Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Written Evidence


Memorandum submitted by J P Agronomy Ltd

SUMMARY

  The financial implications for the farming and rural community especially small family farms will be severe and the negative environmental considerations difficult to comprehend. I am fearful about the effect on the third world from the proposals and voice concern on the environmental damage to the world in the countries that will take over sole production of sugar. We should reform the system not destroy it.

INTRODUCTION

  1.  I believe the sugar regime is long overdue for reform. We have dumped sugar on the world market for which we should be ashamed! However I believe reform is necessary not destruction of the industry as proposed.

  2.  I am an agronomist in North Norfolk and visit many farms in the locality. I advise on both conventional and organic systems with particular concern with low impact farming to encourage wildlife, in particular insect life. Insects are the glue of ecosystems, as I will explain later. If we increase insects we will automatically increase higher order animals. Sugar beet fit well into these ideals.

THE PROPOSED REFORM

3.   Financial impact of reform

    —  For most growers (who have become more efficient in the last few years) the cost of production is £17 per tonne in good years and rising to £18.5 in poorer seasons. For the last few years we have not had severe droughts which would increase the cost per tonne still further. I would be happy to show my workings for this cost, if a desire to do so.

    —  At the proposed level, of £17 (or less) most growers would be forced to give up growing sugar beet, it will not be a difficult decision, the proposals will give a negative return to the grower.

    —  The cost of haulage will go up in the near future (oil price rises) so that if the local factory gives up, there will be another increased cost which will make it unviable.

    —  The costs to agriculture increase as the prices they are paid reduce.

4.   Alternate land use

    —  The crop will be replaced by `another' break crop, most likely winter sown Oil seed rape. At present this seems to be the logical switch. Very little oil seed rape is grown in the sugar beet areas, it being the alternate host for beet cyst nematode.

    —  This will reduce the spring crops in the area.

    —  Our soil types do not take to 2nd wheat crops well, the yield reduction is immense from diseases such as take-all therefore a break crop must be used.

5.   Implications for small family farms

    —  Without the sugar beet crop it will make many small farms no longer viable, many of whom grow sugar beet on a one in three basis, the crop has been the backbone of the farms' income.

    —  To survive the farms will have to increase the economies of scale, and consequently agribusiness will increase at the expense of small farms.

6.   Implications for the local economy

    —  This will be drastic.

    —  There are many businesses reliant upon the sugar beet crop who are not in the first instance farmers. Obviously, in my case 25% of my income is derived from the crop and, although some would transfer into other crops, I would still lose income.

    —  The machinery involved in the production of beet is high and the support services large.

    —  The haulage businesses are reliant upon the crop locally and they would be greatly affected.

    —  Man power on farm is required to grow the crop.

    —  The estimates are 10,000 jobs involved both directly and indirectly will be lost from an already damaged rural industry.

7.   Implications for trading partners

    —  The Afro-Caribbean countries supply us sugar at our inflated prices.

    —  The reform will destroy their whole way of life

    —  Oxfam are so worried that these countries will not be able to compete and wholesale devastation of their economy will automatically occur.

    —  The proposed reform will create whole countries that rely on aid rather than trade. I am glad this is not on my conscience!

8.   WTO

    —  To the uninformed, the WTO ruling brought in the first instance by the rich producing countries/institutions looks fair.

    —  However these producers are agribusinesses, they have not regard for the implications in other countries.

    —  I would question how many families are involved in sugar production in Brazil?

    —  Brazil is a country that is destroying rainforest at an alarming rate!

    —  Who will benefit?

    —  We will pay.

    —  The poorer states of the world will pay!

    —  The decision is totally financially driven.

9.   Environmental impact of the sugar reform in the UK

    —  This will be huge.

    —  Perhaps this should be at the top of the agenda, as it is a bigger concern of government than farming at present.

    —  To remove the sugar beet crop will change the amount of overwintered stubbles we have. It is so important to maintain overwintered stubbles to allow birds to feed on them. It gives many birds the food source they require to live over the winter months. It is no good producing wonderful areas for birds to nest and brood rear if we condemn them to starve in the winter for lack of food.

    —  To created differing habitats throughout the environment, a patchwork of crops is the best way of increasing wildlife. It creates food supply and habitat for many important species.

    —  Habitat of the crop is of great importance—the skylark numbers in North Norfolk are extremely high. These will be severely reduced without the breeding habitat.

    —  Stone curlews (thanks to farmers such as Chris Knight) are making a very slow but sure increase in numbers in the sugar beet crop.

    —  Brown hares are in numbers that can be considered as a pest locally! This is partly due to the crop's architecture.

    —  Pink foot geese. We are fortunate enough to have one third of the worlds' population over-wintering in North Norfolk. The feed on the discarded tops of the crop after harvest. Most farmers leave the tops for them and plough and drill the next crop after the have migrated. I suggest that members of the committee who have not seen the most wonderful sight of the geese coming in to roost on a winters' night should come up to Norfolk this winter and witness it before it is diminished by this review.

    —  The level of environmental benefit is enormous.

    —  From my own work the species of carabid & staphylinid beetles (ground beetles) changes dramatically and positively when we change from winter cropping only to introduce spring crops. Briefly, most beetle species are in the environment for limited periods through the year and we increase the number of pterostichus species under winter cropping regimes at the expense of other species. If we increase the one species as mentioned there will be a corresponding reduction in other species. Those species adapted to the winter cropping regime proliferate. If the beetle numbers are low in the early spring, then the resulting food supply for song bird chicks is corresponding low. To produce food for song birds we must have a constant supply of insects through the spring and summer and the sugar crop will provide this. Sugar beet itself harbours many insects that become bird food.

  10.  The Sugar beet crop as it stands provides benefits for us all but will be destroyed if the cuts go ahead as proposed. Positive suggestions might be to

    1.  reduce the base price to £24 per tonne;

    2.  to reduce the A & B quotas by 5-7% and increase the level allowable from poorer countries by a corresponding amount;

    3.  to stop `dumping' on the world market by either having a quota system that allowed a tonnage of the crop to be carried forward to the following year for an individual grower. Thus if a grower over produced one year he would be required to under produce the next and no money would be paid for the over production until that following year, or

    4.  to create a bio-ethanol use for the "extra" crop. This of course should have been done years ago but the system was too easy simply to dump the excess on the world market.

  I urge the committee to think positively about the long overdue reform but in your deliberations please be very aware of your responsibilities to this country as well as the world stage.

J P Agronomy Ltd

July 2005





 
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