Common Agricultural Policy

Richard Drax Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Spencer]

As I was saying, a number of challenges are coming up. UK farmers are particularly skilled at competing. For at least two generations, they have competed on an uneven playing field and managed to continue their business in doing so. I accept my hon. Friend’s point. It is also worth bearing in mind that the taxpayer is putting an enormous amount of cash into the system and so has to get not only food security but a benefit to the environment that they are not getting at the moment.

It is very easy to stand up in this Chamber, be critical of Ministers and say that they could have done this or that. What we do not hear about, however, is the stuff that the Secretary of State and the Minister block—the ideas from Europe that did not make it into the final agreement. If the Minister has time during his summing up, it would be interesting if he could indicate some of the things he was able to stop happening that would have had us jumping up and down in the Chamber if they had made it through and some of our near neighbours on the continent had got their way.

Many Members have referred to the need for broadband in order to deliver the documentation required to make an application. There are farmers in Nottinghamshire who are based within 5 miles of the city centre of Nottingham whose current internet speed is 3 megabits. It is almost quicker to drive to Nottingham to collect a form than it is to try to dial-up on the internet to download it. They are very close to a major urban population, but BT has no plans to take them out of that not spot. Nottinghamshire county council has a programme to roll out broadband across Nottinghamshire, but unfortunately those farmers are not part of that programme. We have to find a way to help them.

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

The other day, I took an entrepreneur to see another Minister about setting up a private system of wireless connection. In north Dorset over a period of weeks, he has got hold of some very big names to establish a system of up to between 30 and 50 megabits. The point he made was that BT needs to be far more transparent with the public and tell all of us what exactly it will be able to achieve and, if it cannot do that by a certain time, entrepreneurs should be given far more encouragement by our Government to get in there and sort out this problem.

[Mr Spencer]

I recognise that new technologies may be able to assist, but there will always be not spots—those little black holes—where people are left out of the system. We need to find a way to help those farmers.

I think that the three-crop rule is one of those well-intended European Union rules that will have unintended consequences. My right hon. Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Sir James Paice) has referred to the fact that many areas are block-farmed. Large contracting companies that help their neighbours with farm contracts and that block-crop from farm to farm will no longer be able to do that, which will lead to a number of extra road miles, inefficiency and environmental damage as a result of the amount of fuel burned and road traffic. That is not a desirable consequence and it will not benefit the environment at all.

--- Later in debate ---

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)]

It is a privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer). I will not detain the House for long, but as a farmer by trade—I make hon. Members aware of my declaration of interests—I could not let this opportunity pass without commenting on CAP reform and its implications in England, and without congratulating the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee on its report.

For me, CAP reform should always be about simplification, encouraging a level playing field and inspiring competition and innovation as we strive to break through plateauing crop yields and to stop declining livestock numbers, and as we endeavour to become more self-sufficient and to increase food production to meet the ever-increasing global population. However, I realise that a balance has to be struck on the environmental impact of modern-day farming, which my hon. Friend mentioned. It is worth pointing out that the vast majority of farmers see themselves as custodians of our countryside, and want it to be preserved for future generations.

[Richard Drax]

I entirely support what my hon. Friend is saying. The gold standard in farming is actually set in this country. If only Europe would follow it.

[Julian Sturdy]

I entirely agree. UK farmers have set the gold standard for many years, and will continue to do so, but the issue is now about giving them the tools of support for them to take that next step forward.

To go back to the environmental schemes, sadly, I fear that we are starting to tilt the balance of CAP reform too far from the primary aim of farmers, which is ultimately to produce food. For centuries, we have taken our peacetime food supply for granted, mainly because of how easy it was in the past to import food from abroad. Agricultural policy in both the UK and throughout the rest of the EU has moved away from maximising food production towards rewarding environmentally friendly practices.

As the National Farmers Union has pointed out, we have only 36 harvests in which to increase our global food production to a level at which it can feed 9 billion people, and just 11 harvests before another billion people need to be fed. It may surprise some hon. Members, but I will be in my late 70s when we reach the 36th harvest. What that shows is that we only get one chance a year to advance crop yields, and the number of years is counting down rapidly.

I want to turn to the greening elements of CAP reform. With the ecological focus areas and what farmers will have to do to meet the 5% requirement—buffer strips, laying land fallow, catch crops, nitrogen-fixing crops and hedges, the inclusion of which I join many hon. Members in welcoming—it is probably not as bad as the farming community first feared, but some more detail is still to come out. By “detail”, I mean that the most important thing is to get clarity as soon as possible.

Overall, the Government have definitely made the best of a bad job. We must have a practical approach to greening. Sadly, the three-crop rule is far from being an example of that practical approach. I am sure that it will prove to be a bureaucratic nightmare that serves no purpose and delivers no environmental benefit in the UK or across Europe.

The UK is currently 68% self-sufficient in terms of food that can be produced here. Sadly, there has been a steady decline in that level over the past 20 years. Nearly a quarter of the food that is eaten in the UK is imported, when it could be produced here. Yields have levelled off and cereal, potato, orchard fruit and fresh vegetable production are well below their 1991 levels. CAP should give more weight to sustainable intensification because we have to produce more food on a finite amount of land in a sustainable way.

The decline is not irreversible, as has been shown in the fresh fruit market, where the growth is driven largely by demand. British shoppers want to buy British produce and back British farmers, especially in the wake of the horsemeat scandal. According to a recent NFU survey, 78% of shoppers believe that supermarkets should sell more British produce.

Ultimately, the best way to boost yields, increase production and ensure our future food security is to invest in cutting-edge technology. I am delighted by today’s announcement that the hard work of the York, North Yorkshire and East Riding local enterprise partnership has paid off. Sadly, I was not called in the statement earlier, so I thought that I would take this opportunity to comment on it. My constituency will benefit from three new Government-backed projects to facilitate the provision of cutting-edge agricultural technology. The £11-million investment in the food science campus at Sand Hutton will create 800 new jobs in agri-food research and product testing. The £8-million investment in the BioVale initiative at the university of York will provide a biotechnology cluster that will host a range of high-tech industrial biotechnology companies, creating a further 500 highly skilled jobs. The £1-million investment in Askham Bryan college, where young farmers learn their craft, will enable a new state-of-the-art training centre and engineering centre of excellence to be constructed.

We have to be upfront about the fact that it will remain a challenge to feed the growing global population. However, such investment demonstrates the Government’s commitment to meeting that rising challenge. It will ensure that research is carried out in close collaboration with the farming community, so that it benefits the businesses on the ground and delivers a far-sighted, coherent, joined-up approach to the future challenges of food security. The investment will deliver growth and jobs across my region. Most importantly, it will help to give the UK the competitive edge that it needs to unlock the potential in the agriculture sector, to become a world leader in combating the growing threat to food security, and to set the gold standard.

In conclusion, like many other Members, I welcome the young farmers’ scheme. Sadly, I do not fall into that category any more. I also welcome the moving of the funding up the hill. That move is long overdue, but I welcome it. Like a number of Members, I still have concerns over the bureaucratic nature of the new scheme. My fear for the long term is that if we continue to pump taxpayers’ money into agri-environmental schemes that take land out of production when food insecurity is an ever-growing problem, and food prices rise on the back of that, there will come a point when there is a public backlash and the Government of the day could ultimately pay the price.