Agriculture and Horticulture

Lord De Mauley Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2016 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord De Mauley]

That this House takes note of the current and future roles agriculture and horticulture play in Britain’s rural economy and the role that advances in agricultural science can play in the further development of that sector.

[Lord De Mauley (Con)]

My Lords, before I start I should refer to my interests as set out in the register, including that I am a farmer and a beneficiary of the CAP schemes.

The track record of British farming is one of resilience. During the five years following the recession of 2008, while the UK economy as a whole recovered to a size similar to that before the global banking crisis, the contribution of farmers to the economy grew by around 45% to almost £10 billion. Our farmers grow the raw ingredients for the food sector, which collectively is worth more than £100 billion. The farming and food sectors together provide nearly 4 million jobs. Food and drink is now our country’s fourth-largest exporting sector and is worth more than £12 billion. Farming offers huge potential to the rural economy as a whole.

Today, British farmers produce around 62% of our food, which is good but—some would say—not enough. Many increasingly employ innovative technology to produce food for today and to prepare for the future. Our farmers work to enhance the countryside and protect the environment, to maintain habitats for native plants and animals, to maintain footpaths, to protect watercourses and to support wildlife. Productive farming depends on healthy soils and clean water, so it is in farmers’ interests to prioritise their protection. Through the voluntary Campaign for the Farmed Environment farmers have created thousands of hectares of wildflower habitat and are continuing to plant more. As energy prices rise and climate concerns increase, farmers are finding innovative ways to produce renewable energy on farms.

But all of this has to be seen against a background of volatility in farm business incomes, which sometimes vary by up to 30% between years because of factors such as commodity prices, currencies and weather conditions—and the structures of some of our markets do not help, either. So it was welcome when the Chancellor announced in last year’s Budget that farming incomes could be averaged over five years for tax purposes. High on the list of those bearing the brunt of the problem are dairy and other stock farmers, many of whom continue to suffer devastating losses. I would be interested in an update from my noble friend the Minister on the initiatives that are in place to assist them.

I turn to horticulture, which for food represents around 12% of total agricultural output, so it is an important component. In addition, there is a sizeable and important market in ornamentals. Field vegetables and non-edibles in particular have shown recent growth, although vegetables have declined over the longer term so that until recently—my figures may be slightly out of date—we are in value terms around 38% self-sufficient in vegetables, while the figure is only 16% for fruit because of our appetite for tropical fruits, and around 49% in ornamentals.

It is important that we now see growth in that area, and my noble friend might care to comment on new ways to encourage that. While global demand for food is forecast to increase steadily over the next 20 to 30 years, it will not be all plain sailing, especially as prices are likely to continue to be volatile. If farming is to be profitable in future, whatever else contributes to that profitability, yields will need to increase.

The United Kingdom is home to some of the world’s finest agricultural research, and this must hold one of the keys to improving the position of our farmers. I have been fortunate to visit many of our wonderful institutions: from Rothamsted to John Innes, Fera to Roslin, East Malling to NIAB, the RAU to Harper Adams, to name but a few. Drawing on exciting breakthroughs in plant and animal breeding, remote sensing, meteorological prediction and the exploitation of data, Britain’s most progressive farmers are leading the way. Our world-class food and drink manufacturing and retail sectors are highly competitive, supplying consumers both here and abroad.

In the agritech strategy, in which I was fortunate to play a role, we considered how we could meet the challenge of feeding a growing population without damaging our natural environment. Our vision was of a United Kingdom with once again a world-leading role in the race for better, more efficient and more sustainable agricultural production. Central to this was rebuilding the connection between basic research and applied science. We secured £160 million from the Treasury through the agritech strategy to accelerate innovation by UK food and farming businesses and to boost UK growth through the emerging global markets. This, importantly, included addressing skills, essential to help us to develop ideas from the laboratory to the farm, as well as to develop our capabilities on-farm.

We also identified that British science and technology has a vital role to play in efforts to improve food security in developing countries. Part of the £160 million was to go towards the establishment of a small number of centres of scientific excellence. I understand that these now include an agrimetrics centre, based at the Harpenden site of Rothamsted Research, a centre for crop health and protection and a centre for innovation excellence in livestock, both to be headquartered just outside York at the National Agri-Food Innovation Campus in Sand Hutton, and an Agricultural Engineering Precision Innovation Centre that will have hubs at Edinburgh at Harper Adams University and at Cranfield University.

The other substantial proportion of the £160 million agritech money was to be invested through a catalyst in projects dealing with subjects ranging widely from, for example, resistance to rhynchosporium, to improving apple storage, to localised delivery of environmentally benign pesticides, to feed conversion efficiency in beef cattle, to chicken welfare, to the sustainable intensification of agriculture in the Horn of Africa, and much more. Perhaps my noble friend could update us on the agritech strategy.

There is more, of course, to the rural economy than farming, but farming is integral to it. Of all the technologies that will benefit rural industries, superfast broadband is one of the most tangible, so I am pleased to see the prospect of some real progress in my home area, despite some well-publicised disappointments. I would welcome an assessment of progress nationwide.

Before I finish, I cannot avoid the elephant in the room: the effect on all of this that Brexit will have. I do not know whether others noticed, as I did with some surprise, the high proportion of farmers during the campaign who, despite their, in many cases, heavy reliance on subsidies through the CAP, said that they planned to vote leave. The reasons given ranged from arbitrary and disproportionate fines being levied for relatively minor administrative errors in cross- compliance and grant claims, to confusing and sometimes contradictory regulations, for example on nitrates, to the categorical refusal of the European Union to accept imports of British beef without any scientific basis, to frustration at political decisions by the Commission which, for example, led to the sacking of the excellent chief scientific adviser because she gave advice that the commissioner did not like.

Others cited the position that the Commission took over the negotiation of a new CAP, for example insisting on a flawed three-crop rule and making mapping unnecessarily complicated. These are the reasons a surprising number of farmers gave me for voting leave. Brexit will have far-reaching consequences and I worry that, despite what many told me, it will not make farming, or indeed horticulture, which relies on labour from overseas, a great deal easier. I will finish by tempting my noble friend to gaze into his crystal ball and give us his thoughts on how the future might pan out for British farmers and horticulturists, and indeed for agricultural science. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for taking part in this debate so enthusiastically. I was struck by the high level of agreement between most of us, perhaps with the exception of the subsidiary debate on GM crops, which noble Lords will be relieved to hear I will not embark on now. Although the noble Lord, Lord Clark of Windermere, was a lonely Labour Back-Bencher, he and most of us on this side seemed to have a strong meeting of minds.

I did feel sorry for my noble friend Lord Swinfen. I do not know where he lives, but it sounds like the most terrible place and I feel very lucky to be able to say that it is not like that where I live. None the less, he makes an important point, which is why our agritech strategy emphasises the importance of meeting the challenges of a growing population without damaging our environment.

There is not time for me to thank each and every noble Lord by name, but my noble friend the Minister has summarised the debate in his usual competent way, saving me the trouble.

Motion agreed.