Intensifying farming is not the answer to the Ukraine crisis, but the Government now needs to be even more ambitious in its transition plans to ensure food security, says Vicki Hird, head of farming at Sustain.
As the war in Ukraine continues, and the window for planting crops closes, the potential impact on global food prices is becoming clearer. Food organisations are warning of famine overseas and UK citizens being pushed into poverty.
Yet our food system and farmers could be far more resilient.
The Ukraine war is a humanitarian disaster posing a huge risk to global food security. And the crisis is exacerbated by a hindered recovery from Covid-19, and climate breakdown.
Droughts and crop failures are becoming more frequent, yet the UK continues to depend on overseas supplies for 40 percent of its food.
Domestically, the UK is struggling with interrupted supply chains, labour shortages and increased input costs.
Impact
The impact on the cost of living is becoming clearer. Families are already reporting having to choose between eating and heating.
However, the way we farm in the UK is an inefficient and unsustainable use of land, which contributes to soil degradation and loss of nature. It also produces 10 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions.
We use land to feed cars via biofuel mandates and for subsidised crops in power generation. Far more energy per hectare can be made from wind and solar.
Crops are fed as intensive animal feed for industrial livestock units or wasted in the food chain. Eating less and better meat and wasting less food are both possible.
Our response to these crises and disruption must not be to pause environmental policies and intensify farming to the detriment of the environment.
Instead, the Government needs to accelerate its plans to enable farmers to produce healthy food in an environmentally positive way, through an enhanced Agricultural Transition Plan (ATP).
Resilient
This would create a more resilient food system by helping farmers end reliance on costly synthetic fertiliser, pesticides, fossil fuels and feed using whole system approaches.
Supporting agroecological approaches to farming, as well as paying farmers fairly is key.
This requires faster action and bigger budgetsso the payments can genuinely deliver on farmer incomes and the public goods that flow from nature-based farming systems. Examples include support for larger rotations that include nitrogen-fixing legumes or for integrated pest management that reduces the need for pesticides.
Currently, the suite of schemes feels complex, inadequate and too far off for some farmers, who have resorted to ploughing up stewardship land as payments rates are too low or are coming to an end.
We could be helping to reduce red diesel needs by supporting cultivation with organic and green manures, reducing chemical spray needs, and technologies like renewable run small robot precision tools.
Productivity grants should be geared towards environment-friendly, input-busting productivity tools, levelling up funds towards helping farmers access more supportive local markets, and new advice and training programmes helping to drive the change.
We also need to diversify our supply chains and change the power imbalance. Over-dominant retailers and supply chians must be better regulated. Sustains 500 farmer survey in 2021 showed farmers clearly want alternative routes to market with infrastructure to match.
Relocalise
Investing in these would help relocalise food systems so they can better link farmers and consumers, remove the extractive intermediaries, and allow affordable prices and decent returns for farmers.
We call on the Government to be more ambitious and speedy with the ATP, consider a separate one-off emergency fund to help farmers with rising costs of labour and logistics, and publish a comprehensive response to the National Food Strategy as soon as possible.
They must remain proactive and ambitious rather than taking knee-jerk decisions to deliver a fair, sustainable and resilient food system that can withstand crises.
Vicki can be found tweeting at @vickihird
