Food production is ‘the poor relation’ in land use policy

Food production is being treated as “the poor relation” as the government devises its future land use policy, the NFU has warned.

The Defra consultation on the so-called Land Use Framework, which closes on Friday (25 April), is seeking to balance the competing demands for housing, renewable energy, nature restoration, and food production.

See also: Land Use Framework sparks fears for food security

It suggests that up to 19% of farmland may need to be diverted totally or partly away from food production to nature restoration, in order to meet statutory environmental targets.

The government assumes that increases in farm productivity will compensate for any loss of agricultural land – something which is seriously challenged by the NFU in its submission to the consultation.

“The problem we have is that food production is still the poor relation,” NFU president Tom Bradshaw told a media briefing on Friday (25 April).

“We have the legislated climate target, and the legislated environmental target, but we don’t have a legislated food production target.”

Suspect assumptions

The assumptions being made about potential productivity gains, which the government believes will deliver the food supply needed in future, are highly suspect, he added.

While the government was assuming a 0.5% increase per year, Mr Bradshaw said some sectors had been “flat lining” for the past two decades.

Indeed, most of the productivity gains referred to by Defra had occurred in the 1970s and 1980s when the UK had joined the EU and production subsidies were introduced.

“Also, it is predicted we will have an extra 10 million people to feed in the UK [by 2050], so we should be looking at how we can feed that growing population, not how we feed a static population,” Mr Bradshaw added.

“If we were to take that 19% of land out of production, then how will we be able to deliver the resilient food system required to feed that growing population?”

Land sharing 

The NFU is therefore advocating a “land sharing” approach where, instead of land being taken out of food production for nature delivery, the two can work in unison across all of the farmed area.

This could include the greater use of herbal leys, cover crops, grazing livestock within solar farms, or using floristic field margins for food production.

Given the geopolitical and climate change uncertainty, it was especially important to avoid locking land up in permanent use changes, that would remove any opportunity to “flex” food production in times of shortage.

Mr Bradshaw said there was a “complacency” in government towards food production – especially at a time when farmer confidence was at rock bottom due to the introduction of inheritance tax, the pulling of the Sustainable Farming Scheme, and the lack of a ring-fenced, multi-annual budget.

“Once you turn the taps off, you can’t turn them back on again,” he warned.  

There was a particular issue with losing “critical mass” in the uplands. If farmers went out of business, the heritage and culture of these areas would be gone forever.