Farming for the future

Food security and land management are two of the most pressing issues facing the UK today, but the way forward isn’t simple. Here, nine guardians of the land outline what they think the next step should be

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Prof Sir Dieter Helm

FARMING has no option—it will have to be sustainable, otherwise it will not be sustained. Proportionately, it is the biggest carbon emitter and responsible for much of the pollution in rivers. Put simply, it has to produce food, achieve net zero and protect biodiversity and rivers.

That does not mean a return to some arcadian past. Science is crucial in this transition. Agriculture is increasingly a digital enterprise, mapping crops, soils and baselines for natural capital. Big data, AI and robotics are taking over and, with them, new skill sets and new kinds of farmers. Genetics are replacing the traditional plant and animal breeding.

Meanwhile, carbon credits, rewilding and anti-meat campaigns grab the headlines. The Wild West of carbon credits lacks serious system and land-use planning, and can sometimes increase emissions. Rewilders often confuse conservation management with abandoning the land and have few answers when it comes to the obvious question of where the food is going to come from. Anti-meat campaigns can lack a serious understanding of how livestock production and the soils interact, as well as the role of soil as a store of carbon and biodiversity.

Farming needs to rise above these fashions, navigating around silo policies and always with the science in mind. Activists mean well, but the risk is the road to hell is paved with simplistic rewilders and lynxes and wolves, trees planted on peats and thin soils, and the eradication of animals in upland farm systems.
Sir Dieter Helm is professor of economic policy at Oxford University and author of 'Green and Prosperous Land'