By unlocking the export potential China offers the pig industry, not to mention the red meat sector as a whole, we could gain entry into a marketplace which comprises a fifth of the world’s population.Resources are key to farming future, claims Melchett
THE most important issue for farmers in the future will be how they manage their resources, not how much food they produce, according to Soil Association policy director Peter Melchett.
Lord Melchett locked horns with Essex farmer and NFU council member Guy Smith on Friday in Farmers Guardian’s entertaining online debate discussing the relative merits of organic and conventional farming in feeding a growing world population.
Opening the debate, Mr Smith said the challenge of feeding the world in the future while protecting the environment was ‘immense’.
He said it was wrong to exclude ideas that could to address these challenges, such as GM crops and synthetic pesticides, on ‘ideological grounds, which is where the Soil Association is at the moment’.
“Our minds must remain open not closed. If by ‘conventional farming’ we mean seeking to produce more using less while using the best knowledge we have at our disposal then I would always advocate an open-minded conventional approach rather than a closed organic one. We will need all the tools in the box,” he wrote.
Lord Melchett argued that the debate that has taken place over the past two years has been misleading due to its focus on the so-called need to double food production by 2050.
“I do object to the use of the phrase ‘need to double food production’ - the science on this is clear - we don’t NEED to do this. The scientists found that if we do nothing, demand for meat and dairy will go up by 70 per cent by 2050, but that means over one billion extra cattle, runaway climate change and massive rises in diet-related ill-health globally, and it wouldn’t stop hunger or starvation. We need to change food production, and produce more where the hungry live,” he wrote.
He said that over the next few decades artificial Nitrogen (N) will become ‘too expensive’ compared to biologically (clover) fixed N, and the world will ‘start to run out of mined Phosphorous in 30-60 years’.
Land, oil and massive restrictions on greenhouse gases will be also be limiting factors in future requiring ‘new thinking’, he said. “All we organic farmers say is that we can contribute a lot to that,” he said.
“The scientific consensus is that farming and food face a revolution - and it is one which means how we judge farming will change from yield per hectare to resource use efficiency,” Lord Melchett said.
In the most contentious part of debate, Mr Smith accused Lord Melchett of seeking to ‘demonise’ conventional farmers.
Lord Melchett retorted by claiming organic farmers did not want ‘knock their neighbours’ but needed to ‘explain the benefits of their products’.
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Readers' comments (8)
Barrie Audis | 1 June 2010 2:19 pm
I am concerned about the organic farming methods whilst i am supportive of them. In the livestock sector i have never seen so many dandelions and thistles as i have seen in permanent pasture and long term leys. this year and getting worse by the year.There has got to be change because in the past when labour was plentiful on the farms, problems such as weeds were dealt with. There is no labour spare to deal with weed species. In the livestock sector leys have to be taken out of production followed by cereals in order to keep productive grasses and clovers, the returns from organic beef and dairying are not there to do this, hence the countryside is getting in a mess. i have even seen ragwort growing on organic farms. The personel in the organic organisations who probably have never farmed themselves so do not understand the REAL issue have to change their way of thinking it is not right they they are trying to keep organic farming in the dark ages, THE PAST this is 2010 they must be aware that change is needed for good husbandry and for organic farming to go forward correctly. What a mess dandelions, thistles and docks for goodness sake change and lets use some spray on them in order to be good custodians of the Great BRITISH farming scene and COUNTRYSIDE.
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Anonymous | 1 June 2010 2:21 pm
Interesting debate, shame I missed it. I know you have the text available, but is there a podcast?
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Colin Barker | 1 June 2010 3:39 pm
It is all very well for rich lefties such as Lord Melchett and Prince Charles
to bang on about organic production, but that is not going to feed the millions of mouths as the population of the earth continues to grow.
We must embrace GM technology as a matter of urgency. We do not need the likes of well-fed millionaires to preach to us mere mortals. They need to try living in the real world. Good luck to organic farmers, but do not believe that for one minute they can feed the people.
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cyberdoyle | 1 June 2010 10:03 pm
around here in the north west the problem of http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/profile.aspx?pid=480 Himalayn balsm is reaching epidemic proportions, and no measures are being taken to control it. The amount of food that is being taken out of production is a crime. Also ragwort which used to be a fineable offence is going mad. These weeds are being spread by setaside, motorways, rivers and canals. I agree with the previous poster, modern farming has not got the staff to keep control of weeds, and nobody likes spraying, it is also labour intensive and expensive, so what is the answer? we would all love to farm organically but we would soon be out of business if we did. As long as supermarkets import cheap food from other countries with lower standards we can't afford to farm the old fashioned way. We can keep our own little patch in order, but we haven't the resources to do the rest. The seeds blow in from everywhere. Set aside and poor management by the environment agency and highways has meant that vast areas that could be productive are just weed factories.
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jeff clarke | 2 June 2010 0:19 am
Tell Lord Melchett to get in the "real" world where there is no climate change only weather that varies over thousands of years. Tell him to have an "in depth" look of Greenland over the last 800 years.
Also tell him to sell his Estate & give it to Charity & start again with no money & a Council Holding, like I did, he'll have a different view all of a sudden. Especially about organic farming.
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Andrew Macdonald | 2 June 2010 1:14 pm
Monsanto-BP-Peter Melchet I know who my money is on, that would be the one who doesn't have to lie to please shareholders bottom line or the one who isn't currently carrying out shock and awe in the Gulf (of Mexico).
Why has yet another respectable scientist resigned from the FSA GM group with the same story. Wake up please leave some country for my grandchildren. Stop feeding them orgonophosphate don't use lies to promote profit centers for invested corporations. No one says all science is a bad thing but some is downright dangerous and justified by corporate greed.
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Northsee | 3 June 2010 9:32 am
I just wish we could stop this organic vs Conventional debate. Please drop this "holier tham thou" attitude orgamic farmers.
We are all farmers with similar objectives - producing a product that the custiomer wants to buy at a price they can afford.
Melchet has a point in that resources will limit agricultural production. Don't just look at oil/gas supply, look at Phospate and Potash as well and see who has the reserves and where they are in the world. Russia? Africa?..... And who wants them? China, India.....
We have to solve the problems of feeding the world with all the tools in the box and that means conventional ones - but don't dismiss organic theory out of hand either.
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dvd harris | 14 December 2011 7:40 am
organic is I believe a small part of Melchetts farming estate
djh
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