Agenda for the year ahead

Pointers for 2021

Agriculture Act, Brexit, Climate Change – farming’s ABC is well rehearsed. But how will agriculture respond? Charles Abel identified 10 themes for 2021 at the on-line Oxford Farming Conference

1. BUSINESS AS UN-USUAL

Absolutely! Huge change is afoot and farming is responding. Or, as OFC sees it – “the world stops, but farmers keep farming”. Or as OFC President the Princess Royal put it: “unusual is common to farming”. In its 75th year the OFC engaged with 3000+ delegates via Bitesize seminars and 380-plus at its on-line Conference in January, where ever increasing change and uncertainty dominated www.ofc.org.uk

2. STANDARDS IN FLUX

Standards must focus on maximum benefits, argued Rob Ward, AgriFood Dealmaker at the Department for International Trade. Minimum standards prevent worst offenders, usually, but aspiring to maximums gives consumers more and better. But be careful what is said, since beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The UK food brand should focus on a love triangle of ‘heart’ via trust and belonging; ‘purpose’ through a clear vision, shared beliefs and sustainability; and ‘place’ using provenance, reliability/security and originality/innovation. UK Agri-Food Tech can help, backed by a record £11.2bn in venture capital funding for UK tech companies last year.

3. DIVERGING DEVOLVED AG

Farm policies in the UK’s nations are increasingly at odds, questioning the viability of UK-wide trade deals, fair HM Treasury funding, attitudes to standards and the purpose of farm support. Defra Secretary George Eustice insisted single farm payments had driven up rents, inflated input costs and depressed farm-gate prices. That needed unravelling. Devolved administrations felt very differently. Farmers and crofters ‘deserve and earn their support’, providing quality food, landscape and a backbone for rural communities, said Scotland’s Cabinet Secretary for Rural Economy, Fergus Ewing. He felt HM Treasury was removing farm support under the guise of environmental payments. Lesley Griffiths, Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs in Wales, wanted a ‘proper value’ placed on environmental benefits as support cuts looked set to leave Welsh farming worse off. Facing a very different Brexit in Northern Ireland Edwin Poots, Minister for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs said food production was a public good that should not be outsourced to overseas producers working to lower standards.

4. GENE EDITING ON MENU

Traditional good farm husbandry must fuse with the best 21st Century technology from the UK’s world-leading agri-science institutes, enthused Defra Secretary George Eustice. Consultation into gene editing in England would be a first step away from the EU’s ‘flawed and stifling’ view that GE must comply with GM rules. Instead, lines that could have emerged naturally, or through traditional breeding, should be handled differently, as in Japan, Australia and Argentina, he said. That could benefit nature and the environment, provide crops resistant to pests, disease or extreme weather, and produce healthier, more nutritious food.

5. MENTAL HEALTH

Anxiety, isolation, financial worries, lockdown – farming needs more support than ever. Recovery stories build hope and spotlight resources that may not have been considered, noted psychiatrist Dr Peter Aitken, helping 6000-plus people a year, especially through the Farming Help partnership www.farminghelp.co.uk Everyone can learn how to spot vulnerability and how to respond, ideally face-to-face, and how to ‘normalise being human’.

6. CHAOTIC CHANGE IS COMING

Phenomenal disruptive technologies are set to transform farming, said sustainability guru John Elkington in the Frank Parkinson lecture. A surge beyond the triple bottom line of people, planet, profit, to more disruptive, dramatic whole system changes, would be exponential and chaotic, but also ‘amazing’, he predicted. UN 2030 goals of no poverty/no hunger demand it and so will younger generations. Precision fermentation outside livestock, creating meat and milk with a far lower carbon footprint and no welfare issues, is just one example. Business models based on regenerative capitalism will drive it, delivering more economic, social and natural capital than they consume. “Dark clouds are everywhere, but the next 12-15 years will see almost unimaginable – but essential – disruption. It will be an incredibly exciting time to be involved.” He urged UK farming to prepare, especially for land being released for new uses, and to explain its future role far more clearly.

7. FOOD SYSTEM

REBOOT

Incentives for producing food need to shift, said Professor Tim Benton, leader of the Energy, Environment and Resources programme at Chatham House. With the world currently investing £620bn annually to support commodity food production, mainly grains, it is little wonder the system is so unbalanced, damaging the planet, driving climate change, and hitting human health through bad diets. Perverse incentives mean too little fruit and veg is grown, and too much oil, fat, sugar and protein, causing 20% of ill health and early mortality, and accounting for 5.5 times more deaths globally in 2020 than covid. UK costs linked to an unsustainable food system – in terms of pollution, waste, and ill-health – exceeded the sector’s own economic value, he noted.

8. LEVERAGE ‘FEED THE NATION’

Farming is well placed to exploit its ‘feed the nation’ role during the post-covid recovery, noted Ash Amirahmadi, Managing Director, Arla Foods UK. But with agriculture at a tipping point, and decisionmaking faster than ever, strong leadership, skilled use of data and close collaboration is vital. Use ‘radical transparency’ for consumers and collaboration as a competitive advantage, rather than trying to out-manoeuvre each other, added James Bailey, Executive Director, Waitrose.

9. INSPIRING FARMERS

Draw on heritage, stay passionate, and always ask questions, says Sarah Appleby, who took Appleby Dairy from the 20th century to a 21stC brand, leveraging its farmhouse Cheshire cheese history, as a passionate, personalised, added-value, artisan alternative to industrialised products, by being commercial, but not industrial, with good mentors and an eye to regenerative principles. Zero fear and innovation helped Paul Costello, from Galway, Ireland, develop Grasmilch Brandenburg in former East Germany, adopting a can-do mentality to exploit synergies between arable, pigs, dairy and renewable energy, making 365-day grazed dairying work in predominantly all-housed continental Europe – proving doubters wrong and creating a ‘true grass-based’ milk brand.

10. PRINCIPLES

TO FARM BY

Probe world agriculture for new ideas, especially working principles, urged Angus Davison, Chairman of Haygrove, which grew from a 1ha plot of strawberries to a £100m-turnover business growing berries, cherries and organics in the UK, South Africa, Portugal and China as R&D for weather-protecting poly-tunnel growing systems now sold around the world. Some of his pointers: no rules, no boundaries, decide what you love, have a purpose beyond money, enjoy it even when there’s no money, choose allies well, identify step change ideas and zero-in boldly through excellent execution.

“ In its 75th year the OFC engaged with 3000+ delegates via Bitesize seminars and 380-plus at its on-line Conference in January”