CHAPTER 2: A strategic approach to
food production
"Inevitably, food is globalised. The issue
is how one can make globalisation work for the betterment of food
security ... As climate change inevitably kicks in over the coming
decades, one of the ways in which globalisation can work in favour
of food security is by having not a single bread basket feeding
the region, but a globally inter-connected set of bread baskets
so that, when there is a horrific production shock on one area,
the food system can adjust to it. As one of the major trading
blocs in the world, the EU can have a major effect in promoting
this globalised food system that works for food security."
Professor Charles Godfray, Head of Department
of Zoology, University of Oxford.[12]
14. In recent years, the recognition has taken
hold of the urgent need for policy-makers to respond to the threats
to global food security in the period to 2050, when the world's
population is projected to reach a maximum of 9 billion. In January
of this year, the Government Office for Science published the
Foresight report on "Global Food and Farming Futures",[13]
which offered an authoritative oversight of the issues. In stressing
the importance of shaping policies for the global food system
(rather than tackling individual elements in isolation), it highlighted
six important drivers of change: global population increases;
changes in the size and nature of per capita demand; future governance
of the food system; climate change; competition for key resources;
and changes in consumers' values.[14]
15. The failure of supply to meet demand will
contribute to rising food prices, another major challenge with
which the world is already grappling. The OECD-FAO Agricultural
Outlook 2011-2020 projected price increases in real terms over
that period of 20% for cereals (maize) and 30% for meat (poultry),
compared to the last decade. [15]
"SUSTAINABLE INTENSIFICATION"
16. The Foresight report reiterated the need
to bring about "sustainable intensification". We recommended
that the requirements of a sustainable intensification of agriculture
should be the defining characteristics of the future CAP in our
March 2010 report on "Adapting to climate change: EU agriculture
and forestry".[16]
In his evidence to this inquiry, Professor Godfray, one of
the lead experts for the Foresight report, said that, given the
certainty of increasing demand, sustainable intensification was
"almost a deduction rather than an argument", and he
described innovation as critical to sustainability.[17]
17. Climate change is only one of several challenges
to the food system. However, an analysis of future developments
in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the EU contained in the Commission's
March 2011 Communication "A Roadmap for moving to a competitive
low carbon economy in 2050"[18]
makes it clear that EU agriculture may become increasingly important
in climate policy. While the significant reduction in the sector's
GHG emissions since 1990 may well be extended to 2030, the rate
of reductions could then slow down, in part because of increased
agricultural production due to the growing global population:
"by 2050, [on current trends] agriculture is projected to
represent a third of total EU emissions, tripling its share compared
to today".[19]
18. The concerns which we expressed in our March
2010 report have been reinforced by other analyses that have come
forward since then, notably in the debate about global food security.
We believe that the need for global food security requires
a broad, co-ordinated and swift response from Member States and
the Commission, which must take account of the different elements
of the food system. Improving the productivity of EU agriculture
is an important contribution to meeting the challenge. The response
also requires innovation, through new products and processes,
and through ensuring that farmers make use of best practice methodologies
and technologies. Agricultural innovation must achieve "sustainable
intensification".
19. This means that inputs (fossil fuels,
fertilisers, water and pesticides) into agricultural systems will
need to be reduced per unit area of land, while outputs are increased
and impacts are reduced on the ecological processes on which agriculture
depends, particularly on soils, climate, water bodies and biodiversity.
In addition to rising demand for food, in the coming decades there
is likely to be rising demand for public goods[20]
from agricultural ecosystems, such as carbon sequestration and
the protection of bio-diversity.
20. The Foresight report identifies, within the
food system, the relevance of waste reduction, and the exchange
of knowledge with developing countries, as important elements
of the policy response to the challenge of food security. Professor Godfray
referred to the report's proposed target of halving the total
amount of food waste by 2050. He drew the distinction between
high-income countries, where food waste mainly occurred in the
home and the food service sector, and low-income countries, where
nearly all food waste happens in the farm and the food system.
Incentives to modify behaviour, allied with education, or food
literacy, were possible responses to the issue in high-income
countries; targeting new knowledge, spreading best practice and
supporting investment in the agri-food system were appropriate
to low-income countries.
21. In the European Union, the European Commission
has recognised the substantial amount of food waste and the untapped
environmental and economic potential offered by better management
of it. A 2010 Communication[21]
noted that, in the EU, between 110 and 138 million tonnes of bio-waste[22]
are produced every year, and this is projected to increase on
average by 20% by 2020. The Commission acknowledges that, in the
vast majority of Member States "no clear and measurable steps
to increase bio-waste prevention have been taken", partly
due to perceived sensitivities regarding limitations on consumer
choice. Nevertheless, the Commission will produce specific guidance
on bio-waste prevention for national waste prevention plans and
will propose a set of indicators for prevention measures with
a view to targets in the future.
22. We agree on the vital importance of reducing
food waste but are far from convinced that EU Member States are
taking the issue seriously. We recommend that the European Union
move swiftly towards the adoption of indicators for bio-waste
prevention measures and then towards bio-waste prevention targets.
23. In terms of its international responsibilities,
the EU has the opportunity to draw lessons from the sustainable
intensification of European agriculture and offer the knowledge
gained to help low-income countries improve their own agri-food
systems. This must include waste reduction, which in developing
countries mostly occurs before and after harvest, especially during
storage.
STRUCTURE OF THE AGRICULTURAL SECTOR
24. A point frequently made to our inquiry was
that the agricultural sector, in the UK and in the EU, is very
diverse. The written evidence that we received from Defra described
UK farming as essentially an industry characterised by a large
number of small businesses, although it should be noted that much
smaller agricultural businesses are a feature of some other EU
countries. In June 2008, there were estimated to be some 328,000
agricultural holdings in the UK, with a very skewed distribution:
"A reasonable approximation is that around 20% of registered
farm holdings account for about 80% of the output/value added,
and that more than half of output/value added is provided by well
under 10% of farms."[23]
25. Looking across the EU, Mr Georg Häusler,
Head of Cabinet in DG Agriculture, contrasted the advanced nature
of much of the UK's agriculture with farming in some of the other
EU15 Member States, such as Portugal, Greece, Spain, Austria and
the south of Germany, where the sector needed a great deal of
development to become efficient. He referred as well to the heterogeneous
nature of farming in the newer Member States, pointing to the
extent of small-scale farming in countries such as Poland and
Romania.[24]
26. Not least because the sector contains a multiplicity
of very small businesses, it is clear that the agricultural industry
will find it hard to play an effective role in responding to global
food security without an overarching food strategy, at either
UK or EU level. Professor Peter Lillford, of the Department
of Biology at the University of York, contrasted the success of
the Netherlands in co-ordinating the efforts of the different
parts of the Dutch agri-food system with the position in the UK.
The key to the Netherlands' success was "a national plan.
They are a smaller nation than us with less global ambition, but
they have decided that they are going to be very good at food
and food processing in Europe ... the food industry does not represent
such a high priority in our nation as it should".[25]
27. We raised this issue with Mr Jim Paice, MP,
Minister of State at Defra. He said that until the start of 2010,
when the "Food 2030" strategy was published, "the
previous Government had basically set its face against any thought
that British agriculture was important"; and he commented
that the "Food 2030" strategy was in any case "extremely
vague in content and actual proposals".[26]
However, he said that the present Government had no plans to publish
any new document, and that he did not believe in "some Government-determined
plan"; and he saw no conflict between the Government's emphasis
on localism and the need to respond to the challenges outlined
in the Foresight report.[27]
A STRATEGIC APPROACH
28. We are concerned that the Minister's emphasis
on "getting on with developing and delivering policies"[28]
could lead to Government policy-making which is fragmented, and
fails to join up the dots into a coherent whole. If the Government
are serious about raising agricultural productivity through sustainable
intensification, they need to be clear what this means for farm
enterprises of different sizes and in differing agricultural sectors,
and how it should be taken forward.
29. Similarly, to ensure that a strategic approach
is properly informed, the Government need to be clear how progress
towards sustainable intensification should be measured and monitored
over time. We recommend that the Government should define a
clear set of widely agreed indicators to measure progress over
time towards increased agricultural production and reduced environmental
impact. These must be monitored by an independent expert committee.
30. The view of the Commission was expressed
by Mr Häusler. He told us that "if each Member
State has its own food strategy, we have completely failed. Many
might question whether there is any value added in the European
Union, but here there is. We have to develop a strategy; we do
not have it yet."[29]
We welcome this commitment, though its delivery will depend on
the Commission's ability to overcome the lack of coherence which
has in the past been demonstrated by different policies affecting
the farming sector. We suggest that, at the EU level, a food
strategy should underpin the Common Agricultural Policy.
31. In our April 2011 report on the "EU
Financial Framework from 2014",[30]
we looked at the role which the CAP from 2014 might play in delivering
the "sustainable growth" policy priority of the Europe
2020 strategy. We recommended that the CAP's share of the EU budget
should be reduced, and part of it transferred to R&D spending,
to strengthen the research efforts targeting the new challenges
to agriculture: global food security, bio-diversity protection
and climate change. We called for the remaining CAP budget to
support a CAP that was re-oriented towards meeting these challenges;
this would require greater efficiency, and in turn pointed to
the need for sustainable innovation to be an essential component
running through the CAP. We return to these concerns later in
this report.
32. We have noted the lack of a strategic approach
at the EU and UK levels. We conclude that national and EU level
strategies for food production should underpin successful innovation.
Without such strategies, conflicting priorities, between national
government departments and within the European Commission, will
inevitably act as obstacles to effective innovation. Strategies
must be sensitive to the diversity of EU farming and food production
systems, and should be framed within EU guidelines. They should
be developed "bottom-up", not imposed "top-down".
Local ownership and implementation are essential.
12 Q 643 Back
13
Op. cit. Back
14
Executive Summary, section 2 Back
15
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/13/2/48186214.pdf Back
16
Op. cit. Back
17
Q 662 Back
18
COM(2011)112 Back
19
Ibid, section 3-raising land use productivity sustainably Back
20
A "public good" is an established economic concept.
It refers to a good which is valued by society but which will
not be delivered by the market because there is little incentive
for individuals to either pay for them or supply them. This is
partly because, by their nature, the availability of agricultural
public goods, such as biodiversity, a landscape or carbon sequestration
from that landscape, cannot generally be restricted to one or
more individuals willing to pay for access (unless paying for
access to a national park, for example). Where the market will
not deliver those goods, and there is desire for them, the market
failure then needs to be addressed by public policy. Back
21
COM(2010)235 Back
22
Garden and park waste, food and kitchen waste from households,
restaurants, caterers and retail premises as well as comparable
waste from food processing plants. Back
23
IEUA 25, para. 2(2) Back
24
Q 511 Back
25
Q 447 Back
26
Q 674 Back
27
Q 675 Back
28
Ibid Back
29
Q 534 Back
30
Op. cit. Back
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