We have in it all the major players from the community—obviously, the tourist industry and the environmental groups but also the NFU and representatives of the Country Land and Business Association—so that we can get a balanced view of how we move forward and make sure that we get the right discussions. Currently, we have a bid for a World Heritage Site with UNESCO which could be decided next year. I make this very last point: people come to the Lake District National Park, and visit England, in such numbers because of the landscape there. That landscape—the hills, fields, fences and stone walls—is built and maintained by farmers. That is why we must support our farming industry.