Jonathon Porritt’s Speech at NFU Conference
Speaking at the NFU Centenary Conference on 19 February, Jonathon Porritt warned UK farmers of the challenges which lie ahead in what he termed “an unprecedentedly difficult, extraordinary decade”. Porritt, who is Chairman of the UK Sustainable Development Commission and Director of Forum for the Future, described the range of global challenges to which UK farmers must adjust in coming years.
The speech focused on the rising significant of food security, and the increased attention the concept is drawing in policy circles, a level of attention which would have been unimaginable 5 years ago. Referencing rising demand in China and India and the pressure placed on grain supplies by biofuels production, Porritt said that while rising arable prices might seem to represent boom time for farmers, but not for all, pointing out that benefits are not evenly distributed.
Continuing to discuss climate change, Porritt praised the Government for successfully incorporating climate change into political discourse, but criticised the current ability to transfer theory into action, stating:
“I honestly do not know how many people in government today, in the farming
community today, have internalised the reality of what that transition to a low carbon economy, and a low carbon food economy, really looks like.”
Discussing GM crops, Porritt called for an end to polarized debate, which adopts either the “GM wonderful, organic awful” position or the opposite: “organic wonderful, GM awful”, and called for a world in which we can “embrac[e] every potential solution that we
possibly can”.
Porritt concluded with a series of constructive suggestions, summarized as follows:
- “we have to read these signals [price rises, changing climate] for what they tell us. Do not go on ignoring them, do not go on underestimating them; see them for what they are.
- “avoid the evangelists — I hope I have not come across as one today, maybe some of you think I have [eg. pro-GM or anti-GM evangelists].
- “re-centre food production at the heart of all land use strategies. Is it
not amazing that only ten years ago people were sitting around questioning whether or not food production had anything to do with sustainable land use strategies for the UK, Europe and the world.- “get very good at climate change. Take the advic
e that is there. Work with those people who are already offering extraordinarily good advice into the sector.”
And in reference to this last point, Porritt highlighted the report produced by the CLA, NFU and AIC (partnered by Forum for the Future) as an example of forward-thinking research which might start to shift UK farming in the right direction. The report is entitled Part of the Solution: Climate Change, Agriculture and Land Management and is available as a pdf.
[Jonathon Porritt's speech is available to download in full]
