The Oxford Farming Conference yesterday served up a good mix of debate and controversy but side-stepped some important issues.
The Secretary of State, Owen Paterson, was bullish about his desire for progressive reform of the Common Agriculture Policy. He said that decisions about food production should be left to the market but also emphasised the value of "compensating farmers" for the work they do for the environment. This is essentially the 'public money for public goods' argument that we have made for many years. I was pleased that his message on CAP to the Oxford audience was entirely consistent to the one he gave to a bunch of nature NGOs before Christmas.
And this message should be welcomed by those farmers that are already doing great things for wildlife. We shall be celebrating some of these wildlife-friendly farming heroes at our Nature of Farming Awards event this morning. When farmers provide things that the market cannot support, such as an attractive countryside rich in wildlife which people can enjoy, then they should be rewarded - through agri-environment schemes as part of the so-called Pillar II of the CAP. This is why we shall continue to fight (in the UK and with our BirdLife partners in Europe) to protect this bit of the EU Budget when talks resume next month.
As a new research report launched yesterday highlighted, farming can deliver great things to society. But farming "still poses a net cost on the environment". This is exemplified by the state of farmland wildlife and the message is similar to the conclusion of the 2011 National Ecosystem Assessment report which suggested that society had prioritised production to the cost of other services that the land offers such as clean water, carbon storage and healthy habitats for wildlife.
And this is where the debate at Oxford fell short.
Too much of the day focused on increasing production for food security. Like energy security, this seems to mean whatever you want it to mean: to encourage greater self-sufficiency, to grow new markets or to serve the moral cause of feeding the world. So people spoke about innovation, technology and particularly GM. Yes, these are topics worthy of debate, but on their own they are insufficient. There was scant reference to the fact that currently a third of our food is wasted, that there are a billion people who are currently obese and, despite the fact that we have currently have enough food to feed the world, there are still a billion people who go to bed hungry every night. As a Foresight report concluded in 2011, the whole food system needs to be fundamentally reformed.
I thought we had made progress with the Green Food Project last year. Here we began to explore the tensions and trade-offs between reconciling the objectives of increasing production and improving the natural environment. It wasn't perfect but it was a start and I am glad that Defra plans to keep bringing different groups together to discuss the challenges. I do not want us to go back to the old polarised debates of the past.
The highlight of yesterday for me was hearing Matthew Taylor (former political strategy advisor to Tony Blair and now head of the RSA) offer his thoughts on how farmers should respond to the research report. I enjoyed it partly because he cracked the gag of the day: "what do you get if you cross a social scientist with a member of the mafia? Someone who makes you an offer you cannot understand". But he also made the case for a fundamental rethink of how the farming sector should it present itself. He said "if you are to have credibility, it has to be challenging to you. If not, the public will see it as self-serving and they will reject it... So you need to ask tough questions of yourselves."
As the report states, “UK farming has to rise to the challenges of global food and energy security, yet it must do so in the light of our post-war experience of the profound environmental impacts of intensive agriculture. It is essential for policy to place society’s present and future needs at the centre of the farming and food system - understanding farming’s value to society is a requirement of doing this”.
It is this challenge that farming leaders and politicians should embrace, and where better to start than with reform of the CAP.
What tough questions do you think the farming community should be asking itself? And for that matter, what about the RSPB?
It would be great to hear your questions.
I think you have refered to some of the tough questions Martin in your fifth paragraph following on from where you say "the debate at Oxford fell short". Presenters usually have a great habit of presenting all the benefits of their particular subject WITHOUT addressing how their topic fits into to the overall environment in which their topic is meant to operate. The overall farming environment very much concerns reversing biodiversity loss and the impacts of the industry on the natural environment as a whole. These are the tough questions that are so often bypassed.
One point, I don't know if the conference was concerned at all with the "farming" of grouse on grouse moors but that would be very relevant to biodiversity loss. (Maybe a chance to bend Mr Paterson's ear on much better protection for birds of prey).
redkite