Defra Minister’s visit

CLUB Chairman John Lee introduced Lord Benyon, Defra Minister of State, to the Club’s Monday Evening Lecture in the Farmers Suite late in October.

It was a welcome visit, Lord Benyon said. “I am a great fan of this Club. I’ve never left this building without learning something, usually of a farming nature to my own advantage.”

He paid testament to the Club’s farming heritage. “The Cumber Room, for example, the Cumber family are a great Berkshire farming family, and I did my practical on one of their farms.” Connections with farming families across the country, and the world, made the Club a great place to talk about the future of farming and food production, as well as being a civilised place to meet.

“I want to take a moment to recognise how people like you have been at the heart of the farming industry through a period of enormous change – and I am not just talking about the post-Brexit years – I am talking about really in our generation we have probably seen more change in our world than generations before it, multiplied many times.”

Lord Benyon studied agriculture at the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, qualified as a land agent and returned home to farm in Berkshire, where he continues as “somewhat of an amateur farmer, alongside the day job in politics”.

Best fertiliser

“But I still walk the farm, and the most important thing that was said to me, the phrase that probably generations of you have heard, is that the best fertiliser is the boot-print of the farmer himself walking on his fields and getting to know them.”

With changes to the way farming is incentivised and supported he was starting to look at fields not as a whole but as different parts. “Which bits are productive, which bits aren’t? Without area payments we are going to concentrate on the bits that really can produce food and maybe do some interesting things with the other parts.”

He recognised there had been a bit of “mid-air turbulence” in recent days and weeks. He hoped a period of calm would follow – “not that such a thing ever seems to exist in politics.”

He said Government had three related goals: supporting viable businesses and growth; maintaining food production at its current level; and continuing to be at the forefront of environment, climate and animal health and welfare standards all over the world.

Farming innovation

“I am confident that we can and will be a world leader in agriculture innovation, at a time when food, energy and clean water are things society is really going to need, added to which are carbon sequestration and wildlife and places for people to go to take their leisure and to restore their health.”

He recognised policies would continue to change, in consultation with farmers working through tests and trials. “We shouldn’t be alarmed if governments, every now and again, have what is usually referred to as a review.”

He said Government needed to not take advantage of farming’s hard-wired desire to look after the countryside, but to work with it to make sure policy is right for farming and the countryside and society.

He said the new Sustainable Farming Incentive would support efficient and sustainable land use without off-shoring harms associated with lower production standards. “The natural environment is one of our most important assets, and this government remains committed to protecting it and enhancing it.”

“At Defra we know how important it is to listen and learn from the farming community. We have stepped up our partnerships through our co-design groups and when we say ‘the door is always open’ actually we do mean it and we want to hear from you.”

In ten years’ time he believed Defra would have a tried and tested codesigned world class system. “We have listened to feedback and with SFI there is no application window, there is no deadline, and there will be a much simpler method of application and reward.”

He said Defra was committed to supporting the next generation of farmers, with a new entrant’s scheme to create lasting opportunities to access land, infrastructure, and support and to establish a successful and innovative business, working with council farms and other landowners. He conceded that further conversations with the Home Office on agriculture worker visas might be needed.

Net zero 2040

Lord Benyon commended the ‘extraordinary moment of leadership’ when the NFU committed to farming hitting net zero by 2040. “I as a farmer am now baselining everything – how much carbon I am emitting, how much carbon I’m locking up, what I can do to prove additionality.

“I am doing that not just because I feel I should, and not just because Minette Batters told me I should, I am also doing it because I want to take advantage of some of the trillions of dollars of ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) money that is floating around. And there is a huge potential, not just in terms of carbon, but also biodiversity net gain and biodiversity uplift generally.”

He said it was important to encourage food production. “The Precision Breeding Bill is going to put us just where we should be on making the vast majority of our land really fly, while restoring nature at the same time. It can be done.”

Educating people about food, to respect food, was also important. “We waste a third of what we produce. The impact that has on net zero, the impact that has on the cost to the taxpayer of waste, which is a societal problem. “We have got to make it socially unacceptable to waste food.”

On re-wilding, he had visited Knepp Estate, and recognised it was not for everywhere. But natural areas should be bigger, better and more joined up, which policy was addressing.

Concluding the evening Mr Lee said: “It seems clear to me that we have somebody in the Department that understands our industry, understands the challenges and, I believe, understands some of the solutions.”