Friday 22 September, 2023

Farming matters: Roger Kerr - 'Diversity is key for a resilient and productive food system'

With this week’s critical Parliamentary vote against the Agriculture Bill amendment, a challenging growing season and harvest, plus a global pandemic influencing shoppers and their buying habits alongside the continued debate around climate instability and biodiversity loss, farm businesses are in a potentially precarious position economically and ecologically.

clock • 3 min read
Farming matters: Roger Kerr - 'Diversity is key for a resilient and productive food system'

With this week's critical Parliamentary vote against the Agriculture Bill amendment, a challenging growing season and harvest, plus a global pandemic influencing shoppers and their buying habits alongside the continued debate around climate instability and biodiversity loss, farm businesses are in a potentially precarious position economically and ecologically.

This tipping point in UK agriculture has prompted crucial debate in the industry about the best way to manage our rural landscape while tackling climate change and building our nation's food security.

We believe the Government and agricultural industry must back a whole-system approach based on organic and agroecological principles.

Organic farming, which is currently the most widely recognised agroecological approach, means farming with nature, rather than against it.

This allows us to benefit from many valuable biological processes and continue to feed our population while providing the best farmed environment for wildlife.

Which is not to say there is not a need for defined spaces where wildlife and nature take precedence.

But it is critical that in creating this additional space for nature, we do not continue to degrade our soils and biodiversity elsewhere by chasing yield alone to offset any perceived overall loss of production.

Former Defra chief scientific adviser, Prof Sir Ian Boyd's vision that 'half the nation's farmland needs to be transformed into woodlands and natural habitat to fight the climate crisis and restore wildlife' is imbalanced and unsafe.

Although this vision may help to restore some wildlife species that prefer either unfarmed or very extensively farmed land, it completely misses the point that whatever food production system we have it must reflect the current challenges we face.

Significant

The issues we face are multi-dimensional - we are seeing significant degradation of soils and major climatic events alongside huge biodiversity loss.

How can we seek to reconcile these issues simultaneously without recognising the need for our food production system to significantly reduce its impact on finite natural resources and the environment?

The continued degradation of our most productive soils through increased intensification to allow lower grade soils to be rewilded can only lead to a long-term reduction in overall agricultural capacity and greater environmental decline overall.

We need to rebalance the conversation and take a broader view. To strengthen food supply chains and restore our natural environment, a whole-system approach is necessary to consider the wider environmental ‘balance sheet' - enhancing ‘natural and public assets' and reducing ‘environmental and societal liabilities' through the wider implementation of organic techniques.

To bring a more benign farming system and the space needed for nature together, we must address the challenges of diet, food waste and inequities in our food system. Our productive agricultural land cannot be ransomed due to wider political inertia or slavish adherence to the current paradigm.

To optimise food production requires investment in organic and agroecological research alongside support for farmers to transition towards different farming methods, plus the development of more local food networks and peri-urban food production.

Diversity in farming and the supply chain is ultimately the key to a more resilient and productive food system.

/

SALE CANCELLED - LAND AT LEECHES FARM

SALE CANCELLED - LAND AT LEECHES FARM

VIEW ADVERT
£POA

Dee Bank Farm, Mount Road, Leek, Staffordshire, ST13 7LT

Dee Bank Farm, Mount Road, Leek, Staffordshire,

VIEW ADVERT
£POA

Easter Kinnear Farm, By Newport-On-Tay, Fife

Easter Kinnear Farm, By Newport-On-Tay, Fife

VIEW ADVERT
£POA

More on Farm Life

Agricultural occupancy houses on the market for longer

Agricultural occupancy houses on the market for longer

Properties tied under agricultural occupancy are restricted to who they can have living there

clock 21 September 2023 • 3 min read
Congratulations to Matthew Elston and Maria Warne-Elston on their wedding

Congratulations to Matthew Elston and Maria Warne-Elston on their wedding

Congratulations to Matthew Elston and Maria Warne-Elston who got married in July 2023

clock 21 September 2023 • 1 min read
Richard Young was best known for playing a 'pivotal role' in the organic and sustainable farming movement (Sustainable Food Trust)

Sustainable Food Trust policy director and Cotswold's farmer Richard Young dies

Patrick Holden, chief executive of Sustainable Food Trust, said Richard Young died on Saturday morning (September 16)

clock 21 September 2023 • 2 min read