Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
1-19)
MR PETER
KENDALL AND
MR ROBIN
TAPPER
14 NOVEMBER 2007
Q1 Chairman: Can I welcome you to this
Environmental Audit Committee (Sub-Committee) looking at environmental
labelling. This is actually our first oral evidence session, so
it is good to see you here. Could I just say in starting that
there is a lot of momentum behind environmental labelling and
in fact we have all just been given one of these from Defra, the
pocket guide for environmental labels, and so on. So there is
a lot of momentum and perhaps a fair bit of demand for this sort
of thing, but the NFU, I understand, really would not agree with
environmental labelling in its current ad hoc and unscientific
form. Are you actually discouraging your members from getting
involved at the moment in the main, or is it very pick and mix,
if you like, about what you do support and what you do not?
Mr Kendall: Can I just set the
scene a bit, if I could, first and say that as an organisation
I think we have tried to be very pro-active in not just accepting
but promoting our environmental responsibilities as farmers. The
notion that we could produce at all costs and the environment
picked up the consequences is one that we have shrugged off some
time ago, but I think we have been much more proactive in driving
those messages across to farmers. We have been involved in voluntary
initiatives where we have insisted on farmers having on-going
training, specialist testing of machinery. We have been very proactive,
I think, almost to the extent that I have lost some members because
we have been so determined to drive higher environmental standards.
We have been very supportive of the agri-environment schemes as
well, although at the time it has cost us in having the redistribution
of money from Europe to fund some of these environmental programmes.
So we think it is a fundamental and core part of what we do as
farmers, protecting and enhancing the environment at the same
time, and I think this is one of the challenges we will face increasingly
going forward, while we produce more food, maintaining the environment
at the same time. The challenge we have, and I think one of the
very important aspects of farming in the United Kingdom, is that
we will not be the lowest cost producer of a commodity. We do
need to differentiate our product and we do need to set very real
standards for our environmental credentials—unless specifically
you want to talk about carbon, but I think it is important to
set the scene of where we are so far. We believe that the Red
Tractor Scheme, which involves farmers having inspections yearly,
does mean that the way it is folded into the Union Jack at the
moment UK production does meet the UK cross-compliant standards,
it does mean that we have environmental impact assessments, it
does mean that we have to belong to the voluntary initiative for
using sprays and pesticides. So we are embarking upon a journey
which is about differentiating our product and showing, although
some would argue they are fairly basic factors, that we do have
basic environmental welfare, but I would argue very high traceability
credentials. So we have got behind very seriously labelling—and
it has been a major driver for us as an organisation—but
it has been in the broader sense to differentiate the traceability
of the welfare and environmental standards that we currently produce
to. One of the reasons why this is so important at the moment
is that we have faced a major reform of the CAP, we have seen
decoupling where support is no longer tied to what you produce.
So farmers do need now to maintain or to achieve a market price
for their products which keeps their businesses sustainable so
that they can invest in that environmental protection and storage
requirements to make sure that we have a negative footprint. Therefore,
we have to find a way of making sure that consumers can clearly
identify what we are producing and the fact that it is different
to something which might be produced to very different standards
somewhere else in the world. I will give you one really vivid
example. We banned in 1996 stalls and tethers in the pig sector.
We have seen the pig sector decline by about 46%, yet today of
the imports we now have to make up the shortfall of our pig production
70% of it would be illegal under UK standards. So I need to make
sure consumers can see that we are producing to different standards,
so labelling is absolutely fundamental if I am going to achieve
sensible prices to make sure that we are sustainable going forward.
Q2 Chairman: Where does the main
demand for labelling of this sort come from? Do you feel it is
coming from the consumers, or from retailers, or from the industry
itself?
Mr Tapper: I think in the case
of the Red Tractor, which Peter alludes to, it probably came from
a combination of the industry and the consumer because it came
at a time when we had a lot of scares in terms of product safety
during the nineties and we had to find a way of first of all bringing
together all the various standards which existed into one common
one and then to make the consumers aware of that so that they
could be assured that first and foremost the product they were
buying (in this case with the Red Tractor on) met at least the
fundamental safety requirements, and then the requirements that
we would expect of basically good farming practice. So I think
in that case it was both. I think here, in the case of environmental
labelling, it is probably a combined issue. I believe actually
the consumer is less engaged at the moment. I think certainly
the awareness of the environment and climate change is increasing
rapidly and probably since the Stern Report we have seen a massive
awareness, but I still think the customer as far as labelling
goes is still not quite there. Some are, and I suppose, to answer
your question directly, some customers are demanding it and I
think we have to provide it so that those customers increase over
time as the awareness and the need increases.
Q3 Chairman: Do your members have
much control over the way these schemes are introduced and developed?
Mr Kendall: No. One of the key
things we were involved with following the Don Curry sustainable
food and farming strategy was to move this from being a farmer-backed
system to being one that is industry-wide so that it has a retailer
representative process, a retailer, and environmental representation
on the standard-setting groups. So we have deliberately—and
it is not always popular with the farming community—made
this more encompassing of the whole food chain.
Q4 Chairman: In terms of how your
members will be stretched in terms of their practices, and so
on, are we actually seeing these challenges really quite tough
ones or simply putting existing standards into a label, as it
were, and not really stretching them very much?
Mr Kendall: It is a challenge
for me in my role as representing farmers on how often I get trounced
when I go and tell somebody it will add a lot of cost to their
business, but it has been and one of the criticisms we have had
from farmers is that it continues to be a ratcheting up of standards.
I think a very large percentage of farmers are implementing the
regulations and rules as they are applied. We do have, as I say,
quite a lot of criticism for ongoing ratcheting up, but this is
about trying to make sure that we do meet standards, that they
are verified and inspected and there is real traceability through
the food chain. I would not want to put a figure on it, but the
late adopters do find significant challenges in the scheme, so
it is actually, I think, driving forward advancement.
Q5 Chairman: How great have been
the benefits in terms of promoting things as premium products,
if you like? Have there been some real advantages there for your
members?
Mr Kendall: No, it has not been
significant and it is one that we want to put more resource into
going forward. We have a major reform of the Levy Board system
and we want to find a way of actually being more proactive in
bragging about the provenance, the traceability, the standards
which we produce to.
Mr Tapper: I think what it has
meant is that although we have not seen value added to the farmers'
work, as it were, the product, because most of the major supermarkets
have adopted it we have seen it almost as the entry ticket in
terms of supply. So from that point of view, frankly, a member
who is not Farm Assured would have very little chance of getting
his products sold into the major supermarkets.
Q6 Chairman: What has been your members'
experience of using other labelling schemes, for example offered
by the Soil Association? Are they in competition with things you
do, or is it something which is broadly welcomed?
Mr Tapper: I think broadly speaking
the Red Tractor forms the sort of baseline for everything and
that certainly was our intention. In fact, we welcome schemes
which add, if you like, value to the Red Tractor. So if you have
got Freedom Foods, for instance, as an increased animal welfare
add-on but it has as its base level the Red Tractor, then fine.
Similarly with LEAF, which has its fundamental requirements the
same as Red Tractor but puts greater emphasis on environmental
responsibilities, then again we are very, very happy with that
and in fact encourage it.
Q7 Jo Swinson: You mention in your
memo that there are some problem schemes that you are not happy
about, which are not well thought through or are actually contradictory
to other schemes. Which are the ones you had in mind when you
wrote that?
Mr Tapper: Not so much schemes
as initiatives, I think. Obviously, the other big debate going
on at the moment is the health debate and there are a lot of issues
which come up on the environmental side which go totally counter
to what is happening on health. So there are people saying we
should have less animals on the farm, or that people should be
eating less meat, and in doing so, of course, we could run in
to protein deficiencies, on the milk we would certainly run into
possible calcium deficiencies. So we have got issues such as those.
There is, of course, also the very real one of landscape and food
production. If you have not got animals, then who manages the
landscape? In the final analysis in some areas the animals are
the grass cutters. Also, some of those areas do not support any
other form of food production but that, so it would actually put
our food supply at risk. There are lots of those sorts of issues.
I actually think—and this is somewhat cynical, I would be
the first to admit—the sort of scheme which has come up,
the carbon labelling scheme which has come out of the work between
PepsiCo and the Carbon Trust, if you were a little bit cynical
and you were a potato crisp supplier and you knew you were not
going to be winning on the health debate, where would you go?
You might perhaps go to the environment debate because you maybe
have to prove your credentials, that you have taken a responsible
attitude. I think it is those sorts of things. Although it would
be naive to assume that competitive advantage does not come into
it, to be purely focused on the competitive advantage I do not
think is in any way helpful and I think ultimately very confusing
for the customer.
Q8 Jo Swinson: Are there any schemes
which are up and running now which actually are accredited schemes
where you have problems with the way they are running, or is it
just those initiatives you have mentioned?
Mr Tapper: It is those initiatives,
and what does it mean for the customer? I think that is the question
we have got to ask at the end of the day. I am no food scientist,
but if I see a bag of crisps which weighs 25, 30 grams and I see
75 grams of carbon, I think, "That's quite a lot of carbon
for a small bag of crisps," or if I see a bottle of wine
which says, "Zero environmental carbon impact." What
does that really mean? I do not have a clue as a consumer.
Q9 Jo Swinson: A fair point. In terms
of schemes which have been developed environmentally—you
have talked, obviously, of some of the food labelling terms like
the Red Tractor—is there anything which you think has been
developed on the environmental side which has been successful
which you would support so far?
Mr Tapper: I think in their way
things like the LEAF scheme have improved the awareness. Awareness
is fine, but action, I think, is what we need and no other scheme,
as far as we are aware, with the possible exception of the Soil
Association organic scheme, does have rigorous standards which
are regularly reviewed and I think that is what we need as a starting
point.
Q10 Jo Swinson: Labelling is obviously
one way of presenting information to the consumer, but as you
say there are obviously some issues with that in terms of confusion.
What other options are there other than labelling for achieving
that information interaction between the consumer and the farming
community to come a bit closer together rather than having this
great divide?
Mr Tapper: This is a massively
complex subject. I was very much involved with some of the work
we did as an industry body with the FSA when we were talking about
how we did food labelling and that has become a minefield where
we have a lot of facts on which to base our decision-making and
the way we go forward. Here we are at the very, very beginning
and we just do not have that information. So I think that is the
key element really.
Q11 Jo Swinson: Do you think there
is a potential for labelling to actually change attitudes of consumers?
Mr Tapper: I think there is, but
because it is so complex I think we should be a little bit more
creative in this. Just to be able to say, if we take the Carbon
Trust one, for instance, 75 grams of carbon, what does that mean?
You want to be able to explain more than just what a snapshot
with a label can give and certainly I think the Internet, the
Web, plays a massive role in this and the point would be that
you would have a front-of-pack Web address. That is how you would
get it over in terms of making customers aware. Secondly, I think
labelling, in-store signage, can also make a big difference, but
just to put a label on I think is not necessarily the answer.
It depends really on what measurement we get. If we get a sensible
measurement which comes out with clear measures, then perhaps,
but certainly I think the jury is out at the moment.
Q12 Jo Swinson: Obviously it is a
very complex issue, but in a sense with the best will in the world
putting a URL on the front of the pack and hoping people are actually
going to go and log onto that website when they do their shopping,
maybe get their little Blackberry out and have a look—I
can imagine actually that might make shopping much more exciting
for men, but that is probably not going to happen. So while it
may not be perfect, do you not accept that having some kind of
labelling system perhaps backed up by these other things which
makes it simple for the consumer at a glance, once they are familiar
with it, like the red, amber, green traffic lights food scheme,
does have a great benefit in terms of consumer information?
Mr Kendall: Where I think there
are concerns is with what sort of products you would label. Agriculture
is peculiar in as much as it happens in the outside world, it
happens in the unprotected environment very largely. We are not
taking 50 tonnes of steel into a factory and producing nuts and
bolts coming out at the end, where you can measure your energy
in and you can measure each unit and the amount of energy you
have consumed. With that packet of crisps which Robin alluded
to the potatoes could have come from Herefordshire, from Norfolk
or from Scotland and the conditions in growing those could vary
enormously and the impacts of how much cultivation was done on
those plants will vary enormously. We are not producing, as I
said, in a sanitised environment of a factory. So it is going
to be a real challenge and we need to find out if we are going
to have a move towards putting some sort of carbon labelling on
a common standard with some sensible methodology. The early methodology
the Carbon Trust talked about did not take any account of positive
impacts which a farm might have. So if you had a dairy farm which
used its animal manures to actually produce anaerobic digestion
producing renewable energy, you would have your negative carbon
balance but you would have no credit for the fact that you might
have been taking green waste. There is a very good example in
the part of Bedfordshire where I farm. Bedfordia Farms have 900
pigs and they take all that slurry to big silos and they mix with
it the green waste out of Milton Keynes and Bedford. The methane
is then burnt to produce renewable electricity. They end up with
a very high value digestate to put on the ground as fertiliser.
They are getting rid of the problems with the slurry next to the
water courses and they are getting rid of green waste. In the
system which was proposed originally there would be no credit
for all the carbon benefit of actually making those sorts of amends.
Farming is a very difficult area to address and what we would
be very concerned about is lots of different schemes giving confused
messages rather than a very clear steer of what is actually going
on.
Q13 Martin Horwood: I would like
you to turn to the kind of area I was going to ask you about.
You have argued quite strongly for a single scheme. Are you saying
that this would work across all food and drink on a universal
basis?
Mr Tapper: Yes, because I think
if we come back to one of the original questions, who do we think
is really wanting this, if we believe, as we do, that it has to
come from the consumer first and foremost or we have to inform
the consumers so that they can make sensible choices, then we
must be able to have a system which enables them to compare product
with product, otherwise there is really no point in doing it.
Q14 Martin Horwood: When you say
"compare product with product" do you mean within a
particular class or market, or do you mean across the whole range?
For instance, if you had a range of oranges which were probably
all either imported or produced energy-intensively, if they had
a traffic light system would you want those all to be red, or
would you want oranges as a market to be defined so that the best
ones got a green light and the worst ones got a red light?
Mr Tapper: I think we have got
to come back to a standard system of measurement. I am sorry to
keep referring to the nutritional side, but that is really the
only one we have got. As I say, I am no food scientist so do not
over-question me on this, but within food labelling in terms of
nutrition labelling and ingredients labelling there is a sort
of system called McCance & Widdowson, which basically works
out the calorific value of products and all the rest of it. So
if you are producing a product you can look up McCance & Widdowson
and you know what the various key elements of that product will
be if you know what the ingredients are. What I think we should
have is the equivalent to the McCance & Widdowson for environmental
labelling, so we know what all the ingredients in terms of the
whole environmental package is and we give each of those a carbon
value (if carbon is what we are measuring) and that should be
standard across all products and probably should be based on the
lowest common denominator, so therefore the worst performance.
If you can then say, "I'd do a far better job," or if
you take Peter's example where somebody is using their waste to
make a significant difference in terms of ameliorating some of
the problems they might have created further back in the chain,
you can then flag that up. So again, using the food analogy, if
you have a standard product in order to be able to call it reduced
fat, for instance, it has to be 30% less than the standard. So
if you can demonstrate that the action you have taken makes your
impact 30% better than the environmental standard then that could
be a way forward. That is the sort of degree. It is very, very
complicated.
Q15 Martin Horwood: The complexity
that would be hidden behind it is one thing, but in terms of the
actual labelling and what the consumer would see, I am still struggling
with whether or not you are saying you want exactly the same standard
to apply regardless of the product.
Mr Tapper: Yes, we are.
Mr Kendall: Absolutely.
Q16 Martin Horwood: I am flying blind
here really because I do not know, but if turnips were a particularly
energy-efficient crop to produce, would you not end up with the
situation where all turnips were labelled the same because they
were all relatively efficient compared with soft drinks, or something
like that?
Mr Tapper: Yes.
Q17 Martin Horwood: So what incentive
would there be for a turnip producer to improve? Would it not
be more sensible to have a kind of best-in-class labelling, or
not?
Mr Tapper: But if you took my
reduced fat one -
Mr Kendall: The best crisp!
Mr Tapper: —if someone then
said, "Right, well, I am not using the same amount of inputs,
and I am significantly not using them, so I'm using 30% less inputs
for my turnips than the chap next door," then he could actually
put that up as being a low environmental impact, low carbon.
Q18 Martin Horwood: Just to pick
up Jo's point and your point about nutrition labelling, we know
there is quite a few very standard schemes now which are beginning
to emerge as front-runners, including the traffic lights scheme.
Would you like to see a traffic lights scheme for environmental
labelling? Would that be better? Because I share your problems
with 75 grams and what does that mean. Would you prefer a yellow,
green -
Mr Tapper: I think we would have
the same view. From an organisational point of view, our view
was for the nutrition labelling that we should go down the GDA
route to give consumers the opportunity to decide for themselves,
to choose what impact they are having.
Q19 Martin Horwood: But is that not
exactly the same problem you have been alluding to, that it is
actually quite complicated to work out from the numbers whether
it is good or bad? Does not the traffic lights system actually
give a much clearer message? There may be complexity hidden behind
it, but in terms of the consumer making an immediate judgment
as to what is good and what is bad, traffic lights are surely
much simpler, are they not?
Mr Kendall: But it does not tell
the story. For instance, if you have butter it is virtually all
red, so it is a red spot. If you have low fat butter or a low
fat spread, which has probably got only a third or two-thirds
of the fat which real butter has, that is still a red spot. Now,
you may say or one might take the view that in terms of trying
to improve my diet or to reduce my fat intake the first stage
in doing that is that I will go down the low fat route. By just
sticking a red spot on it does not help you in making that decision
one bit.
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