Memorandum submitted by the Campaign to
Protect Rural England (CPRE) (SFS 59)
SUMMARY
1. The value attached to the food supply
system by society is very closely linked to the animal welfare
and environmental outcomes of farming and food production
2. Key strengths of the nation's farming
industry include good animal welfare standards, effective agri-environmental
schemes and close association with the great variety of landscapes
found in Britain. These are at risk from narrowly productionist
farming.
3. The three processes most likely to damage
locally distinctive landscapes and habitats on a wide scale are
abandonment of less rewarding farm land, ruthless rationalising
of farming techniques to cut costs, and renewed and increased
intensity of farming on productive land.
4. From research CPRE undertook with the
NFU, it appears that a weakness of England's food production system
is the reliance of some farmers on the CAP Single Payment to remain
economically viable.
5. We would like to see the CAP evolve into
a new policy that delivers sustainable land management, a European
Sustainable Land Management policy. The policy should reward farmers
for the full range of environmental public goods that are produced
through farming activity, while also being compatible with sufficient
provision of high quality food and other production.
6. The onset of climate change means far
more uncertainty than ever before over the viability and productivity
of farm land everywhere in the world. Competitive advantage may
one day come to our relatively temperate climate and rich soils
in the event that growing conditions deteriorate in major commodity
and food producing parts of the world.
7. A strategic approach to the integration
of soil and farm land protection across all sectors of Government
policy is thus urgently needed given the existing, accelerating
and competing pressures on land.
8. We believe there will be an increasing
need for research into how food production and environmental protection
and enhancement can be successfully integrated and expanded. CPRE
also believes an increase in the provision of agricultural training
is vital for the future of sustainable farming in the UK.
9. There is a serious risk that a solely
production and target led approach could lead to a level of environmental
degradation through intensification last seen in the 1980s.
10. CPRE strongly believes that our farming
industry is an immensely valuable national asset, with strategic,
technical, environmental and societal contribution to make beyond
the calculation of contribution to national prosperity from food
and commodity production.
11. The monitoring of the effects of increased
production should include both quantitative and qualitative measures,
including landscape quality, biodiversity, archaeology and the
viability of local food networks.
SUBMISSION
1. CPRE has led the debate about the purpose
and the future of the countryside since its foundation in 1926.
We have worked with successive Governments to ensure that the
incomparable asset of the English countryside is retained and
enhanced for future generations. CPRE works for a beautiful and
productive countryside for both present and future generations.
2. We are closely involved in the debate
over the connection between food production, rural businesses
and communities and planning policy. We have pioneered work on
these relationships (Food Webs, 1998 and The Real
Choice, 2006). We are now continuing this work through Mapping
Local Food Webs, a lottery funded project that will map local
food networks and identify their benefits to local economies,
communities, farmers and the countryside.
3. CPRE does not own land and this means
that the perspective of our policy judgement is sometimes usefully
different from that of leading land-owning environmental NGOs.
4. CPRE acknowledges the crucial role that
food production plays in the management of the English countryside.
We are also strongly aware of the importance of sustaining a farming
community which has this expertise, together with the associated
professions and businesses: veterinary practices; machinery maintenance,
markets, product processors and trade support.
5. We gave evidence, both written and oral,
to the House of Commons EFRA Select Committee during their inquiry
into the Government's CAP Vision document (February 2006) and
to the House of Lords European Union Committee, Sub-Committee
D (Environment and Agriculture) inquiry on the Future of the Common
Agricultural Policy (June 2007). We also recently responded to
the Defra discussion paper, "Ensuring the UK's Food Security
in a Changing World" (September 2008).
6. Our responses are framed within the following
question which CPRE believes is crucial to the issue of securing
the UK's food supplies:
What should be the extent of land used primarily
for food production and how should this be influenced by prioritising
built development, protection of the natural environment or opportunities
for innovations in research, technology and land management policy?
How robust is the current UK food system? What
are its main strengths and weaknesses?
7. CPRE considers that the terms of reference
for answering this question need to be broad. Many of the things
which our society regards as strengths in our food system are
related to the environmental quality associated with food production.
Strengths
8. We would draw the Committee's attention
to two important strengths of much English farming which are of
great importance to the majority of the population. These are
good animal welfare standards and thorough implementation of EU
Directives and policies aimed at improving the environment whilst
conducting productive farming. The UK and British farmers has
shown leadership in developing agri-environment schemes amongst
EU member states. However, implementation of the Water Framework
Directive and Nitrate Vulnerable Zones has been slow, and the
Government and the farming lobby have opposed the development
of a Soils Directive.
9. At the same time, CPRE notes that EU
environmental and animal welfare legislation, agri-environment
schemes and cross compliance are often alleged by some of the
farming lobby to reduce the potential for viable food production
in the UK. An alternative might be that farmers could elect to
produce food to lower quality and environmental standards. Quite
apart from environmental considerations, CPRE is unconvinced that
this would be an economically sustainable route. It would relinquish
the opportunity to benefit from the marketing advantage of added
value and a reputation for quality. The farming element of the
food system in this country remains, for the time being, within
striking distance of re-establishing the valuable reputation of
the farmer as hero. This should not be forgotten in a future dominated
by production-led thinking.
10. CPRE believes a key strength of the
England's farming is its close association with the variety of
England's landscapes. The significant intensification or rationalisation
of agriculture in England would have far more destructive consequences
for landscapes and habitats than in many other countries. This
is because of the intimate association over millennia of the productive
use of land, wildlife habitat and the character of the landscape,
by comparison with places in the world where productive agricultural
land and biodiverse wilderness are much more segregated. Examples
include much of Canada, the USA and the formerly collectivised
farmland of some central European countries. An extract from a
speech by CPRE's president, Bill Bryson eloquently describes the
contrast between the quality of farmland in England and other
countries. "If you suggested to people in Iowa, where
I come from, that you spend a day walking across farmland, they
would think you were mad. Here walking in the country is the most
natural thing in the world, so natural that it is dangerously
easy to take it for granted."
11. This harmonious relationship between
farming and the environment is vulnerable, however. Significant
restructuring of farming in England could lead to networks of
semi-natural landscapes (our farmland), with combinations of management
to which the majority of native species have adapted, gradually
being lost. The variation across the country, expressed in the
style, scale, age and pattern of field boundaries, woodland, farm
buildings, livestock, crops and soil, would be suppressed or allowed
to degenerate. The three processes most likely to damage locally
distinctive landscapes and habitats on a very wide scale are the
abandonment of unrewarding land, ruthless rationalising of farming
techniques to cut costs, and renewed and increased intensity of
productive farm land. All three are very likely if farming is
encouraged to respond in an unmitigated way to market pressures
and opportunities.
Weaknesses
12. From research CPRE undertook with the
NFU in 2006 it is clear that a weakness of the UK's food
production system is the reliance of many farmers on payments
from the CAP to remain economically viable. The Government's Vision
for the CAP (December 2005) supports the ending of the CAP.
The cessation of the Single Payment is likely to have a profound
impact on the profitability of some businesses, communities and
families engaged in farming and land management. Some beneficial
land management activities will become less easy to accommodate
within farm businesses calculations. Means need to be found within
an international agricultural trading system of providing sufficient
incentives to ensure these continue where they are necessary.
Where more competitive farming is likely to bring pressure for
environmentally harmful activities, avoidance of these should
be encouraged. Otherwise, the indirect costs to society in terms
of soil and water quality and condition, as well as landscape
and wildlife damage, will escalate in the long term. The recent
results of the ten-yearly Countryside Survey by the Centre for
Ecology and Hydrology suggest a gradual overall coarsening of
biological communities associated with farm land. CPRE recommends
that the Committee considers this evidence carefully in its inquiry.
13. Before the CAP was established, national
agricultural policies which damaged the environment were pursued
explicitly in the name of food security. During the last twenty
years, a gradual shift in funding, regulation and objectives on
the part of Government, farmers and environmental NGOs has started
to slow and in some cases reverse the damage with very little
reduction in efficiency. Welcome animal welfare obligations have,
in particular, imposed increased costs on the livestock sector.
The issue of food security raises a variety of questions beyond
the merits of the case itself: whether or not there is a need
for "critical mass" in farming; the level of resilience
of English farming businesses to world competition; the question
of the export of environmental damage through the raising of environmental
standards at home and the threat of these standards to our own
farming communities.
14. CPRE is committed to helping the reconciliation
of the national asset of our farmed landscapes on behalf of the
whole population, farming interests and rural communities, and
the demands on farm land and rural settlements which introduce
urban, suburban, recreational or industrial processes and development.
The new demands on land all make increasing demands on the use
of land and the skills of those who manage and make a living from
the land. We recognise that the competition between different
interests is increasing. It is, therefore, becoming more important
to establish clear policy objectives for the use and appearance
of the countryside and to ensure clear processes exist to make
choices over the nature and extent of rural development.
15. CPRE would like to see the CAP evolve
into a European Sustainable Land Management policy. The policy
should reward farmers for the full range of environmental public
goods that are produced through farming activity, while also being
compatible with sufficient provision of high quality food and
renewable energy. Such a policy should avoid relying heavily on
a global approach to food and energy security focused purely on
markets which will be susceptible to extreme weather, global or
regional economic instability and political events that could
disrupt supplies.
How well placed is the UK to make the most of
its opportunities in responding to the challenge of increasing
global food production by 50% by 2030 and doubling it by
2050, while ensuring that such production is sustainable?
16. Opportunities for responding to the
challenge of increasing global food production should not be calculated
in purely productionist terms. CPRE believes it would be perverse
for the UK to deplete the quality of its natural resources and
its environment in a drive for production. The globalisation of
food production has failed to address the critical issue of making
sure supply and distribution networks deliver food to where it
is most needed whilst avoiding serious environmental degradation.
There is a need for caution in determining how much this country
can contribute to targets for food production given its land area
and society's commitment to high ethical and environmental standards.
17. Paradoxically, climate change could
actually make the United Kingdom's farmland more valuable in global
terms for its relative resilience and versatility. We will need
to respond to the demands for energy production from land when
the climatic pressures might set greater store (and greater price)
by increased food production. Competitive advantage may one day
come to our relatively temperate climate and rich soils in the
event that growing conditions deteriorate in some major commodity
and food producing parts of the world. Even if climate change
is less severe than anticipated, there are likely to be very serious
shortages of water for agriculture in many parts of the world
in the near future. Our own relatively efficient use of water
in food production will become a more valuable factor in world
food production.
18. There is, in the opinion of CPRE, a
serious risk that target driven food production policy could bring
about the levels of landscape and habitat degradation associated
with the early to mid 1980s. We suggest that this would, in the
long term, be very damaging to farming interests. Society has
spent the last 20 years paying handsomely to undo some of this
damage.
19. Meanwhile, farming in this country is
also put at a disadvantage through the serious decline in indigenous
agricultural research and innovation work. As well as contributing
to increased productivity overall, research could contribute far
more to helping farming deal with changing climate, enhance production
on a similar area without damage to the environment and finding
new high value crops and low cost, effective cultivation and husbandry.
In particular CPRE considers it to be an urgent priority to expand
support and funding for research institutes beyond the ambit of
university departments.
In particular, what are the challenges the UK
faces in relation to the following aspects of the supply side
of the food system? Soil quality; water availability; the marine
environment; the science base; the provision of training; trade
barriers; the way in which land is farmed and managed.
(i) Soil quality—CPRE has pressed
for recognition of the importance of soils for over a decade.
We have called for Government to protect soils more effectively
by: linking agricultural support to good soil management practices;
revision of the Agricultural Land Classification (ALC) system;
raising the profile of soils in the planning system; and supporting
the proposed EU Soil Framework Directive. Across the policy spectrum
soil and the land space it occupies does not have the same priority
in terms of environmental protection as air and water. A strategic
approach to the integration of soils protection across all sectors
of Government policy is urgently needed given the existing, accelerating
and competing pressures on land. CPRE does not believe that current
planning policy with respect to Best and Most Versatile (BMV)
land gives adequate recognition to the importance of soils. The
existing planning mechanism is now weaker, since the publication
of Planning Policy Statement 7 in 2004. Previously, national
planning policy stressed that BMV land "should
be protected as a national resource for future generations"
(para. 2.17) and so "land in grades 1,2 and 3a should
only be developed exceptionally, if there is an overriding need
for the development" and other land of lower grade and
without overriding environmental value could not be found (para.
2.18). Under PPS7 protection of soils was downgraded and
given parity with "other sustainability considerations",
with the inevitable effect of making the sealing and loss of versatile
agricultural land more likely.
(ii) Water availability—CPRE believes
that because of climate change there is an inherent danger in
locating the majority of our arable crop production in the East
of England. This emphasises the danger of the polarisation of
single sectors in different regions of the UK. If the new demands
of protecting water resources and managing the volumes, velocity
and quality of water flows are added to farmer's ecosystem services
management responsibilities, we have a huge portfolio of activities
that place additional constraints of food production. These will
require additional funding to agri-environment schemes.
(iii) The science base—CPRE is pleased
that the Government now recognises the importance of agricultural
research given the recent withdrawal of funding for Rothampsted
and the closure of some of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
research facilities. We note that £400 million is to
be provided over five years for international research and that
Defra spends half its research budget of £300 million
per year on the farming and food sectors. We believe there will
be an increasing need for research into how food production and
environmental protection and enhancement can be successfully integrated.
(iv) The provision of training—CPRE
believes an increase in the provision of agricultural training
is vital for the future of sustainable farming in the UK. It is
interesting to note that there now appears to be a polarisation
between training in agricultural skills and traditional land management
skills where once these would have been one and the same. CPRE
looks to rural development measures to provide the training needed.
However, current levels of funding have meant the Government has
had to prioritise agri-environment measures.
(v) The way in which land is farmed and managed—CPRE
believes there is an urgent need for the CAP to evolve into a
system of support for land management with a range of public benefits
clearly stated as objectives. This could deliver public goods
through farming which would compete in world markets. The attendant
public benefits of competent and responsible agriculture would
be accommodated through the financial support of a land management
fund. CPRE strongly believes that our farming industry is an immensely
valuable national asset, with strategic, technical, environmental
and societal contributions to make far beyond the calculation
of contribution to national prosperity from food and commodity
production. Most of the landscape, access and habitats that we
value require management which is intimately associated with the
productive use of land. Our joint report in 2006 with the
National Farmers Union, Living Landscapes: hidden costs of
managing the countryside, illustrates this point very clearly.
We identified landscape management activity conservatively estimated
at £412 million per year, beyond that directly stimulated
or required through agri-environment schemes. This figure takes
no account of work dedicated to wildlife management by farmers
which will not always overlap with the landscape work we recorded
in our research.
What trends are likely to emerge on the demand
side of the food system in the UK, in terms of consumer taste
and habits, and what will be their main effect? What use could
be made of local food networks?
20. CPRE has campaigned on local food since
the late 1990s and this work has combined understanding of local
food economies, landscape management, retail planning policy and
the distinctiveness of market towns. The work has built on Caroline
Cranbrook's seminal Food Webs report (CPRE 1998) on the
local food network—or food web—in the market towns
and villages of East Suffolk. Further research in 2004 into
the East Suffolk food web was published in The Real Choice.
This emphasised the importance of local food to the survival
of local retail infrastructure, enterprise, land management, diversity
of the area and general economic, social and environmental well
being.
21. CPRE joined a partnership led by Plunkett
Foundation in submitting a bid to the Changing Spaces Programme
of the Big Lottery Fund in 2006. CPRE's part in the programme
is a joint project with Sustain to equip local community groups
to survey and document their local food networks, and to disseminate
these findings at local, regional and national levels to promote
supportive policy change. The full portfolio of projects is entitled
"Making Local Food Work". The programme aims
to show how the needs of land and people, producers and consumers
are interdependent, and that community enterprise can make this
connection in a mutually beneficial manner
What role should Defra play both in ensuring that
the strengths of the UK food system are maintained and in addressing
the weaknesses that have been identified? What leadership and
assistance should Defra provide to the food industry?
22. CPRE believes that a key factor in making
the UK food supply system resilient is to maintain diversity of
production. This suggests the role of supermarkets in influencing
the scale and location of production needs to be tackled. The
proposed impact test in draft Planning Policy Statement 6 should
work to increase diversity of sources of supplies of food, not
restrict it. If the proposed impact test fails to retain the diversity
of food retailing this could lead to a reduction in entrepreneurial
stimuli with fewer more dominant retailers.
How well does Defra engage with other relevant
departments across Government, and with European and international
bodies, on food policy and the regulatory framework for the food
supply chain? Is there a coherent cross Government food strategy?
23. The need for Government departments
to work together is illustrated in the drafting of Planning Policy
Statement 6 by the Department of Communities and Local Government.
The cause of viable local food networks could be greatly strengthened
if there were closer collaboration between Defra and DCLG. CPRE
welcomes the Foresight study on future land use challenges. This
includes the Government Land Use Project led by Defra to identify
"the policy tools and levers needed to optimise our use
and management of the land" to 2050 and beyond.
Departmental relationships with the Treasury will be of particular
importance due to the ongoing review of the EU's Budget which
could have important consequences for funding of the CAP and rural
development measures.
What criteria should Defra use to monitor how
well the UK is doing in responding to the challenge of doubling
global food production by 2050 while ensuring there such
production is sustainable?
24. Defra should consider amending PSA targets
to take account of the potential pressures of increasing food
production. Environmental monitoring criteria that will be needed
to measure the sustainability of food production should include
landscape condition, archaeology, biodiversity, (through existing
PSA targets and the Countryside Survey) soil, water, and carbon
emissions. CPRE is concerned that quantitative measurements are
likely to be favoured over the more difficult task of qualitative
monitoring of the effects on the environment of increasing food
production. However, it is the qualitative experience of the countryside
that visitors care about most. It is our view that it will be
essential to monitor changes to landscape character through further
development and expansion of landscape character assessment such
as Natural England's Countryside Quality Counts work.
CPRE
January 2009
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