Rural Economy

Lord Trees Excerpts

Thursday 3rd July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Trees (CB)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Earl, Lord Shrewsbury, for initiating this debate. I suggest that the rural economy is not just important but crucial to the well-being of the nation. A vibrant rural economy sustains our countryside, which in turn nourishes us spiritually—as an outdoorsman, a mountaineer and naturalist I value that hugely—and nourishes us literally. It is food, livestock production in particular, that I want to concentrate on today. After all, the production value of the livestock industry in the UK in 2013 was more than £12 billion.

We take food too much for granted. That is hardly surprising when one walks into a supermarket and sees the shelves groaning under the weight of food. But it was not, of course, always thus. Like many in this Chamber, I grew up, for the first few years of my life, with food rationing. Yet by the 1990s, the political view was that feeding the nation was not an issue. We lived in a settled world with global free trade and in a wealthy country, so we could buy whatever we wanted. If Polish milk could be bought cheaper than British milk, so be it. That was a complacent view then and is certainly a complacent view now. Thankfully, there has been a welcome political change and it was perhaps Hilary Benn who first signalled this at the Oxford Farming Conference in 2009, when he said:

“I want British agriculture to produce as much food as possible. No ifs. No buts”.

The current Secretary of State has said similar things.

What has happened to cause this change? Globally, we realise that this is not quite such a settled and peaceful world. Currently, when we think of Ukraine and Russia, we think of gas, but we should also think of wheat. If Ukraine implodes and Russia restricts wheat exports, as indeed it did in 2010, we will still be able to get wheat but the price will rise considerably. Political unrest means shortages, price increases and the potential for food to be used as a weapon.

Globally, more land is being used to produce biofuels. In fact, more than half the sugar cane in Brazil is now grown to produce ethanol. Climate change affects our global ability to produce food and rightly causes us to question the carbon costs of international freight. On top of all these factors looms the sword of Damocles of population growth—set to reach more than 9 billion by 2050. That is compounded by the rapid and dramatic change in the dietary habits of the fastest-growing populations, namely those in Asia. In 2000, the World Bank estimated that world demand for meat would rise by 85% by 2030.

All these factors amount to increasing competition for food resources, so food security has become an important issue. It is not the same as self-sufficiency, but a reasonable degree of self-sufficiency provides political and economic security, control over our animal welfare standards and a measure of biosecurity in that the less we import the less likely it is that we will import something undesirable. However, what has happened in the UK in the past two decades is that self-sufficiency—meaning food products that we can produce here—has declined from approximately 87% in 1995 to around 76% now. I suggest that this is dropping to an undesirable level. With increasing competition for land use in the UK, we need to maximise our food production at the same time as minimising pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. That in turn requires investment in farming technology and livestock health. The recent government agri-tech strategy is a welcome initiative but the first-round bids amounted to more than six times the funding on offer.

Investment in livestock health can not only increase productivity but also markedly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For example, one particular condition of dairy cows causes up to a 24% increase in greenhouse gas emissions per unit of milk produced. The greenhouse gas emissions produced by lambs growing to market weight can be reduced by 10% if gastroenteric worms are properly controlled. As well as primary research, we need translational research to deliver to farmers the benefits of more basic research.

Finally, as others have said, these measures need to be supported by investment in rural communications, both digital and physical. Coupled with this, we need to ensure investment in the rural provision of veterinary services and surveillance. Rural veterinary practices face a challenging economic environment. They are significant rural SMEs and deliver vital healthcare to improve livestock productivity, ensure animal welfare and provide front-line surveillance for highly infectious and perhaps exotic disease. The government veterinary surveillance system is currently undergoing major restructuring and serious concerns about this have been raised with respect to animal and public health by the Royal College of Pathologists among others. It is essential that any changes ensure that we maintain and strengthen our disease surveillance capacity.

I remain optimistic, however. We have a resilient farming community and a dynamic and entrepreneurial veterinary profession. However, the ability to continue to contribute substantially to the provision of nutritious and affordable—that is an important word—food to the nation will crucially depend on a recognition of the importance of this national industry with concomitant private and public investment and, I suggest, some co-ordinated, long-term and strategic planning of land use.