Farmers need a helping hand

Britain’s farmers are ready to deliver on food security and biodiversity. However, sustainability comes at a cost – one they cannot bear alone, says

- Joe Stanley

ARMING practice is always a reflec-tion of the political and social priorities of the age. In the middle of the 20th century, food production and the security it brought was a major national concern. Government policy was bent around encouraging farmers to farm more land, harder, to ensure that recently experienced shortages would never occur again. Mechanical horsepower replaced the flesh-and-blood variety; fields became larger and rapid scientific advances led to the ever-increasing use of synthetic fertilisers and pesticides. We were massively successful in our endeavours, and by the 1980s British farmers were producing some 80% of domestic food requirements.

In recent decades, our national primary concerns have shifted. We now have legally binding targets to increase biodiversity, improve water and air quality and reduce carbon emissions. With farmed land covering more than two-thirds of the UK, farmers are by necessity at the forefront of these efforts, alongside the ‘day job’ of keeping the nation fed. Long gone is the era of grain mountains and butter lakes. Indeed, today we import some 40% of our food. Yet, alongside all the aforementioned targets for nature, we have no similar parliamentary commitment to food production.