Memorandum submitted by the Institute
of Biology (R 12)
1. The Institute of Biology is the independent
and charitable society charged by Royal Charter to represent UK
biologists and biology. It has some 15,000 individual members
and 75 specialist learned societies and so is well placed to respond
to enquiries that cut across the various life science specialisms.
SUMMARY
2. This response's principal points include:
(i) intensive farming is needed to feed a
growing World population;
(ii) the UK has become a net importer of
food;
(iii) MAFF's investment in R&D has declined
markedly in real-terms over one and a half decades so that now
we need to ask whether MAFF's R&D can actually meet UK needs;
(iv) potential health risks are present at
every stage in the food chain, including those parts derived from
organic farming, and intensification of production tends to enhance
these risks;
(v) R&D is needed for both developing
innovation derived from basic science, "D", and into
minimising any risks associated with new processes and products.
There are many agricultural research opportunities;
(vi) why is MAFF R&D set to continue
in decline over the next two years? Decisions on which this policy
is based need to be transparent and open;
(vii) departmental research programmes provide
the necessary research infrastructure to meet day-to-day policy-driven
departmental concerns. This infrastructure can prove invaluable
at times of crisis when policymakers need to base decisions on
best science in a hurry.
UK-BASED, HIGH
PRODUCTIVITY FOOD
SUPPLY MUST
BE A
NATIONAL PRIORITY
Population is still growing and there are signs
that food production is now stressed
3. With the World population due to rise
to between eight and 10 billion over the next few decades, there
is an urgent need to continue to develop farming systems that
are both highly productive (hence intensive) and sustainable.
Though currently, in theory at least, there is enough to feed
the World's population of six billion there are signs that the
World's food production systems are under stress. We have previously
identified some of these symptoms in an earlier report on the
Genetically Modified Crops: The Social and Ethical Issues
for the Nuffield Council on Bioethics and are pleased to attach
these as an appendix.
The UK, as a net food importer, is more vulnerable
to global shortages
4. The position is gaining urgency for the
UK as it has become a net importer of food. In the 19th Century
most nations of the World were largely self-sufficient with regard
to their staple food supplies. At that time the World population
was under two billion. During the 20th Century this situation
has changed so that today most nations rely on a few net exporters
to provide a significant top-up of staples. In short, the UK is
likely to face increased competition to secure supplies from overseas
to help meet its vital food requirements over the next few decades.
It therefore should be a national priority to foster home-based
food production and reduce the UK's strategic vulnerability.
A SUPPORTING R&D
PROGRAMME INTO
INTENSIVE AND
SUSTAINABLE FARMING
SHOULD ALSO
BE A
PRIORITY BUT
MAFF R&D IS AT
AN ALL
TIME LOWIN
POLICY TERMS
THIS IS
NATIONAL DISGRACE
The science R&D underpinning MAFF policy has
been cut over one and a half decades, yet claims are made that
policy is based on best science
5. Successive Governments have claimed to
base their technology policy on the best scientific understanding
available. Yet MAFF's R&D budget has been cut in real terms
from over a quarter of a billion (1998-99 values) in the mid-1980s
to an expected out-turn figure of £110 million for 2001-02
(according to the Government's SET Statistics 2000 table
2.2). This has undermined the biological community's faith in
the reality of this "best scientific understanding"
policy.
This decline is despite successive issues of great
socio-political concern
6. Despite successive high-profile food
safety issuessuch as bovine TB, E coli, salmonella,
BSE and GM cropsthis decline in MAFF investing in its
own R&D programme has continued. Yet such issues invariably
incur a very high cost on UK PLC when there is a problem, and
a not insignificant social cost on its people. It is almost certain
that had MAFF's research capability been maintained a significant
proportion of this cost would have been saved, and the less tangible
socio-political costs reduced due to being able to inform better
the public.
Has MAFF the resources to meet new research into
TSEs and Intensive Farming?
7. Consequently if, to quote the consultation
notice, "the Agriculture Committee . . . [is] to conduct
an inquiry into the scale and focus of the relevant government-sponsored
research following the publication of the Phillips report"
then it may wish to assess whether MAFF has allocated sufficient
resources to support such a research programme? Indeed, given
the historic trends of MAFF investment in its R&D over the
past one and a half decades, there is the suspicion that financial
reductions helped undermine some of the 1990s research into BSE.
CONSEQUENCES FOR
HUMAN AND
ANIMAL HEALTH
OF INTENSIVE
FARMING
The benefit of high productivity has the cost
of facilitating the propensity for disease
8. By virtue of definition, intensive farming
results in the benefit of having high-density growth, both of
individual animals or plants, and their numbers. This greatly
facilitates the propensity for disease, both parasitological (in
the broadest sense) and toxicological. There are a number of reasons
for this, including:
(i) selecting for high growth, if not done
with care, can be achieved to the detriment of the organism's
immune system;
(ii) high densities of plants or animals
tend to facilitate pathogen transmission. (In terms of BSE there
were concerns as to whether transmission was vertical or horizontal
(between or within generations), or both.)
Health risks are present in both "conventional"
and "organic" farming
9. Practices to increase the intensity,
or productivity, of farming occur both in conventional and in
organic farmingthe latter usually being perceived by the
public as low risk. For instance, by implication intensive farming
suggests the efficient use of nutrients. This in turn, if precautions
are not taken, can also facilitate the transmission of pathogens
associated with those nutrients. With regards to BSE, there was
the recycling of animal protein whereby cattle protein was fed
to cattle that in essence became vehicles for prion reproduction
before the next iterative cycle and the infection of yet more
cattle. At the other end of the agricultural spectrum, in the
organic farming of crops, the efficient use of nutrients manifests
itself in muck-spreading and this canif the appropriate
precautions are not takenlead to food poisoning by virtue
of contamination with human pathogens.
Health risks are present at virtually every step
of the food chainfor instance there is a possible association
between the rate of development of symptoms of those infected
with TSEs and organic grain
10. Health risks are present at virtually
every step of the food chain. Food, in essence, is high-energy
fuel for animals (both animal feed and human food). Consequently
producing food invariably presents a (thermodynamic) opportunity
for competing organisms that may not be suitable for humans or
farm animals to ingest. For example even, what many lay people
would consider a safe food, organically grown grain can potentially
present health risks. Given that man-made fungicides are prohibited
in organic farming, organically grown grain can become more easily
contaminated with mycotoxins if stored incorrectly. Relating this
to BSE, it is known that mycotoxins affect susceptibility to viral
infection and it is conceivable that this might equally apply
to prion infection.
An ecological perspective needs to be included
11. The Phillips report notes the link between
BSE and intensive farming practices, and by implication, recognises
an ecological dimension to the issue. Therefore any proposed follow-up
research programme needs to include an examination of the issues
from an ecological perspective.
There are many research opportunities
12. There are many research opportunities.
For instance, mixed cultivation, and agroforestry systems can
be arranged so as to make a farm less reliant on external feed
sources and invariably necessitate some time in external grazing
which has health and welfare benefits over intensive indoor rearing.
Non-till farming helps preserve soils in marginal lands, such
agricultural systems lend themselves to light grazing and, though
not intensive farming, can help ecologically maximise sustainable
yields. These are just some, of many, possible avenues of worthy
research.
Research is needed for both innovation and to
reduce risks
13. In short, there are, as with every area
of human endeavour, risks associated with intensive farming. Here
the risks are that increased animal or crop productivity can potentially
increase crop-pathogen or animal-disease productivity. For this
reason it is important that MAFF maintains its own strong research
base not only to facilitate innovation (the "D" of R&D)
in production but also to assess its health implications and determine
good practice. Unfortunately this has not been happening.
Yet despite the demands made on MAFF R&D,
support has been declining. Why?
14. Conversely, the proposed real-term decline
in MAFF R&D as outlined in the Government's SET Statistics
2000 for future years through to 2001-02, at best betrays
a lack of understanding by MAFF for the importance of its own
R&D. At worse this is a cynicism of economy that undermines
any political claim that policy is based on best science. Instead
MAFF policy has, for the past one and a half decades, been based
on its declining support for science. Presumably there is a reason
for this? The public should be informed.
Why will the decline continue to 2001-02? It is
important that decisions are transparent
15. The Institute of Biology's Agricultural
Sciences Committee assumes that there must be a reason as to whydespite
a string of high profile food safety and public health issues
(paragraph 6)MAFF R&D has been in long-term decline?
Specifically, it would greatly appreciate learning why the MAFF
R&D out-turn for 2001-02 is anticipated (SET Statistics
2000) to be some 58 per cent less in real-terms than it was
for 1986-87? Given the importance of R&D to a technology based
society and economy and given the issues MAFF has been called
upon to address, it is important that the basis for funding decisions
are transparent and sound.
Research programmes not only help reduce risk
but nuture future expertise
16. The Institute of Biology respectfully
ventures that if MAFF properly resources its R&D programmes,
answers to health and intensive farming matters will be more forthcoming.
It also notes, with far greater certainty that the continuing
decline of MAFF's research base will eventually remove the nurturing
of appropriate expertise on which those facing tomorrow's agricultural
concerns would like to call.
Research programmes provide a research infrastructure
that is useful in fire-fighting agricultural crises
17. Departmental research programmes not
only help guide Departments with regard to their policy issues
on a day-to-day basis, but they provide the necessary scientific
infrastructure that can prove invaluable at times of crisis when
politicians need "best scientific advice" in a hurry.
Given that a good proportion of UK agriculture and animal production
is among the most intense in the World, it is likely that when
problems ariseand problems can arise with any policy choice
and in any areathat with UK agriculture they will relate
to intensive farming and its alternatives.
The Agricultural Select Committee enquiry is welcome
and reflects the concerns of other Select Committees and the biological
community at large
18. The Agricultural Select Committee's
enquiry is welcome and relects the concerns of other Select Committees
and the biological community at large. Parliamentarian concerns
over the past one and a half decade's decline of Departmental
Research have been expressed before. Most recently the House of
Commons Select Committee for Science and Technology, in its (2000)
report Government Expenditure on R&D, concluded that
"the long-term decline in civil Departments' R&D spendboth
in absolute terms and as a proportion of total civil R&D should
be halted and reversed."
19. In line with public policy on openness,
the Institute of Biology is pleased for this evidence to be made
publicly available. Indeed the Institute will shortly be placing
a version of this evidence on www.iob.org. The Institute would
be pleased to provide the Commons Agricultural Select Committee
with further information should it need it.
28 March 2001
Annex 1
INDICATORS OF
THE FORTHCOMING
DEMOGRAPHIC SHORTFALL
IN FUTURE
GLOBAL FOOD
SUPPLY
globally some 40 per cent of terrestrial
primary productivity (the biomass produced through photosynthesis)
is affected by systems managed by Man;*
world food grain production has been
very broadly stable since the late 1980s (1,600-1,780 million
tonnes pa). Against a backdrop of rising global population this
means that since 1984 to 1995 per capita production has
fallen from 346 kg to ~293 kg;
world meat production has maintained
a steady increase throughout the second half of this century from
44 million tonnes pa in 1950 to ~192 million tonnes in 1995, such
an increase that per capita consumption has also grown
over the same period from 17.2 kg to 33.4 kg pa;
though the World fish harvest continues
to rise, this is due to the rise in aquaculture (fish farming),
the total fish catch from the sea has declined from its peak in
1990;
the World's carry-over stocks of
grain have declined: and in 1995, at 296 million tonnes, stocks
were at their lowest since the early 1970s. In terms of days of
grain, carry-over stock was the lowest level since the mid-1960s.
The forecast level for 1996 is to be lower still at around 50
days worth of stock;
the World grain harvested area has
had a slightly declining trend since the late 1970s. Putting this
in context with a growing World population then the World grain
harvested area per person has markedly declined from ~ 0.225 hectares
per person in the mid-1950s to under 0.13 hectares per person
in 1994. Whilst some of this decline is due to set-aside policies,
the majority of it is due to a combination of the industrialization
of land use (particularly in Pacific rim countries) and desertification.
Set-aside land could be brought back into production but, for
instance, the total area of corn set aside in the US (1995) is
only two million hectares (less than 0.4 per cent of the World
total grain farmland). [In short, set-aside land provides a negligible
cushion.]
*(This is not to say that 40 per cent of terrestrial
primary productivity is managed, directly or indirectly by humankind,
but that this productivity takes place within systems managed
by humankind. In other words, we are not just talking about the
food eaten by humans, or even this together with the food produced
as animal fodder which is in turn consumed by humankind, but all
the biological productivity that exists in farms, parks, moorland,
woodland, lakes and boreal forests that are managed by our species
to some degree or other.)
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