The Environment Secretary, Hilary Benn MP, and Shadow Environment Secretary, Nick Herbert MP, will both address the Oxford Farming Conference today, setting out their respective parties’ policies with regard to food and farming.

Nick Herbert is due to announce that a Conservative government would establish a supermarket ombudsman to protect the interests of farmers against any abuse of power by large food retailers. The ombudsman would be created as a unit inside the Office of Fair traiding and would be funded by a levy on big supermarkets. Nick Herbert will say that the ombudsman will “curb abuses of power which undermine our farmers and act against the long-term interests of consumers… failure to do so could result in reduced investment by suppliers, lower product quality and less product choice, with potentially higher prices in the long run.”

Hilary Benn will launch the government’s ‘Food 2030′ report, setting out the government’s food strategy for the next 20 years. Mr Benn will use his speech to the conference to call for Britain to grown more food in different ways, to reduce the environmental impact of food production and farming and to provide food for the world’s growing population. Mr Benn will say that society “know(s) that the consequences of the way we produce and consume food are unsustainable to our planet and to ourselves” and that a consumer revolution can bring about change. “People power can bring about a revolution in the way food is produced and sold…(farming will) follow consumer demand for food that is local, healthy and has been produced with a smaller environmental footprint.”

In his foreword to the report, Prime Minister Gordon Brown says that Britain “need(s) to produce more food without damaging the natural resources – air, soil, water and marine resources, biodiversity and climate – that we all depend on.” Plans within the report include making it easier for people to lease land to grow their own fruit and vegetables, reducing long waiting lists for city allotments, and a ‘land bank’ to ensure that plots of land do not go empty.

Original sources: BBC News: Parties to unveil plans for supermarkets and food, Guardian: Britain must grow more sustainable food, says Benn and Guardian: Conservatives to create supermarket ombudsman to protect farmers

Following the Parliamentary and Technology Committee’s meeting this week, focusing on GM technology in crop production, I took the time to read the Royal Society’s recent report; “Reaping the benefits: science and the sustainable intensification of global agriculture“, which was heavily cited at the evening event. The report provides an extremely interesting overview of a very complex topic, characterised by Prof. John Beddington as the ‘perfect storm’; how to feed more people, on less land, using less water and energy, in the context of climate change and in a way which doesn’t damage the evironment? The Royal Society steering group conclude that ’sustainable intensification’ is needed to achieve the 50 – 100% increase in crop production needed to feed a population projected to reach 9 billion by 2050.

The report touches upon the gains made during the ‘green revolution’ of the 1960’s, with huge growth in food production in Asia (280%); particularly China, which saw agricultural productivity increase fivefold. A 70% increase in growth was achieved in Europe. The benefits of the revolution were not evenly distributed however; Africa saw a 140% increase, yet food production then fell from the 1970s, only re-gaining 1960 levels in 2005. There have been calls for a ‘greener revolution’, building on the original gains made in the latter half of the 20th century, but investment in research into agriculture has declined in recent years, due to complacency over food prices and availability, the Society concludes.

In expanding food production into the future, the global community faces an important choice: expand the area of agricultural land to increase gross production, or increase yields on existing land. The report concludes that expanding the land area available for agriculture is untenable: to keep pace with current per capita consumption would require a doubling of land used for crops, which would result in undesirable environmental and social consequences and increased greenhouse gases through ploughing. Instead, the report concludes that sustainable intensification on existing sites, coupled with habitat restoration, should be the way forward.

Any system is unsustainable, the report suggests, if it depeneds on non-renewable inputs; it cannot consistently and predictably deliver desired outputs; and it can only deliver these outputs by requiring the cultivation of more land and/ or causes adverse and irreversible environmental impacts which threaten ecological functions. To ensure sustainable intensification, the report concludes, greater investment is needed in crop genetics (both advanced biotechnology, such as GM, and conventional plant breeding) and in crop management practices (such as integrated pest management and planting seed mixtures). Both public and private investment is needed to advance research in these areas: public, to fund those areas which will not yield long-term returns for private companies, such as crop management techniques (likely to have no particular product or intellectual property for commercialisation associated with them); private to transfer the benefits from publicly funded research to markets.

In examining GM particularly, the working group concludes that there is no reason to expect any adverse impacts on health through the consumption of crops including transgenes, and that this technology, although not offering a panacea, can make an important contribution to increasing yields. Over the long term, advances which could be seen include the modification of crops’ metabolism to more efficient convert solar energy to carbohydrate or for the fixation of nitrogen. There could be a shift from annual to perennial crops – there are no perennial crops at present – enhancing carbon storage and reducing greenhouse gases from annual tillage of the soil. The asexual reproduction of seed by high-yielding varieties could be engineered, avoiding costly and lengthy procedures – least accessible to those in developing countries – to produce high yielding varieties breeding cycle after breeding cycle.

The report is wide-ranging in its scope and there is certainly far too much to cover here. One recommendation which the BES could consider taking forward is in relation to the training and development of crop scientists. The working group suggests that attention should be paid to enhancing the plant science component of biology A’levels, as a way to encourage young people to study subjects allied to farming and agriculture at university. The working group also conclude however that, alongside the trend for many universities to close down or reduce their teaching in agriculture and crop science, take up of those courses which do exist is low. For the UK to take a leading role in research contributing to global food security, as the report calls for, there is a need, clearly amongst a disparate range of other measures, for universities to re-examine their courses to make them more attractive to potential research scientists of the future.

The BES Policy Team last night attended a meeting of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee exploring GM technology. Entitled, ‘Come back GM, all is forgiven?’, the Chair, Ian Taylor MP, made it clear that the question mark was there for a reason; by the end of the event it was clear that further meetings of the Committee are needed to allow members to explore these issues in greater depth. Opinions from the floor were aligned along two polar opposites and there was not the time available to allow sufficient debate to begin to bring these two sides together.

Presentations from Professor Peter Shewry and Professor Howard Atkinson introduced the topic to those present and set the scene for later discussion. Professor Shewry showed a slide illustrating the global scale of growth of GM crops; these are now cultivated in 25 countries worldwide, across 70 million acres of land and have now been grown for 14 years. In this time, Professor Shewry said, no ill effects to health or the environment have been recorded. In outlining the case for growing GM crops Prof. Shewry said that society needs them for three reasons: to improve the quality of crops (i.e. to reduce diet-related disease); to increase sustainability (through less intensive inputs), and to increase productivity (contributing to food security).

Prof. Shewry’s research is concerned with the health benefits of GM crops, particularly wheat. By modifying wheat crops to express genes for the production of fish oils (long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids), the human dietary intake of fish oils can be increased without recourse to intensification of fish farming. In giving reasons why GM had not been adopted in the UK, at the end of his talk, Prof. Shewry suggested that prejudice, misinformation and elitism in Western nations was responsible, with it reducing opportunities from those in developing countries, with limited access to food, to benefit from this technology.

This was a theme returned to in discussion with Chris Kirk, Chief Executive of the Biochemical Society firmly making the point that those in the West get extremely incensed about the use of GM technology to produce food, yet are content to use pharmaceutical products maunfactured in a similar way. Again, he reiterated the point that concerns in affluent countries are damaging the prospects of less developed countries to benefit from this technology.

Concerns were raised by some present about the potential health impacts of GM crops – one example given was that the effects of exposure to asbestos are felt only 25 years later, so 14 years may be too short a timescale of testing to declare GM foods ’safe’- and the problem of secondary pest emergence in GM cotton (Bt cotton), leading to increased pesticide spraying once more. One audience member raised the important point that many people are genuinely concerned about GM technology and that these concerns cannot simply be dismissed out of hand. He and others called for greater engagement from the scientific community in the debate, communicating with the public and providing syntheses of the scientific evidence for policy-makers.

Jim Paice, MP for South West Cambridgeshire made the point that it was very hard for politicians to find their way through the morass of ’sweeping statements’ made by NGOs such as Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace; without engagement from the scientific community, such negative, and poorly evidenced, statements would dominate debate. Chris Kirk urged policy-makers and Committee members to read the Royal Society’s recent report: “Reaping the Benefits: science and the sustainable intensification of global agriculture” as an authoritative digest of current scientific evidence regardiing GM technology.

Finally, Lord Rooker mentioned the ‘GM Dialogue‘ which the Food Standards Agency has been asked to lead on behalf of the Government. This public engagement project is expected to last for around 12 months and steering group members have recently been announced. With this, a potential further Parliamentary and Scientific Committee meeting on this topic and a Talk Science event at the British Library in January, it seems that GM food may once more be rising up the agenda.

The Science Team at the British Library is organising an event at the Library’s conference centre on 21st January 2010 (18.00 – 20.30) entitled: GM crops and food security: curing the world’s growing pains?

Professor Rosie Hails, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, will introduce the subject, followed by a discussion among the audience. This provocative title aims to stimulate discussion on the following questions:

• Do GM technologies have a role to play in meeting demand for food by a population of 9 billion in 2050?
• Are GM crops part of a ’sustainable’ solution, or will use of GM technologies exacerbate the negative impacts of agriculture?
• Do the impacts of GM technologies pale into insignificance beside other fundamental management practices?
• Has the recent trend of rising food prices and awareness of food security issues altered the public perception of plant biotechnologies?

Tickets are £5 and include refreshments – please book by visiting the box office.

In the mean time, the British Library has set up a discussion forum on Nature Network, so do have a look and contribute. It provides opportunities to discuss issues before and after the event, and also provides an opportunity for those who can’t attend to voice their opinions.

The Government today launched a consultation on what a secure food system in the UK should look like by 2030. After last year’s sudden jump in food and oil prices, as well as growing appreciation of the future impacts of climate change, food security has rocketed back onto the political agenda.

Interestingly, and perhaps not widely appreciated, is that the UK currently has a very good level of food security: we produce 60-65% of our own food, and import a further 20% from Europe. Britain is thus more food secure today than it was in the 1930s or 1950s.

Nevertheless, the Government argues that forward-planning is essential as the world will have another 3 billion people to feed by 2050, so preparations need to be made to produce more using less water and less oil. Livestock production in particular is a major source of global emissions, producing more emissions than the world transport sector.

As well as launching the consultation process, Defra has also published a scorecard-style assessment of the current state of the UK’s food supply. This food security assessment focuses on six areas, including global availability, UK food chain resilience and household food security, assessing the current situation and the likely situation in 5-10 years time. Whilst global fish stocks were assessed as “very unfavourable”, with little sign of improvement, areas such as the diversity of the UK’s suppliers of fresh fruit and vegetables was deemed “favourable” and set to improve even more.

For further details on the consultation, please click here.

The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Select Committee has today published a report examining the UK contribution to ensuring food security globally to 2050. “Securing food supplies up to 2050: the challenges for the UK” urges Defra to take the lead, building capacity in food and farming industries so that they can respond to market signals in a way that will reduce the risk of food shortages.

The Committee consider that the UK has a moral obligation to contribute to the global challenge of securing food supplies. Commenting on the report, Michael Jack MP, Chair of the Committee, said: “The UK can play a leading role both in Europe and globally in making sure that our farmers and food industry can contribute effectively towards meeting the challenge of a world that will need to double its food output by 2050 whilst coping with the pressures of climate change as well as global plant and animal diseases. Every region of the UK has a contribution to make.”

An increase in food production must take place in the context of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, conserving soil and water and reducing reliance on fossil fuels, recognise the Committee. Consumer engagement is also vital.

The report does not advocate food self-sufficiency for the UK, highlighting instead the importance of strong trading relationships. The report also highlights the dangers posed by ‘land-grabbing’ – rich countries buying up land in poorer regions to grow crops for their own population.

The Committee call for an increase in support for public sector food and farming research, urging Defra to safeguard the UK’s world-class agricultural research base with additional investment of £100 million.

A new study published in Food Policy and reported in this week’s EU science policy digest; ‘Science for Environment Policy’, suggests that subsidies from Governments could play a key role in helping to reduce the ‘ecological footprint’ of food production.

Taking a case-study approach, focusing on Australia, the authors examined the energy inputs needed to produce food. The aim of the study was to identify the main pathways by which the human demands on ecosystems: the ecological footprint, relating to food production could be reduced. Demands on food production will only increase into the future as the human population grows; creating stresses which will be exacerbated by climate change.

The researchers analysed water and energy inputs, along with agrochemical energy inputs in the form of fertilisers and herbicides, needed to grow a number of crops. All inputs were converted into KWh per hectare to allow comparison.

The results show that wheat production is more efficient than rice production in terms of water and energy inputs and the ratio of agrochemical energy to total energy. However, rice has the highest financial return: a benefit to production which it will be difficult to overcome in terms of changes to crop growth. The authors find that the most effective way to lower the ecological footprint of food production would be to increase energy efficiency and boost water productivity. Changing cropping patterns and crop varieties could play a role, and would also impact on agrochemical inputs needed.
Furthermore, the researchers propose that Government subsidies for technology to improve efficiencies could play a key role in ameliorating the ecological footprint of the food chain.

Khan, S., Khan, M.A., Hanjra, M.A. et al. (2009). Pathways to reduce the environmental footprints of water and energy inputs in food production. Food Policy. 34: 141-149.

Research published recently in Science illustrates the destabilising effect which extreme weather events have on agricultural productivity, and predicts that without significant investment now in adaptation measures, climate change will lead to major food crises in the next 100 years.

Based on an analysis of 23 global climate change models, researchers suggest that unusually hot summers, for example the 2003 heatwave in Europe, will become common by the end of this century. This heatwave, in which the temperature was 3.5oC above normal, led to 50,000 heat-related deaths and poor yields from grain and fruit crops across much of France and Italy.

Droughts in Africa from the 1960s to 90s, and consequent effect on crops, led to very many hunger-related deaths.

Examining these events, the researchers conclude that agricultural yields may fall by 20 – 40% over the next century as the climate warms, without investment in adaptation measures. They urge governments to prioritise research and development in climate change adaptation for agriculture, including investment in genomics, breeding, management and engineering.

Battisti, D.S. and Naylor, R.L. (2008). Historical Warnings of Food Security with Unprecedented Seasonal Heat. Science. 323: 240-244.

The leaders of the Group of Eight (G8) most industrialised nations meet in Japan today to discuss the challenges posed to global development by climate change, rising food prices and escalating energy costs.

UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, has called on the US to take the lead on fighting climate change, stating in an interview with AFP that “it’s desirable for industrialised nations to lead by example”. Ban said that “political will” was lacking in the fight against climate change. In the same article it is reported that the chief of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, has said it’s unlikely that specific targets for emissions cuts will be agreed by leaders at the summit. However, he says he hopes for agreement to “a long-term commitment of a 50 per cent reduction by 2050 and a principle agreement for a mid term reduction [for each G8 nation]“.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown is expected to call on G8 leaders to accelerate efforts to tackle global warming, seeing this as integral to the development agenda.

The UK Government is ready to explore once more the use of GM technology in crops, hoping that this will offer a solution to the current world food crisis. Phil Woolas, the UK’s Environment Minister, has reportedly held private talks with the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, an umbrella group to promote the role of biotechnology in agriculture.

In an interview with the Independent newspaper yesterday, Mr Woolas said: “There is a growing question of whether GM crops can help the developing world out of the current food price crisis. It is a question that we as a nation need to ask ourselves.” Prime Minister Gordon Brown yesterday called on leaders at an EU summit to consider relaxing rules on the import of GM animal feed, as a way of lowering food costs for the poorest countries.

The only GM food crops currently available commercially are those which have been grown to be herbicide or insect resistant. There are very legitimate concerns that extensive growth of such crops will severely impact on the biodiversity of the countryside; as broad-spectrum herbicides such as Monsanto’s ‘Roundup’ indiscriminately affect wildlife. However, GM technology could offer benefits to developing countries if the focus was on research into higher yields, drought and disease resistance. Downing Street has commented that “GM crops are to be considered on a case-by-case basis, based solely on the science”.

Does GM offer a solution to hunger and poverty in the developing world as food prices rise and food shortages threaten?
The Science Policy Team invites you to comment on this article