Les Firbank, BBC News 13 Nov 07;
Global food stocks are running low and rich nations should not take security of supplies for granted, argues Les Firbank. In this week's Green Room, he outlines his vision for sustainable farming amid the uncertainties we face in the 21st Century.
In the last 12 months, the price of wheat has doubled, and all of a sudden, talk of food security is back on the agenda.
Global food stocks are running low.
There are three main reasons:
- increasing use of crops for bio-energy, especially in the US
- increasing demand for meat and milk products in the developing world (livestock are often fed grain and seeds, even if for only part of the year)
- poor harvests around the world following droughts and floods
This alone will not be enough; the area for food production will decline as farmland is lost to housing, bio-energy cropping and, ultimately, sea level rise.
This means we will need to produce more food per hectare from the farmland that will remain.
Lessons from history
The last time that food shortage was a real issue in Britain was around the time of World War II.
Production was increased both by bringing marginal land into use, and intensification through pesticides, artificial fertilisers, new varieties and new machinery.
But this was at a high environmental cost, not all of which has been reversed. The importance of land management to water quality, flood control, soil conservation, landscape beauty and biodiversity had simply not been appreciated.
Only recently have we started to think about how agriculture should contribute to managing climate change by controlling the release of greenhouse gases and by storing carbon in the soil.
It will not be acceptable to increase production without regard for the environment, and we will increasingly demand food that is safe and contributes to healthy diets.
Equally, it will not be acceptable to lose those historic agricultural landscapes important to our emotional well-being and connection with nature.
Fresh vision
Societies will need a new vision of sustainable agriculture that addresses production, environmental and social needs together, that balances our own potential and needs in Britain with those of Europe and rest of the world.
Moreover, this new vision needs to be flexible enough to cope with sudden change, whether this is the spread of a new disease like bluetongue virus, changing patterns of rainfall or increased demand for cereals.
While no one knows what future farming will be like in detail, we know enough to start to sketch what would help its sustainability.
We need to be more self-sufficient in food, water and energy. This will protect us in times of rapidly changing global conditions, and will help ensure that we do not export our problems to other parts of the world.
Indeed, given the suitability of Britain's soils and climate, we should think about developing our potential to export more of our food and energy - it will be needed.
We also need diversity in agriculture. There will be no single path to sustainability; organic farming and hi-tech plant and animal breeding will be part of the mix, possibly concentrated in different parts of the country and serving different markets.
Waste not...
Controlling waste in the food chain is another issue that needs to be addressed. There is no point producing more food from the land without trying to use what we already have more efficiently.
We throw away around a third of our food; this can be reduced, and what is left could be used for biogas energy production.
We will need to accept that rural landscapes may change, as they have always done, and to think about how change should be managed.
Agricultural land should be valued more highly by society, as should land that is needed to supply our rivers and reservoirs with the water we need and the land that will be required to deliver renewable energy.
It will become harder to balance the needs of everyone; perhaps we need a new land planning system that takes a more holistic view of our future needs than we have now.
These changes will not just happen by themselves; we need investment in industry, people and technologies.
Perhaps the biggest change is that we all need to see agriculture as one of our most important industries for the future.
Professor Les Firbank is head of the North Wyke Research Station at the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research, UK
The Green Room is a series of opinion pieces on environmental topics running weekly on the BBC News website
Do you agree with Les Firbank? Are we struggling to meet the growing demand for food? Can we adapt without damaging the environment and historic landscapes? Can countries like the UK ease the global burden by producing more of its own food?
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