Agriculture and Food Industry

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

Thursday 24th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow in a debate initiated by my noble friend Lord Plumb. There are very few, if any, Members of this House who are more respected. I declare my interest as a Suffolk farmer and the president of the Suffolk Preservation Society.

I will start by emphasising the cyclical nature of agriculture. In a sense, one ought almost to go back to where it all started in recent history. After the American Civil War, the railways were built, the middle west was opened up and the great agricultural recession hit Europe in about 1870 and lasted until the First World War. Now British farming is suffering from a fresh turn-down. The best example of prosperity in farming has always been the price of wheat and there have been huge fluctuations in recent years. By 2002 the price of feed wheat had fallen to £60 a tonne. If you adjust for output—4 tonnes rather than 1 tonne before the war—and adjust for inflation, that brings that price down to about £6 a tonne, which is what farmers got during the great agricultural depression of the 1930s. By 2007, the price was up to £120 and in 2012 it touched £200. Since then it has fallen by 38% and today it is under £120 a tonne. Oilseed rape, which is probably the main arable rotation crop, has fallen from just under £400 a tonne to £226 a tonne. That is a reduction of 42%.

It is hardly necessary to refer to the bad situation that milk producers are in due to the catastrophic fall in milk prices. I was a milk producer until 2004 and I got out because of the price. Some small milk producers in the West Country have incomes barely above subsistence level. It is largely due, in a sense, to overproduction because only about 50% of all the milk produced is drunk as liquid milk and the rest has to be used for products. They face keen competition and the price for farmers has now gone down again in the last day or two to only about 30p a litre. Supermarkets are selling it at something like 40p a litre as a loss leader.

The global milk demand is set to grow and therefore we ought to be well placed to take advantage of it. It needs big investment and the investment must, as others have said, have certainty for 10 or 20 years, otherwise it will not happen. Many people probably regret the passing of the Milk Marketing Board, founded in 1932 by the great Walter Elliot and presided over with distinction by my noble friend Lady O’Cathain, who is sitting in her place. Sadly, it was abolished.

Returning to wheat, cereal yields have, as the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, said, flatlined over the last 10 years compared with other crops, such as sugar beet, which have shown considerable improvement. Cereal plant breeders have stopped investments. The Government have started to spark investment again with incentives and that must continue because it takes about 20 years to develop a new seed variety that goes on to the field.

I echo the need for the Government to give much clearer ideas about GM, which must be a big way forward.

This year there has been a huge increase in herbicide-resistant black grass in wheat. There is a simple remedy for next year. There should be a temporary derogation of the ban on straw burning, which, when properly supervised, is the ideal non-chemical way of clearing the ground of weed seeds and sterilising the soil against many crop diseases. I was on the old Countryside Commission when we recommended it be banned because of abuse by some farmers. In those days the chairman was the brilliant noble Lord, Lord Barber of Tewkesbury. Aged 96, he is still going strong, with all his faculties. I rang him this morning to say that I was going to make the suggestion about black grass and he said, “You have my full endorsement and you can quote that”. My view counts for nothing but I hope the Minister will take that back to the department and make sure that it is looked at properly.

I also congratulate the Government on taking a firm line against diverting large areas of good agricultural land into solar parks. Again, this is quite relevant to the points made about topsoil. Let me say at once that solar has an important part to play but it should be in industrial areas on industrial buildings—there is plenty on scope—not on good agricultural land. Of course, the economics are too attractive for many farmers to resist. Even with wheat at £200 a tonne and four tonnes to the acre, that is a gross revenue of £800 an acre—out of which you have to grow the stuff. The solar people were offering £1,200 to £1,500 an acre a year, which of course they recouped by adding it on to the electricity bills of everyone. It was a very unsound thing.

We had a recent case in the village of Hacheston near where I live and farm. There was a proposal for a solar park on 150 acres of good agricultural land on the banks of one of the most sensitive designated landscapes, the Ore River Valley. But after a robust campaign, in which everyone in the local community joined, it was rejected by both the inspector and my right honourable friend Secretary of State Pickles. Now the land will continue to be farmed, as it should be. I will put a plug in for the Suffolk coastal area, which is one of the most important parts of England for the growing of vegetables.

I will refer also, as others have done, to CAP reform, in particular the greening obligations. All claims on the basic payment scheme on 15 May 2015 have to be “greening-compliant”. However, Defra still has not produced the guidance that is needed. There will be a real worry if it is not produced in time. It is almost too late. Farmers are working blind. Defra has said it will do it by the autumn but that is really too late. If the Ministers have difficulty, let them ask the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, who did such a terrific job of getting a grip of Defra when we had the shambles of the Rural Payments Agency.

I very much regret that we have lost my right honourable friend Owen Paterson as Secretary of State for Defra. He was a super Minister and I am sure his successor will be wonderful. I am very sorry that my noble friend Lord De Mauley is not here. I am not sure that he has his priorities right by being in Scotland but at any rate we should expect him to give a really strong lead to Defra in some of the things that your Lordships’ House can speak about with authority.