Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1
- 19)
WEDNESDAY 28 JANUARY 2009
PROFESSOR TIM
LANG
Q1 Chairman:
Ladies and gentlemen, may I welcome you to the first evidence
session in the series to open the Committee's inquiry into securing
food supplies up to 2050: the challenges for the United Kingdom.
The Committee launched this inquiry at a meeting in Borough Market—I
think it is the first time that we have ever called a public meeting
to launch an inquiry, but I think that went very well; and it
was certainly helped by our first witness here today, an old friend
of the Committee, Professor Tim Lang, who is the Professor of
Food Policy at the City University. He is well known to anybody
who follows food matters; he is a regular broadcaster and commentator
in this area and I am delighted that you are here, Tim, to help
us in our first evidence session. Looking to the future, I am
very conscious that in terms of the outcome of the World Food
Summit in June last year, in Rome, two targets were set: one that
we should have as a globe 50% increase in food production by 2030
and that by 2050 we should have doubled our food production. It
may sound like a long way off but it is amazing how quickly time
passes. Perhaps I might open the batting by asking the question
because what we are trying to do in the first series of our inquiries
is to identify what are the challenges, what are the things that
are on our list that we have to attend to if the United Kingdom
is to make its contribution to hitting those two targets. So what
threats in that kind of scenario timescale do you see that we
have to address if we are to have a secure food supply along the
timeline I have identified?
Professor Lang:
It depends what you mean by threats. One of the problems with
the notion of food security as you know, we all know, is that
it means all things to all people. The issue is who is the "we"
and what is the threat and how do you define what you mean by
food security? At one end you can have, if you like, a military
approach, of food resilience—not that they colonise that
word but you know what I mean—and on the other hand there
is a notion of food security which says that the only way we can
actually produce the right foods by 2030 and 2050 is by sustainability.
They are rather different approaches; one is concerned about buffer
stocks, stocks—do we have we five days or eight days or
is it only three days in the pipeline down motorways; and the
other is saying how can we protect soil and water in an era of
climate change and deliver public health? So my answer is actually
to bat it back to you. I think one of the problems and one of
the things that I would very much welcome from your inquiry is
some clarification of what do we mean by food security because
it means all things to all people. To answer that problem myself
I think we have to clarify what level of production we want to
have in Britain or the UK and how could we deliver that and at
what environmental cost or not cost; and for what purpose? Is
it just to ensure that we are okay or is it to deliver public
health gain? Or is it to deliver cheaper food or is it to deliver
enough food, it does not matter whether the costs go up? There
are some complicated issues of political objectives behind your
question.
Q2 Chairman:
Let us focus for a moment on what Defra says. In the Ensuring
the UK's Food Security in a Changing World discussion document
published in July last year in one of the conclusions they reached
on this subject they said: "One of the most important contributions
the UK can make to global, and our own food security is having
a thriving and productive agriculture sector in the UK, operating
in a global market and responding to what consumers want."
Does that strike you as a rigorous statement that the government
know what food security is?
Professor Lang: No, I think they
do not know what they want.
Q3 Chairman:
Have you read nowhere in any text from the government—
Professor Lang: Nowhere.
Q4 Chairman:
... that delights your fancy?
Professor Lang: No. Firstly the
2006 Defra statement and the 2008 Defra statement were, if you
like, the classic: "Do not worry, we are a rich country,
we can buy on world markets; we can afford to feed our people;
there is not a real problem of food security." That is the
classic Defra/Treasury line. Then you start getting things like
the December written ministerial statement to try and clarify
this, which said, and I quote: "The majority of Respondents
to the July consultation paper ..."—from which you
were quoting—"said, `We should not base our food security
policy on the pursuit of self-sufficiency.'" And the written
ministerial statement went on; they proposed in fact a more complex
process—quote: "It seems clear that food security is
most usefully looked at in terms of the resilience of our food
supply chains, access to safe, nutritious, affordable and diverse
foods and ensuring the long term environmental sustainability
of the food and farming sector. The UK's food security is strongly
linked to global food security." That is quite interesting.
Then Mr Benn, the Secretary of State, in his speech to the Oxford
Farming Conference exactly a month later made the following statement—and
I quote: "The best way for the UK to ensure its food security
in the 21st century will be through strong, productive and sustainable
British agriculture, and trading freely with other nations. And
just so there is no doubt about this at all, let me say the following.
I want British agriculture to produce as much food as possible.
No ifs. No buts." I think you see there an illustration of
exactly what I was getting at. It sounds clear but then there
is a bit of "We will leave it to trade"; but then Mr
Benn's statement in January—"No ifs. No Buts,"
which has been much cited. I still do not think we have a clear,
concise commitment to stopping the decline of British food consumption,
production of foods which could be sustainably produced. That
is what I personally think we need; we need a definition of food
security which is linked to sustainability because ultimately
the only secure food system is one which is sustainable. So we
have to have sustainable development as a goal at the heart of
whatever we mean by food security.
Q5 Chairman:
Interestingly, when the Secretary of State came before this Committee
I asked him what was the current priority for the Department now
that climate change had gone to the new Department of Energy and
Climate department, and he hesitated just for a fraction and then
said "Food", and it was as if after a long period of
time his department had re-engaged—
Professor Lang: Rediscovered food.
Q6 Chairman:
... to play a key part with the department's name. Perhaps you
might give us your views about how well Defra has performed as
a department, which has had food in its title since its inception,
and whether because it has now suddenly, if you like, re-engaged
with food is it doing it from the point of view of a modern, forward
looking idea of what a department in government should be doing
about food issues, or is it coming at it from a slightly retro
point of view?
Professor Lang: I think that is
a very good question. A short answer—I will be very harsh—I
think it is making some very good and to be welcomed moves to
connect production and sustainability but it is not doing it dramatically
enough and quickly enough. I do not think it has yet quite got
the sustainability of food message; that is the heart of what
I think it should and could be about. But compared to, say, 20
years ago and the old MAFF, I think Defra is very definitely a
step in the right direction and I would not like us to lose sight
of that. Those of us with long memories who have looked for a
long time at the food system and how government and governance
of food occurs, Defra undoubtedly is allowing a more complex notion
of the criteria by which you would judge a good food system to
creep into public policy.
Chairman: You hinted in your answer earlier
that there is a lot of potential to produce more food in the United
Kingdom and you touched on, in your last answer, the role of Defra
in realising that potential. Perhaps as we go through perhaps
you could, in reply to colleagues' questions, say what elements
Defra should be picking on to ensure that we do have a thriving
food sector up to 2030 because, in closing, I am just very conscious
that for a long time now—if you like, in post-war Britain—we
have gradually subcontracted the supply of food to the non-government
sector, so that supermarkets, food service companies and food
manufacturers take the day to day decisions about what arrives
here for us to have on our plates and Defra has somewhat rowed
back from that. Perhaps part of our discussion says how much should
it re-engage with an agenda from which it has been absent. Before
I move on, David Drew.
Q7 Mr Drew: Can
we go one stage further that this is, in a sense, the epitome
of Europeanisation because in food there is a federal policy.
It may be that that is not always seen through in every country
but in no other area has there been the same history of the European
movement, if you like, in actually trying to design a policy which
may not be one size fits all but it is trying to make one size
fit as many different types of food system as you can possibly
incorporate, and that must have had a profound impact on the way
that government operates.
Professor Lang: I submitted through
the clerk's office to you a couple of reports that my colleagues
at the Centre for Food Policy have done recently.[1]
One of those reports makes it very clear in fact that although
there is a decline and, I think, a rather worrying and unnecessary
decline in home production of food in the UK, the bulk of the
sourcing of the food that is imported comes from other European
Union members, in which case the issue that you are raising is
critical, which is that if we had a notion of food security it
must be at the European level. One of the things that my colleagues
are championing is a view that there is a new direction for the
Common Agricultural Policy to become a common sustainable food
policy and that that actually offers the UK Government very beneficial
points of engagement with other Member States, with which over
food and agricultural matters, frankly, it is seen as an outsider.
What that also means is that it is very complex—back to
the Chair's issue before handing over to you, Mr Drew—that
there has been a tacit handing over of responsibility for food
policy and food security generally to the corporate sector, yet
the corporate sector cannot possibly resolve it because it has
been driving efficiencies into the market place through the supply
chain as its number one goal to try and drive down prices for
consumers. That is the long term 60-year task it was given after
the 1947 Agriculture Act. Decline in food prices means more money
to spend on other things. That level of policy is now being set
at the European Union level, in which case Britain has to engage
with that. The corporate sector actually, through its contracts
and specifications, does have a very tight control over its supply
lines, but it is doing it in order to maximise efficiencies within
those supply chains; what it is not doing is looking at the big
issue, which I think follows from the sustainability approach
to food security—water, the energy dependency, the oil dependency
in particular, which is showing up in fertiliser costs and so
on—all those issues that in our report we call the new fundamentals.
Those also are addressable at the European level but the British
Government could take more of a lead on. So we have the problem
in food security which is general in the food policy area of multi-level
governance of who has responsibility for dealing at different
levels of governance with delivering the appropriate outcome.
Q8 Dr Strang:
You have spoken of a moral responsibility to maximise food production
appropriately.
Professor Lang: Because of land
use.
Q9 Dr Strang:
So the question is, should we be producing—"we"
being the UK—more food?
Professor Lang: Forgive me for
interrupting you. Not at all costs. That is why I came back—and
I want to stress it again—we need a proper definition of
what do we mean by food security; it is too plastic—it means
all things to all people. We must have a new national definition
of food security, what it means and also what our position is
within that. To answer your question within that context, it is
about land use. I do not think that anyone I know at all or have
read ever thinks that we should be producing mangoes, papayas,
pineapples or bananas. In theory you could do so, but what it
the point? The point is to produce as much and as appropriately
and sustainably of what you could produce. In both of the reports
that I have given to the Committee we have stressed the issue
of fruit. We are actually producing a huge amount of cereals—a
large amount goes to feed animals, let us put that to one side—but
only 10% of the inadequate levels of fruit that the British are
consuming is produced in Britain; we could be producing an awful
lot more apples and pears. So my answer to your question is in
general yes we could and should produce more food but we need
to be specific about which foods and how, but there are some areas
of food production which warrant high priority. I think horticulture
is crying out for extra production; it is ridiculous that a country
that has 1,900 varieties of apples in the national collection
of Brogdale produces almost none of the apples that are consumed
in Britain, at inadequate levels of public health consumption.
As we know, we should be consuming five portions of fruit and
vegetables a day—actually, many of us think it should be
seven, eight or nine—and we are only consuming about 2.3.
If you translate it into those levels there is a missed market.
So the question you are asking is a fundamental one and I think
that although Mr Benn's statement to some extent was to be welcomed
it was merely a speech; it was not coordinated policy driven by
Defra to encourage the big corporate powerhouses, the supermarkets,
the buyers, to take the long-term investment to encourage farmers
and growers to plan. Then there are the other problems that follow
from my answer, which is issues like skills and can we do it.
Q10 Dr Strang:
Thank you for anticipating my second question, which was going
to be to ask you what we should we concentrate on producing and
you have given us an answer there, so (a) would you like to add
to that; (b) would you like to say something about how we should
go about encouraging that production?
Professor Lang: A: I work in a
public health department. Even if I did not you would have to
say that a good food security policy has to deliver public health
goals while looking after the land to enable it to be used for
long term, for future generations—that is the overarching
goal. I have said already that I think fruit and vegetable consumption
ought to be prioritised. In one of the reports that we gave you
we showed our extreme concern at the precariousness of British
horticulture, the science, the R & D base for supporting that
is problematic. The skills on the land, as you know from your
former roles in government let alone outside, are immensely sophisticated
that need to be put in place. So it is not just saying, "We
want more fruit and vegetables," but the issue is how and
do we have the right infrastructure, do we have the right skills
base? Not just at the science and R & D level, but in fruit
do we have enough people trained in grafting, pruning? You cannot
just plant orchards you have to run them and who is going to do
that? At a time of job insecurity and jobs going agriculture and
land offers a huge opportunity for long term employment.
Q11 Chairman:
Are you doing anything on Sunday afternoon because I could do
with a hand on my allotment to dig in the remainder of the manure—I
am doing my bit!
Professor Lang: I know you are
a keen allotment holder—I am too busy doing my own!
Q12 Dan Rogerson:
I will come back to an issue that you parked in your last answer,
which is about livestock and there is this question of sustainability
and where we should be going and all the rest of it. What is your
view for the future for my constituents in Cornwall and what do
you think food policy is doing?
Professor Lang: This is contentious
but I have to say it—and you know I am going to say it,
probably—the strong evidence on climate change, greenhouse
gases emissions alone is that we need to reduce meat and dairy
consumption—and note I say consumption. That therefore implies
that we have to reduce production. Again, it is back to who is
the "we". If British dairy production went down or meat
production went down would the British consumer demand it and
merely get it from elsewhere? So there is a production and consumption
balance and imbalance proper, which I merely park back. I think
it is and it has to be addressed—actually Britain is producing
too much meat and dairy and we should lower it if we want to,
in line with the Stern Report, in line with all the scientific
advice, and treat meat and dairy as one of the quickest and most
fundamental ways in which we can lower our carbon emissions, our
greenhouse gas emissions through food, which is what Stern called
for. We cannot make an omelette without cracking eggs—we
have to grasp this. In your constituency—I should have checked
I cannot remember exactly the terrain, the topography of your
constituency, but let us stick to Cornwall—Cornwall used
to be a main producer of potatoes; the potato production has dropped.
It used to be a main producer of herbs—it has dropped. It
used to have a very large agricultural and field ...
Q13 Dan Rogerson:
Cauliflowers.
Professor Lang: Cauliflowers,
exactly. All of those markets ought to come back with more diversity.
The British public, the consuming public has become more literate,
more omnivorous in what it eats; it is used to a wider variety
of fruit and vegetables. Terrific. Allotment growers, gardeners
know only too well we can grow them but they are not being grown
in field circumstances. I see a completely beneficial and new
role for clutches of agriculture, for further education, for skills
enhancement to work with and revitalise farming and growing in
Britain. Your constituency is classically in a wet part of Britain
where it is seen as only meat and dairy can come out of it. Historically,
not true. Also climate change will make it probably less true.
Q14 Dan Rogerson:
You have answered one part of it but what should be happening
with the land if it is not doing livestock, in your opinion. Mr
Drew earlier on was talking about the European context. If we
are talking about things across the whole of Europe—and
climate change will obviously lead to other areas where perhaps
livestock and dairy are even more impractical and marginal and
hard to justify—do you think that that will have an effect
and therefore the sorts of things we are talking about, about
whatever we might do with our diets in terms of exports and so
on, will have an effect?
Professor Lang: It is, and I know
that your next witness is John Beddington but if you had the Chief
Scientist of Defra, Bob Watson, who was the Chief Scientist at
the World Bank, he would give you extraordinarily complex and
persuasive data on the need to address the issues that I have
been talking about, and that Britain has a moral and political
responsibility as co-signature to Kyoto, etcetera etcetera, let
alone what happens in Copenhagen at the follow-up to Kyoto to
deliver on that. I think what I would like from Defra, why I am
broadly sympathetic to Defra but want it to do more and faster
is because I think this is an example of what I would want from
Defra. I would want it to be working in Suffolk, in Norfolk, in
Cornwall, in Yorkshire, in the mountain areas of Wales to say,
"How can you do your bit to address greenhouse gas emissions?"
It would be different answers for different locations.
Q15 Chairman:
Before I bring Roger Williams in I want to pin you down a little
bit because what you have done is to paint the picture of potential,
but you have also been saying that Defra's current descriptions
of what food security is are not detailed enough. I am reminded
from the government's evidence to this Committee that they said
that the government's definition of UK food security is for people
to have access at all times to sufficient, safe, sustainable and
nutritious food at affordable prices so as to help ensure an active
and healthy life. In your response you started to say that there
were certain things we ought to diminish the production of and
other things we ought to increase the production of. That is a
fairly general statement which still says that people can have
basically what they want when they want and at whatever price
that they can afford. How would you make that more specific? If
you were given the task of redefining it what would it look like?
Professor Lang: What would the
farming look like or what would the diet look like?
Q16 Chairman:
What would the definition look like because I am interested to
know how far you want to get Defra to go beyond the statement
of the general? Does it have to become more prescriptive, more
directive, more interventionist if it is going to achieve the
level of detail and the definition that you would be happy with?
Professor Lang: That is a good
question. The answer is I would like it to be more prescriptive.
I think it does not need to impose that but I would like it to
give a new direction of travel. I do not think it has been clear
enough in saying what is a sustainable diet and how can farming
and horticulture help produce that and what is the mismatch? That
is actually the information we need to have but we can only do
that if Defra grasps the nettle, if it will say let us take some
specific—
Q17 Chairman:
I am going to give you some homework because I know you normally
give your students homework and so I hope you do not mind if I
give you some. Would you like to, after this is finished, let
us have your definition. If you were saying to Hilary Benn, your
student, "Mr Benn, go away and write down in more detail
what you mean by that?" could you write in the answer?
Professor Lang: Yes, I will.
Chairman: Thank you very much.
Q18 Mr Williams:
You have clearly laid out how you would like agricultural production
to be modified to have a healthier diet and we have heard you
on that theme before. We have a little prompt here which says
how should such production be encouraged because at the moment
farmers are being told to respond to the market place and the
market is saying "We want more high quality meat and dairy,"
and the policy at the moment is not to encourage any particular
sector of agriculture but just to ensure that the potential for
production is secured for the future. Are you saying now that
the government should intervene in the market place and to try
to say to farmers, "Do not produce what the market wants,
produce what we want, what we have decided is the best"?
Professor Lang: I think the short
answer is that you cannot do it that way any more and attempts
to do that in the past have only both been experimented with and
also delivered in wartime circumstances; in other words, when
the framework of existence has given governments legitimacy to
do that. You could not do the scenario that you have just sketched.
The only way we could get the change from the situation we are
in at the moment, where we have a high carbon unhealthy diet,
high carbon unsustainable food production system from farm to
the point of consumption, is that we have to shift that to something
which ticks all the right boxes. The only way we will be able
to do that, the Sustainable Development Commission argued in its
now very classic report I Will If You Will, is by getting
government to take the lead, working with industry and the supply
chain but ensuring that consumers both are with it, are pulling
it and also being pushed. You have to have a mutual work across
the triangle of change. No one can impose on any one corner of
the other corners of the triangle. There has to be a virtual circle
going on. But back to the Chair's initial questions, what I think
the role of government is about—this is my opinion—is
that government is about setting a direction of travel; it is
not imposing that, it is saying broadly "Dear Britain, dear
food supply, dear consumers, dear companies, we actually have
to shift from the position that we are in at the moment to over
there and the only possible way that we can do it is by working
together but we have to do it very fast indeed. The greenhouse
gas emission levels have to come down, or else it is bye-bye to
climate change stabilisation."
Q19 Dr Strang:
We are going to pursue this about encouraging has to be the fully
maximised production of where we are self-sufficient.
Professor Lang: Where appropriate.
Dr Strang: Yes, where appropriate. I
think you have covered that.
Chairman: David, is there anything that
you wanted to add on that.
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