Balancing need for food with protecting environment

On this side of the Pond, as climatologists grapple with unending questions about this sustained period of deluge, specialists in agriculture, food production, retail, science, and environmental affairs have been discussing the seemingly opposed ideas of increasing food production and protection of the environment.

Experts involved in this Green Food Project have been considering the nation’s future food security, and one of their suggestions is that we respond to cultural changes and consumer taste for Asian food by growing more herbs, spices and crops such as chick peas “for roti bread flour” and curries.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs set up the Green Food Project in the face of climate change and increasing population. The project examined how production and consumption could change in five areas – wheat, dairy, bread, curry and geographical areas – in the future.

A report for the Government last year predicted the world’s population would hit nine billion by 2050, and food production would have to increase by 70 per cent in the face of the rise in population, obesity and western meat and dairy-rich diets. It also estimated that between 30 per cent and 50 per cent of all food grown world-wide may be wasted.

The initial report from the Green Food Project outlines measures to boost sustainable farming, including improving research and development of innovative technology. Biotechnology could play a role in addressing some of the challenges in food production, but investment and the “emotive nature” of the debate around genetic modification had affected progress.

Farming Minister Jim Paice said: “With our increasingly hungry world, every country must play its part to produce more food and improve the environment. Britain already punches above its weight, but we’re a small island with limited space, so we’ve got to show leadership and play to our strengths more efficiently.

“We’re not talking about setting Soviet-style targets but an overall approach in which the whole food chain pulls together.”

But wildlife charity WWF-UK said the project needed to be radical and ambitious and not just rehash existing initiatives. It also warned it was a fool’s errand to try to ramp up food production without addressing underlying issues such as waste.

Evan Fraser, senior lecturer in sustainable development at Leeds University and an associate of the Economic and Social Research Council’s centre for climate change economics and policy, says it makes sense for the UK’s farmers to respond to the demand for “ethno-cultural” foods such as curry, creating new markets for themselves.

“Britain is leading the G8 nations with regard to seeking ideas on sustainable food production, and in recognising that we can’t go on the way we always have globally, especially with the amount of food that is wasted in the West. In North America we have to reduce over-reliance on industrial livestock (beef) and the huge resources it uses. I lived in Skipton for eight years, where agriculture based on sheep and dairy was the most sustainable around, with little input required from fossil fuels or agrichemicals.

“Farmers around the world tend to be slow to react to the effects of climate change, but there is no doubt that conditions have changed and the Government could help by promoting alternative crops and helping to build marketing strategies. A highly successful programme ran in North Yorkshire where Highland cattle were brought in to feed off perennial wildflower meadows. These animals mature slowly, can eat anything, and are extremely weather resistant. We need grants and education to promote more of this kind of new idea. When one farmer tries a new idea and it works, others have a go.”

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