EUC Report: Agriculture

Baroness Byford Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2012 Grand Committee

[Baroness Byford]

My Lords, it is a huge joy, if I may use that expression, to follow a friend of mine of many years’ standing, the noble Lord, Lord Curry of Kirkharle. I first met him many years ago when he was chairman of the Meat and Livestock Commission. Noble Lords who have had a chance to look at his CV will have seen that his slightly casual introduction of himself very much understates his record over many years.

The noble Lord said that he came from a farming family, but he has held many important positions for us within the wider context. He was first appointed a commissioner of the Meat and Livestock Commission in 1986. He then went on—he did not mention this—to become a board member of the NFU Mutual insurance company. He became its chairman, a post from which he has only recently stood down. He also chaired, as he did mention, the commission on the Future of Farming and Food, reporting to the Government in January 2002. It was very important and the first one of its kind at that stage. He chaired other things as well, including the Leckford Estate Management Committee and the Better Regulation Executive, to which he referred. His work within his own particular interest and, even more, within the community has been recognised on two other occasions. He was awarded the CBE for his services to agriculture in the 1997 New Year’s Honours List and a knighthood in the Birthday Honours List of 2001. He was appointed a Cross-Bench Peer in the House of Lords in October 2011. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Curry, is in no doubt that he is warmly welcomed to this House and we look forward to hearing from him on many future occasions.

I should go back to the beginning and declare my family’s farming interest and the fact that we receive money from the CAP allocation.

It was a great pleasure to be part of this group and, although I was missing for some months because I was unwell, I congratulate the chairman, my noble friend Lord Carter of Coles, and all our advisers who supported us. I particularly congratulate those who gave us evidence. Some did so via an inter-country link, which was quite an interesting way of doing it rather than fetching people over. One of the challenges faced by EU committees is how to take evidence when looking at an EU problem without being able to get people from those countries to give direct evidence. I think it is something that the committee needs to reflect on a bit more overall. I am well aware of the cost and time involved, but certainly the telelinks help, and we were grateful for that opportunity.

I should like to put this report into the context of where we are on producing food and, in particular, on food security. Last May, the NFU briefing stated that agriculture provides £7.169 billion of gross added value and supports some 500,000 jobs in this country. In addition, the food chain contributes over £88 billion per year—7 per cent of GDP—and is responsible for over 3.7 million jobs. Sadly, agriculture and farming are often talked of in a silo but they certainly should not be. The facts and figures speak volumes and they really should get better recognition than is currently the case. It is a huge challenge for all of us throughout the EU and the world to produce enough food in a sustainable manner in the long term.

The Government’s response to the report, however, is not quite as clear on some aspects as it might be, so I have some questions for the Minister. In their response, they say that £400 million will be allocated for research and development, but I am not clear how it will be spent, which people are responsible for it and who will oversee the efficacy of it. The Minister may not have the precise figures with him today but it would be enormously helpful to all of us if a timetable could be brought forward. The response talks very much in terms of “this is going to happen” and “that is going to happen”, but from reading it—and I read it quite carefully—I could not quite tie it up as I would like to have done.

As other noble Lords have said, in the UK we face falling or static yields in crops and in milk and protein production. Water shortage is with us in large parts of the country; water excess in others. The effects of Europe—all the other regulations, the NVZs, the pesticide rules, animal recording systems and so on—place increasing costs on farmers and on the Government.

Sixty years ago today, when the Queen acceded to the throne, agriculture was a genuinely labour-intensive employment area. Automation has drastically reduced the numbers involved. The sectors providing inputs, such as seed suppliers and fertiliser and machinery manufacturers, and those handling outputs—food processors and retailers—employ a high proportion of graduates, and research is an important part of their activities.

The number of specialist agricultural colleges has declined over the years and the proportion of places available for agricultural, as opposed to small animal or pet-related, studies has fallen. I wonder how often schools’ career advisers recommend agriculture as something for students to follow. The noble Lord, Lord Curry, referred to that. FACE, whose strategy group he chairs, tries to put information into schools to help teachers, let alone their pupils, understand how food is grown. It is an enormous challenge not just for our Agriculture Minister but for those involved in education to encourage young people to come into the industry, which offers a tremendously wide variety of opportunities in the long term. More people should be enthused to come into it and given information as to how to go about it.

The world is facing starvation. During the past two or three years, high-level investigations have resulted in several reports, already mentioned, and they all agree. The Lords’ committee stressed three areas of great concern: the need to increase spending on scientific research in agriculture; the communication of its findings to those working in agriculture; and the alteration of the attitudes of Brussels bureaucrats—I hope that I am allowed to say that.

Reforms coming to the CAP give us an opportunity to think again. I pay tribute to the EU Select Committee, which has just issued a fairly strongly worded press release supporting our thoughts on the opportunities for innovation that lie in looking at the way in which the CAP is delegated. The government response acknowledges the problems, but I should be grateful if the Minister could go further and tell us about what is proposed and how it will be implemented.

The quality of evidence given to the committee, the depth of the analysis of the problems, the revelation of the range of work that is going on and the levels of achievement are enlightening and heartening. One finds in any journal related to food production articles on pest-resistant crops, water-saving cultivation methods and the use of inedible plants for the production of energy. There is no shortage of innovative ideas. However, as the report states, bringing them to fruition is fraught with difficulties, not least of which are duplication in development and fragmentation in application. One obvious route is to encourage larger-scale farming, where most of these innovations will take place, but that produces the problem of what happens to smaller farmers. They, too, are a vital part of producing food, particularly in eastern European countries.

I am well aware of the difficulties being experienced in establishing such concerns even within the EU regarding large versus small, and I wonder whether there is a role here for government. I particularly refer the Minister to the whole question of large-scale animal husbandry, which is one way in which we could produce more food. However, there is huge resistance and education will have to play an important role as a result. That is within our own country but I suspect that it is replicated across the whole of Europe.

My noble friend Lord Caithness raised the question of the GM debate. GM crops have many advantages to offer, but I would be glad to hear whether European co-operation has resulted in the start of an investigation that will add greater balance to how GM may develop in the longer term. It has been suggested that member states can make those decisions for themselves, but that is not the basis of the argument; rather, it should be about whether the science is right, whether it will produce the right food and how we should go about it. I should be glad if the Minister could reflect on that a little from the UK perspective and also from his experience of it across Europe.

I am proud to be president of LEAF—Linking Environment and Farming—and I am convinced that UK agriculture has demonstrated that it has the right tools to increase yields, improve animal welfare, preserve biodiversity and conserve natural resources, all with the enthusiastic backing of consumers. However, progress needs to be faster. One way that we can make this happen—to go back to the point that my noble friend raised—is to think about how to attract more people into this industry. I also raise the question of how we give them continuous professional development in the same way that people in other trades and professions expect. I should like to see a recognised route from school through GCSEs to apprenticeships to a diploma and, if wished, to graduate status to match the opportunities being offered by other industries such as the Armed Forces, retail and manufacturing.

If I may digress, I have the great honour of being a liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Farmers. I should also reflect to the Committee that here is a practical example of the way in which the livery tries to encourage and support young people coming through. We give awards each year to students at agricultural colleges. We also run two leadership courses. One has just been completed and the other is still going on. They are for the more mature student, if I may reflect it in that manner. This point is crucial, and although we did not touch on it quite so much in the report, I hope that my colleagues recognise that somehow we have to make agriculture and food production a much more lively and desirable vocation to follow. It is crucial because all the other industries depend on us producing worldwide enough food for future populations.

I would like to see an increase in the movement of people between the various sections of food and production, particularly between research and practical farming. I have no doubt that it can and will be done, but we need to move from the old image of farming in the early 1920s with long hours in the dirt and the cold to reflecting the industry as it is—one that responds to innovation, that uses technology and relies on science. We have a wonderful opportunity, and I thank the Committee for giving us a chance to look at this important report on innovation in agriculture.