Growers winning argument with Minister for peat’s sake

The chairman of the Sustainable Growing Media Task Force and the Defra minister he is reporting to have acknowledged that the argument is more complicated than “all peat is bad”.

The task force steering group has agreed to look critically at the alternatives to peat, the NFU announced this week, calling the decision “positive”.

Its representative on the task force, Chris Hartfield, said: “These changes have moved the focus towards a future based on a whole suite of responsibly-sourced growing media. For the task force to deliver recommendations that are meaningful for growers, it is essential that it continues with this new direction.

“Putting the industry on a sustainable footing for the future means looking at the environmental footprint of all growing media constituents, not just peat.”

The new consensus follows evidence to the task force that alternatives to peat are still unreliable; that British horticultural use of peat is an insignificant contributor to global warming and habitat loss; and that the rest of the UK and the rest of Europe are unlikely to observe the deadlines for phasing out peat which Defra has proposed for England.

Jack Rieley, a Nottingham University professor and secretary of the UK branch of the International Peat Society, is a surprise ally for the professional growers in all this. He says it makes more sense to allow a sustainable level of peat extraction and tax it to pay for conservation of the most important habitats.

The latest announcement from the task force follows a hearing in which he raised questions about the greenhouse-gas costs of alternatives to peat, like garden waste, recycled by local authorities at some cost in transport and handling.

The task force chairman, Alan Knight, is a geologist and biologist who became one of the first environmental concerns advisers in British business when he was hired by B&Q. He is now a freelance consultant. The growers are warily pleased at how much of their argument he has taken seriously since he started work on the task force in October.

Just before Christmas, Dr Knight wrote to Richard Benyon, Under-Secretary for the Environment and Fisheries at Defra, saying: “The ‘all peat is bad’ narrative of the past has never resonated with the industry and as a consequence has stifled progress.”

He said: “We need to agree what is meant by sustainable growing media. It will not be as easy as labelling all peat as ‘really bad’ and all alternatives as ‘really good’.”

And he added: “There needs to be a clear verifiable performance standard for all growing media, to avoid a repeat of the quality problems we suffered with peat-free in the 1990s.”

Dr Knight said it still made sense to try to phase out peat, because eventually all remaining sources would be protected. In an article for an NFU newsletter this month, he said: “I worry that the long-term continued use of peat might undermine our competitiveness more than an early move to alternatives.”

But he has left himself room to argue about Defra’s suggested deadlines – 2015 for government agencies, 2020 for gardeners and 2030 for professional growers.

Moving away from green versus business narrative

DEFRA Minister Richard Benyon has indicated he is happy with the subtle change of direction of the inquiry.

On January 10, he wrote to Dr Knight saying: “I have always been clear we need to move away from the argument that this is a binary issue of ‘green’ versus ‘business’ and I am pleased a consensus appears to be starting. I am particularly interested in your idea that the original ‘all peat is bad’ narrative has stifled progress. Whilst a peat-free horticultural industry should remain the desired outcome, I am very open to the idea that this should be in the context of a wider story.”