Food security is defined as a situation that exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.
(FAO, The State of Food Insecurity 2001)
Food sovereignty is defined as the right of peoples and sovereign states to democratically determine their own agricultural and food policies.
November 16 2008 ~
"only a total revolution in the nation's food industry can save Britain from serious shortages of staples"
It is cheering to see an article today in the Observer quoting the impressive Professor Tim Lang (see what he was saying last May):
"We face some awesome changes in the way we deal with food production. For the past century we have relied on oil to produce more and more food for ourselves - mainly through the use of petroleum products to make cheap fertilisers.."
The article warns that the UK "needs to re-learn the gardening skills it lost a century ago and to change its diet to one that includes less meat, fewer dairy products and more fruit and vegetables. Tim Lang says,
"This country produces less than 10 per cent of the fruit it eats. That has to change. We need to consider orchard planting on a massive scale as well as encouraging people to eat more fruit and vegetables"
The article says that livestock farming should be happening mostly on the hills - ironic, in view of the way hill farming has been systematically threatened in the past years - and it looks fearlessly at the need to change the use of the countryside so that productive land is protected from development. Read article and see also warmwell page on food security
November 14 2008 ~ "sleepwalking" into an energy crisis.
The Straits Times reports today that IEA executive director, Nobuo Tanaka, has told a news conference in Tokyo:
" If we don't invest (in energy), this problem will only worsen. Unless we develop new oil fields, we will be unable to maintain supply and demand. The era of cheap oil has ended."
".... .....when the dollar starts falling again - as it will - oil will crank back up.
The recent dip in crude prices is a temporary downswing in a much longer-term trend. That trend most definitely points up, a reality we ignore at our peril."
As for gas, the FT yesterday reported that Commission president, José Manuel Barroso, is warning that Europe risks "sleepwalking" into an energy crisis. The EU's answer is a plan to reduce the EU's reliance on Russia by forming a new company to bring gas from central Asia to Europe via the Caspian Sea. The credit crunch has resulted in even perishable goods getting stuck at ports because, in the uncertainty, letters of credit are being withheld. (see below) Pascal Lamy, director-general of the World Trade Organisation, has given warning that the credit crunch is affecting global trade and the refusal of banks to offer letters of credit has resulted in very few fresh cargoes reaching the market. DEFRA's series of "expert workshops and stakeholder events" to "inform a more detailed statement of our food security policy, that we intend to publish later in the year", aim to
discuss whether the UK food supply chain is "sufficiently resilient to withstand short term shocks and sufficiently robust to face long term challenges." The relevant DEFRA page is http://www.defra.gov.uk/foodrin/policy/security.htm
November 14 ~ put growers and owners of unused land in touch with each other
In view of what we foresee as an ever more serious energy crisis and accompanying reduction in imported cheap food, we mention again grass roots initiatives such as River Cottage's, Landshare, a nationwide scheme aiming to put growers and owners of unused land in touch with each other.
- and the Transition Towns movement which continues, thanks to the common sense of ordinary people, to gather momentum.
November 4 2008 ~ Defra was asked what assessment has been made "of the impact of the current economic situation on national and international food transportation and distribution systems"
Unfortunately, in reply to this timely and urgent question from Peter Ainsworth, Jane Kennedy answered with a (surely rather unnecessary) definition of "food security" and referred to the discussion paper Ensuring the UK's Food Security in a Changing World published on July 17. The relevant DEFRA webpage,(in its extraordinary version of the English language), says:
"The views we receive on this discussion document and from a series of expert workshops and stakeholder events that we plan to hold will inform a more detailed statement of our food security policy, that we intend to publish later in the year. This will help start the process of engagement on a key issue identified in Food Matters: Towards a Strategy for the 21st Century...."
The Strategy Unit's analytical report in July (www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/strategy/work_areas/food_policy.aspx ) did indeed attempt to assess "the robustness of the current policy framework for food" but although the Executive Summary's paragraph 16 extols the visual appeal of farmland and its usefulness to maintaining habitats, the vital importance of the UK's ability to produce enough food for itself is nowhere emphasised.
November 4 2008 ~ Landshare to the rescue
"... the UK is well
placed to access the food it needs from
world markets, where required..." said the Strategy Unit's analytical report, dismissively advising against "an isolationist attitude
to national food security". However, the melamine scandal in China has heightened concern over the safety of food imports and we have seen some markets unable to continue to export to the UK. The FT recently said that "the recreation of Soviet-style state trading will aggravate anxieties of food-importing countries about their dependence on the international market" As for China, its exports of key grains such as corn and rice are shrinking fast because of growing demand at home. The real impact on our own farming of high fuel, feed and fertiliser costs poses a danger to our food security - as does the government's apparent lack of concern at the state of farming. In contrast, Jamaica is a good example of one country far more aware of current challenges (www.jis.gov.jm/agriculture/html/). Low interest loans for dairy farmers are helping boost local production, the Jamaican Ministry is able to provide advanced technical information to farmers, and is promoting backyard and school garden programmes, in keeping with FAO initiatives to boost food production. Leaving the UK government's papers, reports and consultations aside for a moment, it is cheering that at the grass roots level, Landshare (a River Cottage initiative) is a NATIONWIDE scheme aiming to put growers and owners of unused land in touch with each other to make British land more productive and fresh local produce more accessible to all. One may register an interest on this page.
October 8 ~Dawn of realisation?
The Telegraph reports on the "First council since Second World War set up to look at food security "
"The production, supply and consumption of food in Britain is to be investigated by a dedicated Government council.
The Council of Food Policy Advisors will sit alongside the National Economic Council set up last week to address the financial crisis.
......
Hilary Benn... said "With rising prices and increasing demand across the globe, we can't take our food supply for granted. Our food supply needs to be reliable and resilient and able to withstand shocks and crises. Our food supplies must remain secure, and we must have a strong, thriving, environmentally sustainable farming industry in this country that continues to produce a significant proportion of our food...."
.... Professor Tim Lang, said recently that Britons should be growing more of their own food in order to counter the impending food crisis. His comments were compared to the Dig For Britain campaign encouraging more people to grow their own vegetables during the war years."
September 7 2008 ~ "Eating less meat would help, there's no question about that, but there are other things"
Professor Robert Watson, the chief scientific adviser for the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs is quoted in the Observer article today about the advisability of a reduction in meat eating generally: He says government could help educate people about the benefits of eating less meat, but it should not 'regulate'. "Eating less meat would help, there's no question about that, but there are other things".
It was Professor Bob Watson, a scientist we have come to respect, who said, of the International Assessment of Agricultural Science & Technology for Development (IAASTD) report that "continuing to focus on production alone will undermine our agricultural capital and leave us with an increasingly degraded and divided planet."
The IAASTD report's key questions include how to enhance production of more nutritious food in a way that has
"no adverse consequences for the environment - indeed positive consequences and in a way that really helps the poorest of the poor. ..Some trade policies of today certainly help some people but don't help the poorest of the poor.." Professor Watson can be seen on YouTube, talking with great seriousness about social exclusion and about the seriousness of environmental degradation.
August 30th 2008 ~ "...placing an intolerable burden on future generations"
The UK has become less and less self-sufficient. Now that Russia is banning many imports of meat and looks set to create a state grain trading company to control up to half of its exports (Reuters,) people are seeing oth food and energy in terms of political leverage. As for China, its exports of key grains such as corn and rice are shrinking fast because of growing demand at home. Beijing has to feed its 1.3 billion people against shrinking arable land and water shortage. Motley Fool today spells out the financial peril in the UK:
"...Just like the US, the UK continues to build up a sizeable annual budget deficit. Indeed, government spending is expected to exceed tax revenues by perhaps £50 billion in the 2008/09 financial year. In addition, thanks to the steady decline of British manufacturing, we now import far more goods than we export.....we are hooked on cheap imported goods.....according to money education charity Credit Action, our debt burden increased by around £98 billion in the past twelve months, or almost £1 million every five minutes. Today, our debt mountain is costing British borrowers nearly £95 billion a year in interest alone, or over £300 per household per month...."
We may be facing very grim times ahead. It seems more and more urgent that discussion about food security includes a realisation of the vitally needed input of UK farmers. Yet they are quitting farming in droves because of being undervalued by supermarkets, harrassed by government bureaucracy and harried by out of date EU regulations. Watch the trailer of IOUSA on YouTube
August 13 2008 ~ relying on multi-nationals to mass-produce GM food would drive millions of farmers off their land and lead to "absolute disaster" - says Prince Charles
Prince Charles speaks of the damage being "wreaked on the earth's soil by scientists' research" and warns that huge multi-national corporations involved in developing genetically modified foods are conducting a "gigantic experiment with nature and the whole of humanity - which has gone seriously wrong". There is a audio link on the page in which we hear him warning that it could all end in "absolute disaster".
What should be being debated was "food security not food production", he says. Telegraph article. Food Security was indeed debated in Parliament on June 30th this year - but there were many voices dutifully claiming that GM can solve the world's hunger. It was rather alarming to hear statements such as, "Whether people want to grow those crops is up to them, as is whether they think there is a market for such production..." as if there really were some kind of democratic choice involved. Food security in all its aspects has become a most urgent issue for Britain as well as for the rest of the world and it is cheering to see what genuine and powerful concern Prince Charles shows for the planet and for those who have no such voice to raise in eloquent protest.
July 19 2008 ~ "Why does it only get worse? After BSE, FMD, Bluetongue I always thought : that's it, we've hit the bottom now. Beggars belief, it seems there is no end in sight."
One much respected and successful commercial farmer, referring to the TB crisis among other things, wrote today:
"It all boils down to movements of animals on a wide scale. I feel the trade with animals, others than pedigree for breeding, should be prohibited as soon as possible. Moving them around in your own country is dangerous enough but sending them abroad is causing havoc and misery, for the animals and farmers."
Not everyone would agree of course. Yet importing food carries problems - and, in the other direction, the one case of the exported calves to the Netherlands and its fallout, is enough on its own to suggest that moving food animals on a massive scale can create far reaching economic problems. Then there are the rogue traders who care nothing for animal welfare and who ignore the extreme bureaucracy designed to make trade safe. Movements of animals by ignorant, greedy or cruel traders can cause animal misery and disease wherever they occur. Adequate checks are very hard to carry out. The present food crisis is beginning to make those not in denial realise that the present system of dependence on global trade is going to have to change fast. Food security in all its aspects has become a most urgent issue for Britain as well as for the rest of the world.
Tuesday 15th July 2008 ~ "A shift from an industrialised agriculture system to one based on ecologically sound
principles and free from petro-chemical inputs..."
The House of Commons
All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil has published its first report. See peak oil pages. Building on the advice of experts in international development its findings are as relevant to the affluent West as to the 'developing' world. It quotes a recent UNESCO statement:
"The status quo is no longer an option. We must develop agriculture that is less dependent on fossil
fuels, favours the use of locally available resources and explores the use of natural processes such as
crop rotation and use of organic fertilisers"
and agrees that ".... The food crisis is set to deepen if modern agriculture
remains reliant on fossil fuels..." The page 16 section on Resilient food production
advocates "independence from external suppliers of seeds, fertiliser, pesticides and water, .... builds resilience and stronger local economies, health and wellbeing." Interestingly it appears to concur with the view that
‘External Input’ agricultural models of
Green Revolution and genetic engineering technologies fare poorly compared with ‘Internal
Input’ ecological agriculture, where productivity is based upon biodiversity and full and
efficient utilisation of biological resources.."
The report is a timely acknowledgement that after the end of cheap oil and gas, business as usual is not an option. Nor can GM technology (see below) ever replace time honoured ways of working with nature.
Monday July 14 2008 ~ " for decades, food has been a convoluted tangle of restrictive rules, in the form of tariffs, quotas and subsidies.." NYT
On June 30, the New York Times reported that "at least 29 countries have sharply curbed or completely cut-off grain exports ..."
Such export restrictions may help the town dwellers in poor exporting countries to have access to grain - but they will further harm their own farmers - still suffering from the effect of global policies since the 1980s when the World Bank and IMF, to reduce budget deficits, insisted on the lowering of tariffs and the ending of farm support programs. Now, ".... the world is increasingly dependent on a handful of countries like Thailand, Brazil, Canada and the United States that are still exporting large quantities of food." The NYT article poses a question that all importing countries need to ask:
" Is it best to specialize in whatever food grows best in a country’s soil, and trade it for all other food needs - or even, perhaps, specialize in services or manufacturing, and trade those for food?
Or is it best to seek self-sufficiency in every type of food that will, weather permitting, grow within a country’s borders?"
Since the end of cheap energy means that the UK's huge services sector is not going to be able to pay "for all other food needs" the notion that the UK can be in a post agricultural era is indeed dangerous. . Yet excessive red tape and unfair miseries continue (double tagging and the huge losses from bTB are only two examples). Government has never been in such need of listening to and learning from its solid base of decent farmers and veterinary experts rather than its fly-by-night economists - on the subject of which, Simon Jenkins had much to say last week.
July 12 2008 ~ "community-supported farms helping to reverse a steep decline in local people's connection with the land"
Community-supported agriculture is expanding across the United States says today's Telegraph In New York City alone, there are 62 such schemes, including 23 vegetable farmers and up to 30 other meat, dairy and egg suppliers. Together, they provide food for 6,500 members who pay an average 17dollars a week for vegetables, which are delivered to various collecting points around the city.
"......A "share" in an organic farm's harvest costs on average between $500 (£250) and $800 (£400) a season and guarantees weekly delivery of a box of fresh, seasonal vegetables. ..... small organic farmers who might otherwise struggle to make ends meet have benefited from the guaranteed income, often buying more land with subscribers' money.."
Reconnecting people with the land, lessening a perceived deep gulf between town and country and helping people to understand where food really comes from can only do good. Far from being the 'fat cat farmers always complaining' -as portrayed by some political propaganda - many people working on the land have every reason to feel enormous and growing anxiety. Yet they are the custodians of vital skills in danger of being lost forever. We need urgently to value and protect our family farms.
July 12 ~ Rich enough to import sufficient food? For how long?
Suzanne Greenhill says in her Telegraph letter today:
".... We are currently importing 40 per cent of our food and this is set to increase as more farmers quit."
She adds that if the annual numbers continue at the present rate there will be no farmers left at all in Britain. "The EU and our Government are still stuck in the policy era of beef and butter mountains, and telling us we are rich enough to import sufficient food. We are continuing to pay farmers to remove livestock and act as park wardens rather than be allowed to produce food. What a disastrous waste.
Gordon Brown needs to look in his own back yard and stop lecturing the public on food waste..."
July 12 2008 ~ bTB exported from UK?
While many dairy farms are on the brink of collapse because of bTB, - the Dutch Ministery must have been appalled to find itself warned by DEFRA after it was discovered - after the calves had been exported to the Netherlands - that the British farm from which they came was infected. So far, as a result, 27 Dutch farms have been hit with restrictions or 'have been locked' as the Dutch like to call it - and Holland has been free of bovine TB since 1994 .
An Agrarisch Dagblad article (in Dutch) quotes Kim Heywood, director of the NBA
" We' re so sorry .... all calves from the previous two months are traced so that they can be tested. .as has happened with these animals which have gone to the Netherlands.".... The NBA, like the National Farmers Union, puts the blame for problems at the feet of the government. "Stock breeders do everything to keep this disease under control, but the government refuses to cooperate by dealing with (the wildlife source). .."
10 July ~ "There is no one-size-fits-all solution to the current food price increase. ."
If there really exists - as some genuinely fear - an ambition among the biotech giants to control across the globe the seed trade and ultimately food production itself, the present food crisis provides the ideal opportunity to drown out opposing voices. But there is evidence of what can happen when small farmers change over from their traditional farming to the use of GMO seeds. According to www.countercurrents.org what follows "... is a horror story of bad harvests, huge debts, increased costs for herbicides and fertilizers (in spite of the companies' promises of lower costs), and the suicides of thousands of farmers in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala - among the Indian states that are hit the worst." Marco Contiero, Greenpeace EU GMO campaign director said last month that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to the current food price increase and any claim that a single technology such as genetic engineering is a silver bullet for our future food supply distracts attention from the real solutions.
"Farming methods that ensure higher yields, that are more climate resilient, which do not destroy natural resources and can provide better livelihoods for farmers around the world are the only way forward."
What must also not be forgotten is the possibility of the unwanted transfer of antibiotic resistance markers, unintended transfer of transgenes through cross-pollination, unknown effects on the soil - and a possibly disastrous loss of biodiversity. (See also February posting.
July 9 ~ " a Government who seem obsessed
with regulation and centralisation.."
" ...there
is no reason why we cannot produce enough to meet the significant majority of
our needs. We have some of the best land in the world and some of the most
technically advanced farmers, but we also have a Government who seem obsessed
with regulation and centralisation, and who therefore hinder rather than help
those who want to get on with their business."
David Parker of the Western Daily Press: " The Royal Show...at Stoneleigh seems to have lost its lustre. ..
It did more for farming and trade, education and training, without taxpayers' support, than the Government could possibly contemplate. Its loss would affect everyone who eats, as well as those in the agriculture industry worldwide...." He reports that "producers don't trust Defra as a friend of farming because of a surfeit of bureaucratic red tape and its failure on TB controls, and the recent confusion over foot-and-mouth.. .."
July 9 2008 ~
"Soaring oil and food prices pose a "serious challenge" to stable worldwide economic growth..." AFP
The Group of Eight (G8) leaders from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States, have been televised planting their trees and waving to "supporters". One wonders how many viewers feel relief that so much political power rests in their hands. Those without televisions and already starving may not care too much about "worldwide economic growth". As far as the UK and its self-sufficiency goes, one can only agree with the NFU (See Fwi) in its reaction to the Food Matters report from the Cabinet Office in whose Strategy for the 21st Century - although Executive Summary paragraph 16 extols the visual appeal of farmland and its usefulness to maintaining habitats - fails to emphasise the vital importance of food production.
"Farming helps to maintain the much-loved
appearance and character of the UK
countryside and its place in the national
self-identity. Grassland and other habitats
supported by farming sustain valued
ecosystems and the species within them."
Its worry about "greenhouse gas emissions" immediately follows this paragraph and one sees no "strategy" in the paper to encourage the belief
that UK farming and local food production are to be given a new and urgent consideration by this government.
July 7 ~ The price of phosphorus has skyrocketed in the last 12 months - and phosphorus is only available from a few areas - none of which is in Europe.
According to www.delawareonline.com last month: "... the price of phosphorus trichloride, an important industrial chemical, has already tripled this year. ... electricity rationing and export taxes imposed by China have driven up the cost of phosphorus from China."
Producing biofuel through corn production requires twice the amount of phosphorus as soyabeans, wheat and some other crops. As more fields are being used for corn to supply biofuel, more phosphorus is being channeled into higher margin fertilizers, rather than being used for feed. In addition, sulphur, processed into sulphuric acid, is a by-product of the oil and gas industries - which are now also in decline. Yet another reason - if more were required - for the UK to think local, think self-sufficiency and to think sustainable.
July 7 ~ The end of cheap non-organic fertilisers - another warning sign
Unlike non-organic fertilisers, animal or green manures and compost traditionally added to the soil fostered the existence of the microbes who help plants to absorb nutrients. It allowed earthworms to aerate the soil. Now, the universal non-organic fertilizer combining Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium ( 'Growmore' for example) is becoming more and more expensive. Its components come from non-renewable sources and the manufacturing processes are energy intensive. Its use does not add humus to the soil - and when the soil structure collapses agriculture collapses too.
Over-use of chemical fertilisers can cause damage when excess nitrogen and phosphorus gets into streams and rivers - increasing algae growth that can use up the available oxygen in the water, killing the fish and destroying the eco-system. As Simon Jenkins said in May, "the market has delivered in months what the Treasury failed to force on us, a better husbanding of scarce resources"
July 7 ~ What role should wave energy have in the Government's renewable energy strategy? Should they be a higher priority?
In January 2001, this memorandum submitted by the Open University Energy and Environment Research Unit to the HoC Select Committee on Science and Technology (now ominously renamed Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee) reported that
"Wave power devices might ultimately supply up to 20 per cent of UK electricity with minimal environmental impacts. Given the UK's maritime history and its extensive offshore engineering experience coupled with the major energy resource offshore, it would be perverse to ignore this option."
Alas, the UK Wave Energy program had been shut down on March 19, 1982, in a closed meeting, "the details of which remain secret." (www.oilgae.com) Yet the brilliant "Salter Duck", never used, continues to be the machine against which all others are measured. "An analysis of Salter's Duck resulted in a miscalculation of the estimated cost of energy production by a factor of 10, an error which was only recently identified. Some wave power advocates believe that this error, combined with a general lack of enthusiasm for renewable energy in the 1980s (after oil prices fell), hindered the advancement of wave power technology." Instead, we got the white elephant of wind turbines rampaging and trumpeting uselessly across the most beautiful parts of the country crushing anyone who dared to raise their voice against them. See updated windfarm pages
Monday July 7 2008 ~ British food not biofuel
On the day that a second report by the Cabinet Office strategy unit launches a debate over how Britain can use its land more effectively to produce more food and reveals that 4.1 million tons of food are dumped each year in the UK, the Gallagher Report will cause the government to reconsider the targets set in April in Britain (see below) These required all petrol and diesel to contain 2.5 per cent of biofuels - and by proposing to increase this to 5 per cent by 2010 sent growers the signal that increased production away from food would be profitable since demand for biofuel would inevitably grow. As we see below, the EU's volte face will be very quickly effected. Professor Gallagher's report to be published today says that biofuel from non-food crops may be sustainable but concludes that production from food crops is not: the risks are too great to impose higher targets.
The Independent quotes Oxfam:
"As we divert more and more rapeseed crop into fuel, European industry is buying increasing supplies of edible oils from overseas including palm oil."
Thursday 3 July 2008 ~ "a worsening global food and energy crisis pushing more of the world's people into poverty and destabilising economies..".
Reuters reports that the World Bank President, Robert Zoellick, in a letter copied to leaders of the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, and the United Nations,
has asked the Group of Eight industrial nations and major oil producers urgently to address a worsening global food and energy crisis, saying,
"We are entering a danger zone..."
Zoellick says the G8 and international community should consider a global reserve system for food emergencies similar to that of the International Energy Agency (IEA), which coordinates the release of emergency oil reserves by member countries.
Ahead of the G8 summit in Japan on July 7-9, Zoellick said 10 billion US dollars will be needed for emergency food aid and to help countries deal with the double impact of rising food and fuel prices.
He says that urgent steps need to be taken to get seed and fertilisers to poor farmers, especially in Africa, in time for the next planting season. Read Reuters article.
July 2 2008 ~ A sustainable food system must be low energy, water conscious and actively involve as many people as possible.
Dr Ian Gibson, in his persuasive arguments in favour of GM crops in Tuesday's debate, said: ".. high food prices will be
with us for some time to come. The only response is to increase the food supply.. " He meant that genetic modification has the answer. However, on the notion that we can relax and simply now give full rein to GM crops, one warmwell emailer says today,
"....I
am not at all convinced that in times of diminishing oil reserves we should
seek to utilise methods so dependent on oil-based products (fertiliser,
herbicide etc)"
He went on to say that in the production of herbicide-resistant varieties, if the seed production and the herbicide production lies in the same commercial organisation it is "a bit like having an election with only
one candidate".
Since intensive farming equipment is so dependent on fossil fuel for its machinery, transport and non-organic fertilisers, let us instead learn to cultivate our gardens in the most biodiverse way we can, and encourage as fast and as widely spread as possible the human scale gardening and farming that isn't dependent on oil. The methods so happily embraced by UK smallholders, by the Transition movement and other far-sighted ones should now be a source of inspiration to all.
July 1 2008 ~ "...we have a Government who seem obsessed with regulation and centralisation, and who therefore hinder rather than help ...."
There have been on this website several urgent paragraphs in recent weeks about food security and the need for self-sufficiency in what could well be a far more than a temporary crisis. The Food Security debate in the House of Commons yesterday
began with a tour de force from James Paice, who clearly understands the present dangers. On the government's apparent contempt for UK farming:
"In December 2005, a joint policy document... called “A Vision for the Common Agricultural Policy” made the astonishing statement that
“domestic production is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for food security”.
....Are the Government really suggesting that it does not matter whether there is any domestic production at all?.."
Mr Paice told the House that in the past six weeks he has openly challenged both Hilary Benn and Gordon Brown to disown that document. Neither of them has done so. "It is true that both have made noises about the importance of British farming, but, as I shall show, they have done nothing of significance..." He feels ,".... there is no reason why we cannot produce enough to meet the significant majority of our needs. We have some of the best land in the world and some of the most technically advanced farmers, but we also have a Government who seem obsessed with regulation and centralisation, and who therefore hinder rather than help those who want to get on with their business."
His speeches, as well as many of the others, are worth reading in full since a great number of vitally important farming issues were mentioned yesterday, including GM, the CAP, milk prices, cost sharing, biofuels, labelling as well as animal welfare and disease policies. On regulations and gold-plating, Mr Paice said, "Unless there is a clear benefit to be gained from a regulation, it is pointless. I question considerably the need for them..." Mr Benn tried hard with all this but did not seem to show the grasp demonstrated by many others.
July 1 ~ "...... a practical and moral imperative that Great Britain retains the capacity to produce a significant proportion of its own food.."
James Paice's opening statement is worth quoting in full
"That this House notes with concern current food shortages which are believed to have pushed 100 million people into hunger worldwide; recognises that rising food prices are putting household budgets under increasing strain; believes that with rising global demand and pressure on supply it is both a practical and moral imperative that Great Britain retains the capacity to produce a significant proportion of its own food; notes that UK self-sufficiency in food has declined considerably over the last decade; regrets the Government’s failure to accept that domestic production is a necessary condition for food security; and urges the Government to relieve pressure on world markets and ensure the security of domestic food supply by enabling British farmers to optimise food production while preserving the natural environment.
." Read the debate
June 20 2008 ~ "Europe is heavily dependent on imports as it does not have enough land to both farm animals and grow the feed they need."
In an article revealing that the Environment minister has held private talks with the biotechnology industry about relaxing Britain's policy on the use of GM crops, Andrew Grice, the
Independent's Political Editor in Brussels tells us
"...
At a two-day summit in Brussels which began last night, EU leaders were urged to "bite the bullet" and embrace GM products as a solution to rocketing food prices. .... Europe is heavily dependent on imports as it does not have enough land to both farm animals and grow the feed they need. .."
At the end of the article
Michael McCarthy's Q and A section we discover that it is only in the developing countries that governments and universities are now working on drought-resistant crop strains. The dominant aim of the big commercial companies is different. It is "is to maximise profits rather than to pull the world out of poverty and hunger".
If widely grown in Britain, the present "broad-spectrum" weedkillers used with herbicide-tolerant crops
"would have a devastating effect on farmland wildlife".
June 18 2008 ~ "... a strong domestic agricultural industry" and "we do need to respond to changing circumstances." Hilary Benn
How influential for far too long has been the idea that the world population can be sustained by globalisation, big business and cheap imports. The often heard contention that the UK does not really need farming has been deeply worrying.
However, these answers to PQs on June 12 suggest that there is now a genuine awareness of the crisis we face. Is this allowing those in DEFRA with good sense to get their voices heard at last?
".....effective risk management and contingency planning, security of energy supplies, access to food from a variety of sources and a strong domestic agricultural industry and food chain and infrastructure." Read Mr Benn's parliamentary answers in full
June 18 ~ "The UK is more self-sufficient in food supply now than we were at the end of the Second
World War...."
was the astonishing claim by Hilary Benn in his answers on 12 Jun 2008. He did at least add, "but we do need to respond to changing circumstances". The Lib Dem, Roger Williams, recently mentioned the Government report on food showing that in temperate or indigenous food products UK self-sufficiency has fallen by about 10 per cent over the past 10 years. Since our reduced agricultural output is "putting more strain on world markets and makes us compete with developing countries for that food" we look forward to Hilary Benn's paper later this month on "ensuring food security". Global food shortages have at long last focused attention on the UK's declining ability to feed itself. The Western Morning News recently reported that James Paice wants the Government to ditch its current policy which states that domestic production is "not a necessary condition for food security..." An
NFU spokesman too made a plea for
"a clear acknowledgment of the value of stepping up food production..."
and one hopes to see in Hilary Benn's paper a new commitment to some serious investment in research and development, accompanied by a genuine attack on red tape. The crisis is a real one. As Hamish McRae says in the Independent, "what I think everyone would be agreed on is that the age of easy oil is past". (see also oil page)
June 16 2008 ~ Paradoxical challenges or tackling the problems?
Few in power seem able to see beyond the present systems that have led to an increasingly grave situation. The oil-powered rush for economic growth brought about a parallel growth of the world’s population ( 77 million more of us each year) and a dependency on fossil fuels. Controlling population, examining current mindsets about growth and globalisation - and promoting something approaching self sufficiency again might give us - even at this late stage - a chance to survive without resource wars and the starvation of the most vulnerable. The Transition initiative provides a grass roots starting point for the UK at least.
June 12 ~ "as terrifying a problem as our politicians have ever faced"
Christopher Booker's
article in yesterday's Mail warns of " the real energy crisis far worse than the widespread blackouts which recently - largely unreported - blacked out half-a-million UK homes". Britain is set to lose nearly half its electricity in six years"
"..We are no longer talking just about factories shutting down or lighting our homes with candles. Without computers, our entire economy would grind to a halt.."
While the Government now wants to build a new generation of nuclear power stations
"...with such a worldwide demand for new nuclear power, what chance is there that even EDF could provide enough reactors to meet our needs, when building each new one might take ten years or more? ....
Incredibly, we are 'obliged' by the EU, within 12 years, to generate no less than 38 per cent of our electricity from renewable sources.... we have no hope of achieving even a fraction of that target
...."
As Mr Booker says, the need to avert the worst consequences of sudden power down must be put right at the top of our national political agenda - (and after our daily Cassandra-like outpourings, it is good to see the mainstream press beginning at last to voice the same urgent concerns.)
June 12 ~ "They can't quite say 'peak' in so many words. They don't want to rock the boat."
Most mainstream newspaper articles about the serious consequences of the end of cheap energy do, however, tend to leave the really bad news until far into the article. Today's Independent today on the subject of peak oil is hardly an exception. " it seems hard to believe that the world could really be running low on easy oil..." But as the article proceeds we see that geologists, market analysts and oil prospectors believe that the peak oil scenario is becoming reality. Colin Campbell and Matthew Simmons are no longer regarded as "wacky radicals" and
Chris Skrebowski, editor of Petroleum Review is quoted:
"You can just about struggle through to 2011, if everything goes to plan - which, of course, it won't - ..."
And here is Colin Campbell on the major oil companies: "They can't quite say 'peak' in so many words. They don't want to rock the boat."
The "most notable peak oil refusnik", says the article, is the International Energy Agency - but even the IEA (as we reported below on May 22) has decided to review how it sources its data on oil reserves.
June 12 2008 ~ "..an inconvenient way to end the world."
The Independent article ends with both optimism and pessimism. Matthew Simmons: "Local farms are now coming back," he says. "We have all the technology in place to do that."
According to Colin Campbell, a wholesale change in the western lifestyle is going to be needed - and soon.
"Cities will face massive challenges," he says. "By the end of the century, when there really isn't very much oil left, the world will be a very different one - much more rural, probably with fewer people. It's a sort of doomsday message, but in some ways, it's just a change from the modern mindset. There are people in the world who live a simple life like that and are very happy."
But if our leaders continue to carry on as if there were no looming crisis "If we don't make changes, we're going to have a resource war and blow ourselves up," says Simmons. "I think that would be a really inconvenient way to end the world...
At some point, some politician has got to come out and state clearly that the world is going to be different...."
June 12 2008 ~ "Though the rich world's governments won't hear it...there is an inverse relationship between the size of farms and the amount of crops they produce per hectare. The smaller they are, the greater the yield."
The current Smallholders Online newsletter ( No. 251 which also contains a kind article about this website) links to the Guardian article by George Monbiot that shows how...
"a recent study of farming in Turkey, for example, found that farms of less than one hectare are 20 times as productive as farms of more than 10 hectares. Sen's observation has been tested in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Malaysia, Thailand, Java, the Philippines, Brazil, Colombia and Paraguay. It appears to hold almost everywhere... it works even in countries such as Brazil, where the biggest farmers have grabbed the best land..." Read in full
Monbiot says that "..Big business is killing small farming. By extending intellectual property rights over every aspect of production, and by developing plants that either won't breed true or don't reproduce at all, big business ensures that only those with access to capital can cultivate."
The assumption that efficiency can happen only on a large scale is confounded by such articles. Leaving out the human equation - the feeling of ownership, pride in the land and responsibility for it - has led us into a situation where, for the past 30 or 40 years, we have dismantled localised food production. It is going to be a difficult but urgent task to try to reverse this.
June 11 2008 ~ Oil price rise - ominous warnings of things to come
The Independent today, "The chief executive of the world's largest energy company has issued the most dire warning yet about the soaring the price of oil, predicting that it will hit $250 per barrel "in the foreseeable future.... ...the regional government of Catalonia enacted an emergency action plan to bring in fresh food and fuel supplies after nearly half of its forecourts ran dry and supermarkets shelves were left bare. The situation was the result of the second day of an "indefinite" nationwide strike staged by lorry drivers in Spain seeking their government's help to contain the effects of expensive petrol. Scattered protests by drivers and fisherman in France and Portugal also continued yesterday." One result of all this is that Germany cannot vaccinate against bluetongue. See Bluetongue page.
June 10 2008 ~ the nation's best interest in terms of food security and agriculture...
In today's icwales.co.uk we see that Gareth Vaughan, president of the Farmers' Union of Wales, says that
food security must be a top priority in the face of landslide changes in the global economy, and
European and UK politicians should get rid of the outdated concepts that dominate the Common Agricultural Policy and the World Trade Organisation.
Mr Vaughan wondered how the Commission and members of the Council of Agriculture Ministers would react even if the recommendations were adopted by the European Parliament,.
"Unfortunately, the track record of our own Defra ministers on such issues is not good...."
June 10 2008 ~ Defra has just (June 9) launched a consultation on the EC proposals for the "Health Check" of the CAP - discussions began in Brussels nearly three weeks ago
This twelve-week consultation is due to close on 1 September 2008 - but, as Ruud Peyes points out,
" the discussion in Brussels started at the 20th of May.... the UK was not present at all at an important EU ministerial meeting where the first salvos about the Health Check were fired .."
Last week Jim Paice was indeed furious that no one from DEFRA
"bothered to attend a meeting where the future of European agriculture was being determined." Quoted in the WMN he said,
"The UK should be at the forefront of these talks on the CAP, food security, biofuels and environmental protection, not just to promote the interests of British farming, but to ensure that EU policy most effectively responds to the challenges of rising food prices and the increasing strain on our natural resources.
....."
DEFRA seems to have been unmoved:
"Ministers play a full and active role in CAP reform, regularly attending meetings where the issue is discussed," said the spokesman. One wonders how far such regular attendees are also pushing for the removal of "the outdated concepts that dominate the Common Agricultural Policy and the World Trade Organisation".
June 10 2008 ~ Energy. It is not just the scale of the increase, it is the speed with which it is happening.... "cheap and plentiful energy will never return"
In 2003, the UK was a net exporter of gas; now, almost 40 per cent of gas for the UK has to be imported through the pipelines from Belgium and the Netherlands, or from Norway. The price is largely determined by the price of oil, because, as the FT explains, most gas in Europe is sold on long-term contracts at prices linked to oil and oil products. Oil reached more than $139 a barrel for US crude on Monday. The FT article says.
"The rise in wholesale gas prices meant that it was now “inevitable” energy bills would be increased, “barring a massive plunge in oil prices”, said one big energy supplier.
“It is not just the scale of the increase, it is the speed with which it is happening. The whole industry is going to be impacted.”
There is "little hope for relief", says the Independent today "...Energy industry executives have become increasingly vocal about the need for further price rises. They are trying to persuade users around the world to get used to the fact that cheap and plentiful energy will never return."
June 10 2008 ~ Cheap supermarket food was a gift from "cheap and plentiful energy" . What now?
Cassandra's unwelcome predictions are these: We shall soon - with something approaching disbelief at our complacency - be looking back to a time when shoppers took cars, fridges and freezers for granted, happy to pay more for convenience food and for the convenience of supermarket parking. The end of cheap energy means the end of much we assumed would last for ever. Soon everyone will want to be able to shop and work locally. We will want raw materials not products. Powercuts and high energy prices will mean an end to easy commuting, suburban living, gadgets and home appliances - and especially the cheap transport that has fed us and which looks increasingly set to disappear. For how long are the imports upon which the UK has come to depend going to be there? Can people cooperate in using whatever land remains to grow food? A return to the land en masse is going to be vital if we are to come close to feeding the population. But intensive farming has left so few of us with agricultural skills. As the Ecologist pointed out in 2005, it is somewhat harder to start farming organically than it is to follow the instructions on the back of a packet of Monsanto pesticide.
Fields of Fire witness accounts of 2001