agriculture – Page 2 – Cabot Institute for the Environment blog

After 2016; how to achieve more inclusive food policy?

Posted on January 4, 2017April 5, 2023 by janet.crompton

Having spent my British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship researching forms of governance that aspire to achieve that nebulous concept of ‘sustainability’ in relation to certain parts of the global agro-food/fuel system, it seemed fitting that the last event I attend in this capacity should be City University’s annual Food Symposium. This year’s Symposium enabled Prof. Tim Lang, who is passing the baton of running City’s influential Food Centre to Prof. Corinna Hawkes, and a number of his colleagues, to reflect on the past 25 years of food policy. But it also provided an unprecedented opportunity to 40 audience members from both academia and civil society to imagine a more utopian future – not difficult in our troubled present – to table their vision of ‘How to do food policy better’. We heard from a headteacher, a producer, a proud ‘Colombian peasant’, a farmer’s daughter, a student, the BBC chef of the year, a former advertiser, a community food network coordinator. We then went on to hear from a panel of those who have been working to enable such diverse voices to be heard both in relation to the research they have been undertaking or the programmes they have been endeavouring to implement.

While my own work has been predominantly focused on issues brought to the fore in international development, it is clear that inequalities and unequal vulnerabilities exist extensively in the global North, as well as the global South. Although we as researchers recognise the need for a holistic and systemic approach to food and agriculture, this is rarely translated into more holistic food policy. But we have seen that policies that do not adopt a systemic approach to food and agriculture may instead produce extensive social, cultural and environmental problems related to food and farming across the globe.

There are so many pressing reasons to change our diets, for our own health, and the health of the planet, but we carry on producing and selling food which is bad for us, and pursuing agricultural production on a scale that feeds such consumption. While this may not be in the same vein as the productionism pursued in the 1970s and 1980s, agricultural production continues to be tenaciously coupled with carbon emissions. And knowledge alone is insufficient to change this food and agriculture system of mass consumption and supermarket driven value chains.

As we heard a number of times, we are not only going through a period of weak food policy, but the intensive agricultural regime is in crisis. And there is a lack of progressive consensus as to what any kind of food project should be. Given that 40% of EU legislation relates to food and agriculture, this does not bode well for this soon-to-be-Brexiting-less-than-united-kingdom.

While we can indeed celebrate that the need for ‘sustainable consumption’ and ‘sustainable production’ is generally accepted, and that ‘food and nutrition’ is even on the public health agenda, we also have much to fight for. For many at the Symposium, there was a palpable anger at the policies that have led to growing inequality and hunger in this country. While there is an evidential link between low income, diet and poor health, there remains an ongoing rhetoric of ‘blame’ and ‘undeserving’. And low income must in turn be linked with other vulnerabilities, such as gender, infancy, maternity, citizenship status (or lack of it). But as Prof. Liz Dowler aptly summarised, the circumstances in which people are having to live are being ignored by governments whose own policies have caused them to be in this predicament. So with a growing reliance on charity, such as food banks, people are deprived even of any sense of ‘entitlement’ and ‘rights’, even when it comes to food. Whether or not a human being goes hungry or malnourished should never be dependent on deserving, even on citizenship. And governments, rather than charities, must be held accountable. Nevertheless, there is a fear that Brexit, and a rise in anti migrant feeling, is going to make inequalities harder.

A Symposium on food policy would be remiss, however, if it did not link government policies with a recognition that access to nutritious food is also determined by corporate power. This needs to take in supermarkets, fast food chains, the catering sector. And this is indeed where power lies. And that power does not only involve selling much of the wrong kinds of food to people, but also squeezing the power of farmers who, as many argued, need to be central in finding a solution to the crisis of carbon based food production. Prof. Terry Marsden suggested the need to build alliances between producers and consumers and take out the power of the middle of the value chain. Although at the Symposium it was widely agreed that there needs to be greater inclusivity of those voices who are affected by, but rarely manage to influence, food policy, I would argue that this view is slightly myopic of the wider agrofood system. This system is indeed driven by wider agri-industrial policies and corporate interests, but ones which have very little to do with food at all. Such policies explain the EU Renewable Energy Directive mandating the production of biofuel from prime agricultural land. And such policies are repeated and repeated in country after country, and drive down incentives that farmers might otherwise have to grow nutritious food – our horticulture sector, for instance, is hardly thriving. So while an annual Symposium on Food Policy is hugely valuable, and indeed this was one of the best conferences I have ever been to (not least for its inclusion of diverse civil society voices amongst academics), I would argue that food policy cannot be considered without a systemic lens cast much more widely than just food.

Blog post by Dr Elizabeth Fortin, Senior Research Associate, School of Law, and PolicyBristol Coordinator

Is benchmarking the best route to water efficiency in the UK’s irrigated agriculture?

Posted on March 7, 2016April 12, 2023 by janet.crompton

Irrigation pump. Image credit Wikimedia Commons.

From August 2015 to January 2016, I was lucky enough to enjoy an ESRC-funded placement at the Environment Agency. Located within the Water Resources Team, my time here was spent writing a number of independent reports on behalf of the agency. This blog is a short personal reflection of one of these reports, which you can find here. All views within this work are my own and do not represent any views, plans or policies of the Environment Agency.

Approximately 71% of UK land (17.4 million hectares) is used for agriculture – with 9.3 million hectares (70%) of land in England used for such operations. The benefits of this land use are well-known – providing close to 50% of the UK’s food consumption. Irrigated agriculture forms an important fulcrum within this sector, as well as contributing extensively to the rural economy. In eastern England alone, it is estimated that 50,000 jobs depend upon irrigated agriculture – with the sector reported to contribute close to £3 billion annually to the region’s economy.

It is estimated that only 1-2% of the water abstracted from rivers and groundwater in England is consumed by irrigation. When compared to the figures from other nations, this use of water by agriculture is relatively low. In the USA, agricultural operations account for approximately 80-90% of national consumptive water use. In Australia, water usage by irrigation over 2013/14 totalled 10,730 gigalitres (Gl) – 92% of the total agricultural water usage in that period (11,561 Gl).

However, the median prediction of nine forecasts of future demand in the UK’s agricultural sector has projected a 101% increase in demand between today and 2050. In this country, irrigation’s water usage is often concentrated during the driest periods and in the catchments where resources are at their most constrained. Agriculture uses the most water in the regions where water stress is most obvious: such as East Anglia. The result is that, in some dry summers, agricultural irrigation may become the largest abstractor of water in these vulnerable catchments.

With climate change creating a degree of uncertainty surrounding future water availability across the country, it has become a necessity for policy and research to explore which routes can provide the greatest efficiency gains for agricultural resilience. A 2015 survey by the National Farmers Union found that many farmers lack confidence in securing long term access to water for production – with only a third of those surveyed feeling confident about water availability in five years’ time. In light of this decreasing availability, the need to reduce water demand within this sector has never been more apparent.

Evidence from research and the agricultural practice across the globe provides us with a number of possible routes. Improved on-farm management practice, the use of trickle irrigation, the use of treated wastewater for irrigation and the building of reservoirs point to a potential reduction in water usage.

Yet, something stands in the way of the implementation of these schemes and policies that support them: People. The adoption of new practices tends to be determined by a number of social factors – depending on the farm and the farmer. As farmers are the agents within this change, it is important to understand the characteristics that often guide their decision-making process and actions in a socio-ecological context.

Let’s remember, there is no such thing as your ‘average farmer’. Homogeneity is not a word that British agriculture is particularly aware of. As a result, efforts to increase water use efficiency need to understand how certain characteristics influence the potential for action. Wheeler et al. have found a number of characteristics that can influence adaptation strategies. For example, a farmer with a greater belief in the presence of climate change is more likely to adopt mitigating or adaptive measures. Importantly, this can also be linked to more-demographic factors. As Islam et al. have argued, risk scepticism can be the result of a number of factors (such as: age, economic status, education, environmental and economic values) and that these can be linked to the birth cohort effect.

This is not to say that all farmers of a certain age are climate-sceptics but it does point to an important understanding of demography as a factor in the adoption of innovative measures. Wheeler et al. went on to cite variables of environment values, commercial orientation, perceptions of risk and the presence of an identified farm successor as potentially directing change in practice . Research by Stephenson has shown that farmers who adopt new technologies tend to be younger and more educated, have higher incomes, larger farm operations and are more engaged with primary sources of information.

Yet, there is one social pressure that future policy must take into account – friendly, neighbourly competition. Keeping up with the Joneses. Not wanting Farmer Giles down the lane knowing that you overuse water in an increasingly water-scarce future. This can be harnessed within a system of benchmarking. Benchmarking involves the publication of individual farm’s water use, irrigation characteristics and efficiency and farming practice. Although data is supplied anonymously, individual farmers will be able to see how they measure up against their neighbours, competitors and others elsewhere.

Benchmarking is used in other agricultural sub-sectors. A 2010 survey found that 24% of farmers from different sectors used benchmarking in their management processes. This is particularly evident in the dairy sector, where both commercial and public organisations use the methods as a way to understand individual farm performance – an important example of this would be DairyCo’s Milkbench+ initiative. In 2004, over 950,000 hectares of irrigated land in Australia, 385,000 hectares in China and 330, 000 hectares in Mexico were subjected to benchmarking processes as a mean to gauge their environmental, operational and financial characteristics.

The result is that irrigators would have the means to compare how they are performing relative to other growers – allowing the answering of important questions of ‘How well am I doing?’ ‘How much better could I do?’ and ‘How do I do it?’ Furthermore, this route can be perceived as limiting the potential for ‘free-riding’ behaviour within a catchment as well emphasise the communal nature of these vulnerable resources. We’ve all seen ‘Keeping up with the Joneses’ result in increased consumption – benchmarking provides us with an important route to use this socialised nudging for good.

————————————————————–

This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Ed Atkins, a PhD student at the University of Bristol who studies water scarcity and environmental conflict.

Ed Atkins

Read part 1 of this blog series Why is there a difficult absence of water demand forecasting in the UK?

Do not make policy during the middle of a flood crisis

Posted on March 14, 2014April 19, 2023 by janet.crompton

Across the country, we have seen our neighbours’ homes and farms devastated by the floods. We understand their anger and frustration. We understand their demands for swift action.

What they have been given is political gamesmanship. Blame shifting from party to party, minister to minister, late responses, dramatic reversals of opinion. It reached its well-publicised nadir this past weekend, with Eric Pickles’ appearance on the Andrew Marr show:

‘I apologise unreservedly and I’m really sorry that we took the advice; we thought we were dealing with experts.’

Throwing your own government experts to the wolves is not an apology.

This political vitriol, at least with respect to the Somerset Levels, all appears to come down to a relatively simple question – should we have been dredging?

This is not a simple question.

It is an incredibly complex question, in the Somerset Levels and elsewhere, and this simplistic discussion does the people of those communities a great disservice.

Image by Juni

But more fundamentally, this is not the time to be deciding long-term flood mitigation strategy. In times of disaster, you do disaster management. Later, you learn the lessons from that disaster. And finally, informed by evidence and motivated by what has happened, you set policy. And that, to me, is the most frustrating aspect of the current political debate. In an effort to out-manoeuvre one another, our leaders are making promises to enact policy for which the benefits appear dubious.

So, what are some of the issues, both for Somerset and in general?

First, the reason the rivers are flooding is primarily the exceptional rainfall – January was the wettest winter month in almost 250 years. This rain occurred after a fairly damp period, so that the soil moisture content was already high. However, these issues are exacerbated by how we have changed our floodplains, with both agricultural and urban development reducing water storage capacity.

Second, as the 2013-2014 flooding crisis has illustrated, much of our nation is flood-prone; however, those floods come in a variety of forms and have a range of exacerbating causes – some have been due to coastal storm surges, some due to flash floods caused by rapid flow from poorly managed lands and some due to sustained rain and soil saturation. We have a wet and volatile climate, 11,073 miles of coastline and little geographical room to manoeuvre on our small island. Our solutions have to consider all of these issues, and they must recognise that any change in a river catchment will affect our neighbours downstream.

Flooding on West Moor, Somerset Levels
Image by Nigel Mykura

Third, returning to the specific challenge of the Somerset Levels, it is unclear what benefit dredging will have. The Somerset Levels sit near sea level, such that the river to sea gradient is very shallow. Thus, rivers will only drain during low tide even if they are dredged. And widening the channels will actually allow more of the tide to enter. Some have argued that in the past, dredging was more common and flooding apparently less so. However, this winter has seen far more rain and our land is being used in very different ways: the memories of three decades ago are not entirely relevant.

Fourth, where dredging is done, it is being made more costly and challenging by land use practices elsewhere in the catchment. The rivers are filling with sediment that has eroded from intensively farmed land in the headwaters of the catchments and from the levels themselves. Practices that have greatly accelerated erosion include: heavy machinery operations in wet fields; placement of gates at the bottom of hillslopes so that sediment eroded from the field is very efficiently transported to impermeable road surfaces, and thence to streams downslope; cultivation of arable crops on overly steep slopes (increasing the efficiency of sediment transport from land to stream); overwintering of livestock on steep slopes; and excessive stocking densities on land vulnerable to erosion.

Image by Nicholas Howden

Nutrient enrichment from livestock waste and artificial fertilisers (when used in excess of crop requirements) also contribute to the dredging problem. The nutrient loading often exceeds the system’s recycling capacity, such that nutrients flow into ditches and waterways, stimulating growth of aquatic plants that can readily clog up the minor ditches and waterways. With less space to dissipate water within the network, it is forced into the main channel. In other words, some of these floods are a subsidised cost of agriculture – and by extension the low costs we demand of our UK-produced food.

And finally, if we are going to consider long-term planning, we must consider climate change impacts. Flooding will become worse due to sea level rise, which has already risen by about 12cm in the last 100 years, with a further 11-16cm of sea level rise projected by 2030. It is less clear how climate change will affect the intensity and frequency of these particularly intense rainfall events. Although almost all projections indicate that dry areas will become dryer and wet areas will become wetter, predictions for specific geographical regions are highly uncertain. And our historical records are not long enough to unravel long-term trends in the frequency of uncommon but high impact weather events. This should not be reassuring – it is another major element of uncertainty in an already complex problem.

As challenging as these issues are, they are not intractable. The solutions will involve stronger planning control and scientifically informed planning decisions (including allowing some areas to flood), a reconsideration of some intensive farming practices, some dredging in key areas, some controlled flooding in others, and better disaster management strategy for when the inevitable flooding does occur. But now is not the time to resolve such a complicated knot of complex issues. It is certainly not the time to offer false promises or miracle cures.

Now is the time to help our neighbours in distress, listen to their stories, and remember them when the floodwaters recede. And then we should let our experts get on with their jobs.
—
This blog is co-written by Professor Paul Bates, Professor Penny Johnes (Geographical Sciences), Professor Rich Pancost (Chemistry) and Professor Thorsten Wagener (Engineering), all of whom are senior members of the Cabot Institute at the University of Bristol.

This blog post was first published in the Guardian on 12/02/2014, titled Flood crisis: Dredging is a simplistic response to a complex problem.

If you have any media queries relating to this blog, please contact Paul Bates or Rich Pancost (contact details in links above).

Prof Paul Bates, Head of
Geographical Sciences

Prof Rich Pancost, Director of the
Cabot Institute

A new green revolution for agri-tech?

Posted on August 5, 2013April 20, 2023 by janet.crompton

Prof Sir John Beddington,
Cabot Institute External Advisory Board Chair

“A world food crisis can be expected in the coming decades as our demand for food outstrips our ability to produce it.” This was the ominous forecast in 2008 by Sir John Beddington, then chief science adviser to the UK government, and now Chair of the Cabot Institute External Advisory Board. In a bid to avoid such a catastrophe, the UK Government has introduced its new Agricultural Technologies Strategy, which it hopes will put Great Britain at the centre of a new ‘green revolution’. Recent advances in technology such as the growing field of genomics present scientists with novel opportunities for innovation in crops and farming. Cabot Institute member, Prof. Keith Edwards at the University of Bristol researches how the genomes of different kinds of wheat diverge in the hope of finding out what makes some more productive than others. These new scientific developments and emerging challenges like climate change present opportunities for innovation in agriculture. As growing conditions across the world begin to change, previously elite varieties of crops may no longer be suitable for the areas where they have historically been grown.

Although UK agricultural scientists are at the forefront of some of the most important advances in understanding this doesn’t necessarily lead to practical advances in the field. Gaps in worker skills and understanding may be preventing farming progress and reducing associated benefits for society. The UK Agri-Tech Strategy hopes to address this by putting a greater emphasis on the role of scientific research in providing enough nutritious food for everybody. At the same time scientists hope to minimise the detrimental effects of agriculture on natural resources and biodiversity. Bristol academic Prof. Jane Memmott studies the effects of conventional and organic farming on other species in the area like the local insects.

The Agri-Tech industry is currently worth just under £100 billion to the UK economy. Last year, we exported £18 billion of food, animal feed and drink, including £3.7 billion of fresh produce and 15 million tonnes of wheat, making us one of the top 12 food and drink exporters in the world. This came with a price tag of around £450 million spent by the government on research and development in agriculture last year. In addition at least a further £100 million was spent by private companies like Syngenta, who opened a state of the art wheat-breeding facility in January of this year. The government hopes to see the UK become a world leader not just in food production but in agricultural technology, innovation and sustainability.

The new Agri-Tech strategy aims to vitalise the farming industry with a cash injection of £160 million. This money will go towards improving the application of research into real gains in farming, and at enhancing the declining infrastructure that supports the livestock industry. For instance, the number of dairy farms in the UK has halved over the last decade. The research funding pot includes £70 million to establish a partnership between the Technology Strategy Board and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. The new Agri-Tech Catalyst organisation will be aimed at translating research into best practice by supporting firms bringing their new technology to market. This builds on the €2.8 billion commitment made by the European Commission in 2011 to establish a Knowledge Innovation Community (KIC) to drive innovation of technology in agriculture and food processing.

The other main investment is £90 million over the next five years that has been ear-marked as funding for several regional Centres for Agricultural Innovation, aimed at bringing cutting edge science like better pesticides and climate adapted crops into the fields. It is hoped that these Centres will lead research into the development and exploitation of new technology and processes, focussing research on sustainable intensification. They will also contribute to educating and training a skilled workforce to bring the results of research into the field.

Not everybody’s reaction to the new plans has been completely positive. Tom MacMillan of the (organic food and farming) Soil Association http://www.soilassociation.org/news/newsstory/articleid/5647/press-comment-governments-new-agri-tech-strategy worried that investment would concentrate on unpopular technologies such as GM farming. Other areas of research such as agroecology (the ecological study of food systems) that do not lead to technology that can be commercialised may lose out on funding. However many groups such as the British Growers Association, the Society of Biology and the UK Plant Sciences Federation have come out in whole-hearted support of the new plans.

This blog has been written by Boo Lewis, Biological Sciences, University of Bristol.

Boo Lewis, Cabot Institute blogger