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A fact from which we cannot run away in a debate such as this is that, however much we may urge our own Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to do all that it can to support UK farming potential, in a world of uncertainty where, for example, an unknown animal disease can suddenly decimate a particular part of our livestock sector and climatic change can dramatically alter the food chain, we must ensure that we have security at home. That does not mean saying, “I want to keep out Johnny Foreigner’s food,” but it does mean saying, “I want our population to be safely fed.” We need to exploit both our national—in the sense of large-scale—agricultural potential and our localised food chains, because that will add another dimension of security. If big fails, small can at least make its contribution. In our discussions about policy, we need to focus just as much on smaller-scale as on large-scale agricultural activity.
Before I became a Member of Parliament, I made my living in horticulture. The enterprise for which I worked as marketing manager had 12,000 acres of horticultural crops to manage, and 400 acres that we grew. I understand what it is like to operate in the non-subsidised sector—to live or die according to one’s ability to meet the demands of customers or consumers—but I recognise the incredible change undergone by our horticultural industry in order to survive. We have the world’s largest indoor protected facility in Planet Thanet, which is a remarkable facility to have in this country. It shows that we can be innovative in a way that enables all parts of our agricultural potential to contribute to the task of securing our long-term food supply.
I want to say a little about reform of the common agricultural policy. One of the subjects on which the debate on the Lisbon treaty, for all its controversial nature, chose not to alight was a change in the treaty obligations. I welcome the new Minister to his post. He follows the right hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Jane Kennedy), who did a great deal of work to get up to speed with a complex brief in as short a time as possible. One of the issues that he will have to tackle is the question of what drives Europe’s agricultural policy.
The question posed at Rothamsted can be widened slightly. What is the responsibility of western agricultural nations for meeting their share of the long-term targets that I mentioned earlier? That does not mean British Ministers going along and pledging an X per cent. increase in production. They cannot do that. It is not like setting an aspirational target; they must do something else to encourage our farmers to play their part in helping to meet the challenge. But what about the rest of Europe? We know how politicised French agriculture is, and how domestic Italian agriculture can be. We know that there is big agri-business in Germany. All those countries have very different perspectives, but they must all operate within the terms of the common agricultural policy.
Article 38 of the Lisbon treaty refers to the establishment of a common policy for agriculture and fisheries. Article 39 states:
“The objectives of the common agricultural policy shall be...to increase agricultural productivity by promoting technical progress and by ensuring the rational development of agricultural production and the optimum utilisation of the factors of production, in particular labour”.
That is shorthand for “Let’s keep lots of small farmers in Germany going because it’s politically difficult to do otherwise.” It talks about assuring the availability of supply, and the particular nature of agricultural activity that results from the social structure of agriculture and from structural and natural disparities between the various agricultural regions. I could go on, but the treaty makes no mention of sustainability, climate change or the kind of global challenges we face. Commission officials and commissioners are fond of terms such as “multi-functionality” at which the eyes of most people in this country would glaze over, as they would not recognise it as an expression that tries to describe the integral role of agriculture in rural communities, providing the glue that holds them together.
I am sad that the Lisbon treaty did not address the need to bring up to speed the approach that will guide the common agricultural policy for some time to come, and make it a 21st-century treaty obligation to help with the reform process, which must get real; in fact, the comments from both Front-Bench speakers about, for example, the pesticides directive, the tagging of sheep and so on illustrate the fact that in the short term the things that drive change in the CAP do not give much chance to enable Europe to address the fundamental questions in a part of the globe where we have a tremendous productive advantage and where, against a background of climate change, we will be able to produce. We will have water and we have good soil. We have the techniques and the technology, but what are we going to contribute to meeting the global targets when Ministers cannot press buttons to set targets for individual farmers?
That brings me to the question of how DEFRA is organising itself to interact with that matter. One of the things on which we cannot fail the Government is that apart from the documents that I mentioned earlier, we now have a Cabinet Sub-Committee dealing with the matter; we have an official food strategy task force and a council of food policy advisers and so on. The only slight problem is that apart from the council of food policy advisers, nobody has a clue what the rest of these good people have been doing. Nobody knows how many times the ministerial Sub-Committee on food (DA(F)) has met, let alone what it has been discussing. I heard today on the radio—I think on the “Today” programme—that we are in the decade of transparency. If we are, may we have some transparency about what this Cabinet Sub-Committee is actually doing? If DEFRA is using this as a chance to reassert leadership in the UK Government, that is good, but may we know what it is actually trying to achieve?
Rightly, the Department of Health is involved; dealing with food security means that we have to address questions such as how much food we do not eat and how much more food we should not be eating—the obesity issue. Many of the business issues that affect our great food companies are more in the province of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills than that of DEFRA. I have touched on DFID, which is also important in the issue. The Sub-Committee is made up of the right players, but we need to know its agenda and what it has been doing.
Likewise, I know through meeting people from the food industry that the food strategy task force’s meetings pop up all over the country. I do not know what the outcomes of those meetings are, or what DEFRA has
been discussing. The Department has a real opportunity to start achieving one of its objectives: helping the food chain to respond to long-term challenges and to know what the agenda is. I looked at DEFRA’s own document “Ensuring the UK’s food security in a changing world”, and some of the questions are so general that they make one wonder whether it has thought through some of the issues. However, I am sure that it has, and I look forward to the publication of the strategy, and I also hope that our Select Committee, which aims to have its report out before the summer recess, will be able to make a contribution to that exercise. We recognise that an agenda for action must be set, and that we will not solve all the problems of our food and farming industry overnight.
I shall now concentrate on an issue that underpins all that I have said. In order for farming sustainably to achieve the aims and deal with the challenges of world food security, the Food and Agriculture Organisation targets, global warming, world disease, pandemics and the growth in population, it must have the right degree of knowledge. It is ironic that within the last few days we learned that Manchester United had sold Mr. Ronaldo—yes, a talented footballer—to Barcelona for, it is alleged, some £80 million, as that sum somewhat exceeds DEFRA’s annual research budget. That puts into context where our priorities lie. The budget of John Innes, a remarkable research institution, is £25 million. It is among the world leaders in analysing the DNA of our plants and dealing with the diseases that could threaten crops on a global basis, yet how much money can it rely on annually from Government? The answer is £12.5 million. The other £12.5 million of its earnings have to be derived from competitive contracts. I want the best scientists we can get hold of to be working on these problems, for this country and also for the world.
I say “for the world” because, although Rothamsted made it clear to us that the paucity of funding in this area is making it difficult for it to keep its talented scientists, we know that those that we have are recognised internationally as among the best. That is why the Brazilian EMBRAPA organisation, which handles all its agricultural research and spends some £375 million a year on research, has invested in an exercise called Labex at Rothamsted. It wants to work with our scientists to help solve its problems. That is an indication of the quality of our science, but it needs to have some support.
I acknowledge that in addition to DEFRA’s money, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council put £185 million into agricultural research, but the chief scientist, Professor Beddington, indicated that we needed to have an uplift of some £100 million a year of spending on agricultural research. Although the BBSRC’s sums have increased, we know from evidence that the Committee received from the National Farmers Union that between 1986 and 1998 there had been a 45 per cent. real-terms cut in publicly funded agricultural science in the UK. I say that that situation is unacceptable. A lot more investment than we are currently making is needed if we are seriously to take on the task of securing the world’s, and our own, food supply, because we must have more knowledge if we are to learn how to increase sustainably, and securely so as to deal with crop disease, the potential of UK agriculture from, for example, our 4 to 4.5 acres a hectare arable to perhaps 9 or 10 acres.
That came out when the Committee visited Pirbright to look at the whole question of how we can deal with the world challenge of transmissible diseases. When I found out that DEFRA had pulled out of the redevelopment of Pirbright, leaving that to the BBSRC but giving Pirbright an annually renewable £5 million contract only for monitoring animal disease, that told me that somewhere in the middle of Government we are, yet again, not getting right the sustenance of one of the world leaders in monitoring animal disease. We are the reference point in the world for foot and mouth outbreak. We are also dealing with avian influenza, bluetongue and West Nile disease, and various other diseases are out there champing at the bit to get into this country. We need to make our defences as strong as possible.
If, when the new Minister is looking at his diary, he decides that he wants to spend a profitable morning, he should go to see what is being done at Pirbright, and he should visit Merial to see how to defend against animal diseases. That would allow him to understand without a shadow of a doubt why, if we are to be able, as we have been, to deal effectively with our animal diseases, and if the sharing is to mean anything in terms of cost, we must ensure that places such as Pirbright are properly equipped with the right scientists, we must reform the Institute for Animal Health properly, and we must establish a proper working relationship with the Veterinary Laboratories Agency. Those are high priorities for DEFRA if we are to have a comprehensive and viable livestock sector.
Hon. Members will be aware that this is a challenging subject, and I shall conclude by making one or two observations about what we saw in Brazil, because it is sometimes extremely useful to see how other people do things. Brazil is very different from the United Kingdom. Brazil is an agricultural giant in terms of its potential. There, one can visit a farming enterprise that has 220,000 hectares under cultivation, which is, by my calculation, about 500,000 acres, and meet people who will say that they want to expand—for example, in soya, cotton or coffee production—by doubling the amount of land on which they operate. That is put into context by the fact that Brazil could bring into production anywhere between 90 million and 200 million hectares, which allows one to understand not only the potential but the need for capital, science, infrastructure development and sustainability. One can see the need for the west to give Brazil sufficient assistance—but not to direct it—to safeguard the rainforest and ensure that the removal of certain forest areas and the turning of them into savanna is done in a sustainable way.
All that emphasises the fact that if we are to draw a modicum of security from the fact that Brazil is out there with the potential to help our food supply, we need to contribute to what it is doing. Brazil takes its responsibilities seriously; it contributes to help sub-Saharan Africa deal with its agricultural problems and overcome the lack of productivity, the difficulty of post-harvest handling and so on. I make that point merely to say that the UK has a role to play in helping, but it also illustrates the global nature of food, farming and the environment, which is the subject of this debate. We cannot solve the problems on this subject on our own;
we have to solve them, in policy terms, in both a European and a global context. We must develop the right bilateral relationships with other countries if we are to be assured of a safe, secure, affordable and sustainable supply of food, which would be a source of pleasure to consumers, and indeed electors, in this country.
4.53 pm
Mr. Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con): I am grateful for the opportunity to participate briefly in this extremely important debate. First, may I apologise to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and to other hon. Members for the fact that duties elsewhere in the House have meant that I have missed portions of this debate?
As has been noted, this is the first debate in Government time on food and farming in five or six years, so it is long overdue. There are some serious issues facing our food producers and our farming industry, and they have not been addressed sufficiently in Government time or in Opposition time on the Floor of this House in recent years.
I genuinely welcome the new Minister to his post. He has an opportunity to recalibrate things and demonstrate again that this Government are committed to the UK’s agricultural industry. Personally I could not care less whether he is a vegetarian—that has nothing to do with the issue; what matters is his commitment, and that of his Department and his ministerial colleagues. He has a fresh opportunity to show that.
I wish to focus on two particular issues in the time available to me. Hon. Members should be in no doubt about what a disaster bovine TB is for many farmers up and down the country. It has hugely damaging consequences. I have sat with a farmer who has just lost his herd and seen his business subjected to huge movement restrictions, and that tough, practical man was reduced to tears—a very sad thing to see.
The disease is spreading, as the most recent map of the disease zone shows. Farming representatives come here every year to lobby Members of Parliament and to speak to Ministers and officials. They can be forgiven for thinking that it is like “Groundhog Day”, as they keep making the arguments and providing the evidence, but see precious little real action. Given that the evidence base from which Ministers are working is the same in England as it is in Wales, why is it that the Welsh Assembly Government have adopted a different—and far more progressive—approach to tackling the disease? I am not known as someone who lavishes praise on the Welsh Assembly, but it has got it right in this regard.
I want a clearer explanation from the Government of why a targeted cull is still out of the question. Is it just because the politics are too difficult? That answer will not cut it with the farming community, which is sick of the issue and wants some real action and solutions. I encourage the Minister to address that question and to liaise closely with the Welsh Assembly Government to see what lessons can be learned.
The second issue, which has been referred to several times by hon. Members, is the collapse of Dairy Farmers of Britain and, more generally, the state of the UK dairy industry. My first Adjournment debate, which I secured shortly after becoming a Member of Parliament in 2005, was on the state of the dairy industry, which is hugely important to my constituency. Dairy farming is
woven into the very fabric of life in Pembrokeshire, but it lurches from crisis to glimmers of hope—so farmers start investing again—back to crisis. Just in the last few days, I have received six or seven e-mails and letters from farmers in my constituency who have supplied Dairy Farmers of Britain and are under considerable financial pressure as a result of the collapse of that co-operative.
One of those letters was from a medium-sized dairy farmer in my constituency, and it tells me of his membership arrangements with the co-operative. He says:
“I am a dairy farmer milking 110 dairy cows, and was a member of, and supplied our milk to DFOB.”
He says that his membership investment over the past seven years has seen
“£32,000 deducted from our monthly milk cheque—this figure was calculated based on our milk production figures.”
“In October 2008, DFOB failed to pay the interest on our Membership Investment, stating that the global financial crisis meant that it was not prudent to pay the interest. This set alarm bells ringing”—
as it did for other farmers in the area supplying that co-operative. His story goes on:
“From 1 November 2008, DFOB introduced a price cut of 2p per litre—this money was supposedly used to close down two of their factories...and put the company back on its feet. We estimate that this price drop cost us £10,000 from November to May.
On 3 June 2009, DFOB went into Receivership, calling in PWC to administer the Receivership.”
He also says that between 3 and 10 June, PWC—PricewaterhouseCoopers—will pay him a nominal fee for his milk, rumoured to be about 10p per litre, but what really concerns him is what will happen to his main milk cheque, which should be more than £14,000. That will be lost, and other farmers in my constituency are in the same position of losing payment for a whole month’s worth of milk production. Those farmers are in no position to lose that money. They have been operating on a knife edge for some years, they have been trying to invest where they can and cash flow has been very difficult. To lose such sums—an entire month’s worth of milk payment—is very severe.
I do not expect the Minister to be able to wave a magic wand, but will he inform the House what discussions he is having with his colleagues and the industry about how they can support farmers affected by the collapse of Dairy Farmers of Britain? I appreciate the financial constraints that he and his colleagues are under, and I do not think that anybody expects him to start writing cheques to bail out farmers who have been hit, but farmers want to see that the Minister is alive to the issue and is taking it seriously.
In particular, I would welcome his thoughts on the behaviour of the banks in this case. One concern that several farmers have raised with me is the timing—the calling in of Dairy Farmers of Britain’s loans in such a way that suppliers would lose their entire May milk cheque. I would welcome the Minister’s response on that point.
5.1 pm
Mr. James Paice (South-East Cambridgeshire) (Con): I remind the House of my interests as registered.
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