Farm to Fork summit 2023: Have pledges been met?

Last May, prime minister Rishi Sunak agreed to hold a Farm to Fork food security summit at Number 10.

Multiple promises were made by the government after the meeting, but have they been kept?

This event has now been established as an annual occurrence, with ministers currently gearing up for the second, due to be held on 14 May.

See also: Rishi Sunak unveils new support package for British farming

Farmers Weekly has taken the opportunity, ahead of the next summit, to analyse the outcomes from 2023.

Precision breeding

Pledges

• Additional investment of up to about £30m to unlock the potential of precision breeding.
• A working group to bring plant breeders, food manufacturers and retailers together to agree an approach that enables these products to reach our shelves.

Score: Pledges met

Government has scored well on both pledges made at the summit, with the £30m investment planned over a 10-year period.

Genetic Improvements Networks, which generate pre-breeding material that carries novel, profitable and sustainable traits, have been awarded £15m of funding over five years, which beings spending into line with the 10-year timescale.  

But concerns have been raised that a multi-partner bid for a £13m precision breeding hub, led by the John Innes Centre, failed.

UK Research and Innovation did not even short-list the project for interview, despite the fact it was endorsed by Defra and the Food Standards Agency.

On the second pledge, establishing a working group to bring together plant breeders, food manufacturers and retailers, the government has succeeded.

The group has been up and running for almost a year and is made up of representatives from the NFU, British Society of Plant Breeders and the British Retail Consortium, among others.

Daniel Pearsall, group co-ordinator for the All Party Parliamentary Group on Science and Technology in Agriculture, told Farmers Weekly it was positive that all elements of the supply chain were talking about the issues they’re facing and consumer acceptance.

“It’s good for a plant breeder to be able to talk to a retailer,” he said. “That’s something that didn’t happen too much with GM the first time.”

Mr Pearsall did, however, note there was no representative of the livestock breeding community on the working group and warned progress on precision breeding in animals, which can be used to help build resistance to disease, had stalled.

Seasonal workers

Pledges

• The number of seasonal workers for horticulture in 2024 will be 45,000 (plus 2,000 for poultry), with the potential for a further 10,000 visas.
• Government response to the Independent Review of Labour Shortages in the Food Supply Chain in autumn 2023.

Score: Pledges met

The number of seasonal workers for horticulture and poultry in 2024 are as set out in the pledge.

A government response to the Independent Review of Labour Shortages has also been published this week, but it came at least six months later than promised.

Fairer supply chains

Pledges

• New reviews beginning in autumn 2023 in the egg and horticulture sectors.
• The dairy sector regulations will be laid in parliament in 2023 and work will begin on developing regulations in the pig sector.

Score: Pledges met

All of the pledges on fairer supply chains have been met, but the dairy sector regulations came later than promised. They were not laid in parliament until February 2024.

New legislation covering pig contracts is expected this summer.

Boosting exports

Pledges

• Government to publish a regular snapshot of priority market access barriers.
• Increase in the number of agricultural attaches to reach new markets.
• £2m investment in programme of global trade shows and missions, plus £1.6m for the GREAT food and drink campaign.
• £1m bespoke export support fund for the dairy sector, with a particular focus on support for small- and medium-size enterprises.

Score: Pledges met

The snapshot of priority market access barriers is referred to as PB100 and the most recent was published in August 2023.

A second pledge to increase the number of agricultural attaches has also been met, with the new appointees having their induction last week.

AHDB’s international trade director, Phil Hadley, said “meaningful impact” is already being seen from the original 11.

The investment in trade shows and missions and for the GREAT food and drink campaign is in the process of being delivered.

AHDB has been designated the delivery body for the bespoke dairy export fund, which began this year and will run until 2026.

Water security

Pledges

• Abstraction licence decisions to be made more flexible to support changing needs of farmers, the economy and the environment.
• Creation of national and regional water resource management plans for agriculture, which will help farmers plan their water resources and ensure better resilience to drought.
• Government support for farmer-led groups to identify local water resource schemes.

Score: Pledges partially met

On the first pledge around abstraction licences, the government is looking to move forward with long-standing plans to bring the water abstraction licensing system into the Environmental Permitting Regime. 

Ministers claim this will increase flexibility, but the NFU is opposed to the change.

It warns permitting will reduce certainty of access to supplies of water because all permits will be reviewable, abstractors will face the erosion of historic rights such as compensation and compliance will increase business costs.

On the second pledge, water resource management plans are currently going out for consultation.

But Innes Thomson, chief executive of the Association of Drainage Authorities (ADA), said making progress in this space was a “struggle” because water companies cannot raise money from ratepayers for agricultural need.

“This is exactly where the state has got a role to play,” he added.

“The government needs to put some seed funding on the table around this to try to glue it all together.”

Mr Thomson also cast doubt on whether the third pledge had been met, saying he had seen no evidence that the government was helping farmer-led groups to identify local water resource schemes.

“There’s quite a lot of thinking going into it [at civil service level], but not much in the way of action and application,” he said.

Energy security

Pledges

• Government to investigate how to support controlled environment horticulture (CEH), including assessing where sectors such as CEH struggle to provide the necessary data to qualify for the energy intensive industries exemption scheme.
• Government to consider the unique needs of CEH in development of industrial energy policies to allow this sector to benefit from decarbonisation and better access to renewables, including in the upcoming consultation on phase 3 of the Industrial Energy Transformation Fund (IETF) in June.
• Government to explore how to increase the resource efficiency of the sector by utilising industrial and power sector waste heat as a thermal source of energy for glasshouses and looking at options for co-location to improve energy efficiencies.

Score: Pledges partially met

Industry experts have hit back at the claim in the first pledge that CEH struggles to provide the necessary data to qualify for the energy intensive industries exemption scheme.

Lee Stiles, secretary of the Lea Valley Growers Association, which produces 75% of the UK’s cucumbers and peppers, told Farmers Weekly it is “well known” that glasshouse growers use about 900,000kWh per acre/year of glass to heat their greenhouses and the NFU Climate Change Levy scheme has been collecting the data for more than a decade.

On pledge two, Mr Stiles said a recent change to include horticulture in the IETF would not benefit the majority of growers who cannot raise the capital to switch from gas to combined heat and power (CHP).

“The scheme is set up to benefit the few businesses who have the capability to raise finance.

“For this, they have to be able to demonstrate a record of historical and future profitable trading, which is difficult without any supermarket contracts or guarantees,” he said.

Mr Stiles was also highly sceptical about the feasibility of the third pledge.

“Co-locating glasshouses with heat sources is a rehash of consultations from 15 years ago,” he said.

“Planning policy does not place any obligations on industry to co-finance these arrangements and they therefore do not proceed when considered uneconomic.”

Cutting red tape

Pledges

• Government to launch a review of planning barriers to farm diversification, including any necessary changes to permitted development in 2023.
• Government will look to revise national planning policy to ensure it fully seizes all opportunities to support levelling up of economic opportunity across rural areas.

Score: Pledges partially met

On 30 April 2024, the government confirmed a series of changes to permitted development rights that will take effect from 21 May this year.

The reforms will unlock development potential for agricultural and former agricultural buildings.

But the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) said it was “bitterly disappointing” that some of the rights will not be expanded to national parks and landscapes.

On the second pledge to revise national planning policy, CLA president Victoria Vyvyan pointed out that an update to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) in December 2023 did not include any proposals to level up rural areas.

“We are awaiting more detail on this,” she added.

“Successive governments have ignored the obvious need to update the NPPF with more focus on rural areas. This neglect stifles innovation and deprives us of the ability to grow the rural economy.”