Moved by Baroness Boycott To move that this House takes note of the
impact of climate change and biodiversity loss on food security.
Baroness Boycott (CB) My Lords, I am very pleased to introduce this
debate today. It was topical when I first tabled it, and it is even
more so now. I thank all noble Lords who have signed up to speak,
and I especially welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Willis of
Summertown, who will be making her maiden speech today. I am sure I
join...Request free trial
Moved by
To move that this House takes note of the impact of climate
change and biodiversity loss on food security.
(CB)
My Lords, I am very pleased to introduce this debate today. It
was topical when I first tabled it, and it is even more so now. I
thank all noble Lords who have signed up to speak, and I
especially welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown,
who will be making her maiden speech today. I am sure I join
everyone in the House in welcoming her and being extremely
grateful for her expertise, which is much needed now. I am also
sure, like everyone else, we send our best wishes to the Royal
Family.
The war in Ukraine has weaponised global food supply. In
blockading ports and destroying infrastructure, Russia has
severed the ties between acutely food insecure populations and
the Ukrainian wheat and cooking oil on which they depend. The war
is not the sole cause, but it has thrown fire on an already
unstable situation which is being undermined across the world by
climate change. The record-breaking 40-degree heatwave and
prolonged drought in the UK—July 2022 was the driest July since
1911, and it has been the driest nine months since 1975—are stark
reminders to us all, not least for the farmers and food producers
in the UK. Retailers are rejecting vegetables because they are
stunted due to a lack of water. Some 50% of the potato crop is
not going to be up to much. They are being ploughed back into the
soil—a quite horrific prospect as we face the most severe cost of
living crisis in my lifetime. Livestock farmers are already using
their winter silage or haylage due to a severe lack of grass.
What is this going to mean for the winter months ahead? No one
knows, because there is no plan.
This is not a problem for us alone. The shocks from climate
change, such as drought and other extreme weather, and the
associated biodiversity loss are not going anywhere. They are
everywhere. Like us, China and Kenya are experiencing their worst
droughts in living memory. Alarmingly, research by the London
School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine highlights that we
import 32% of our fresh produce—the key to healthy diets—from
countries that are most vulnerable to climate change.
But I now turn to the other part of the debate: biodiversity. All
too often it is overlooked as part of the fight against climate
change. But make no mistake: you will not get one without the
other. Some 40 years ago, the world scoffed at James Lovelock’s
understanding of the interconnectivity of life on earth—now, when
it is almost too late, we are starting to understand just what a
miracle it is.
A 2021 report gave a damning verdict on biodiversity in the UK:
we are one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world.
Institutionally, we are not just failing nature; we are actually
hastening its demise. The Dasgupta review, published brilliantly
by our Treasury in 2021, highlighted this in one shocking
statistic: globally, we subsidise the destruction of nature to
the tune of between $4 trillion and $6 trillion annually. In the
UK, it is a minimum of $70 million. COP 15, taking place in
Montreal later this year, will be a critical test of the world’s
resolve and a chance to change that trajectory.
Back to the UK specifically, since the 1970s our food system,
from farm to fork, has been the key driver in the decline of
nature. A study by the Natural History Museum found that we have
lost half of our biodiversity since the industrial revolution. At
present, we know that over 40% of UK species are in decline and
that one in 10 are threatened with extinction, and that 85% of
our soils have been severely degraded. Changes in the way we
farm—overusing chemicals, planting monocultures and removing
habitat features, partly driven by our own implementation of
subsidies—have been a leading contributor to this loss.
Biodiversity plays a central role in both tackling climate change
and establishing a farming system that naturally provides
pollination and pest predation, as well as soil fertility and
carbon storage. We cannot tackle these two issues in isolation;
we must see them as one challenge.
Solutions start with the food system. It can be tempting to see
something as sprawling as the global food system as completely
beyond the reach of Governments. Yet global food insecurity and
our food insecurity are the product of policy decisions—they did
not just happen. The virtual exclusion of agriculture from
climate change policy has spared the sector from the pressure to
transition to more sustainable practices. Just as Governments
have favoured fossil fuels over renewables, so they have favoured
large corporations that say they will deliver cheap food and
economic growth. We need to reimagine this system, from what
happens in the field to what we eat.
Research is helping us understand that embedding biodiversity
into farming systems and increasing the carbon content of soil
will improve yields. But how do we manage that soil and the land
to feed people and nurture the planet? That is critical. As the
national food strategy set out, 22% of land that produces food in
the UK is used to produce crops to feed animals. This is
massively inefficient.
On land use, I want to debunk something that has been doing the
rounds. It has been said that solar farms are a threat to food
production. This is emphatically not the case. Solar farms
currently take up 0.1% of land in the UK. Even if that is rapidly
scaled up, as the previous Government said they would, that would
still rise to only 0.3%. In context, that is only 0.5% of all our
farming land and about half the size of the land used for golf
courses. In addition, solar farms can be biodiversity hotspots if
they are not grazed. On this, as on many aspects, we can hit
multiple birds with a single stone.
The ecosystems that we degrade through overuse should be helping
to absorb carbon, regulating surface temperature and protecting
against the destruction wrought by weather and extremes. Instead,
we have relentlessly weakened nature’s resilience and limited the
capacity of soil to deliver healthy harvests. Agro-ecological
approaches have very encouraging outcomes. For instance,
Hillesden Farm, a 1,000 acre farm in Buckinghamshire, has since
2005 increased biodiversity while never losing crop yields. As
farmers manage 70% of the UK’s land area, and the need to tackle
the climate and nature crisis is great, the Government must
consider increasing the budget for farming from its current £3.2
billion a year. A land-use framework for not just farmland but
all land is crucial, and the Government must not miss the
opportunity they now have to act.
Let us turn to another part of the food system. We know that the
agri-food supply chain on both an international and national
level is concentrated within a handful of companies which hide
behind opaqueness. The just-in-time model and the oligopolistic
nature of our food system make it vulnerable and fragile to
geopolitical and climate shocks. We must have shorter supply
chains and local food systems that are built on diversity. The
Sustain alliance carried out a significant piece of market
research in 2021 which found that most farmers in England and
Wales want to supply much more locally and regionally. However,
there are very big barriers, from a lack of affordable finance to
any investment in infrastructure such as abattoirs.
There is a massive opportunity for our Government to marry up the
levelling-up agenda and the net-zero strategy to deliver more
climate-friendly and resilient supply chains that create decent
jobs and put some pride in place around farming and food. Can the
Minister confirm whether he will push for this to happen?
On procurement, the public purse spends over £2 billion a year on
catering. It is therefore one of the Government’s most direct
tools to change what people eat, reduce the amount of cheap
industrial meat and introduce more fruit, veg and pulses, but the
standard of public sector food across the UK is really patchy. It
is the Government’s job to set standards that all caterers are
legally obliged to follow, so that they will serve nutritious
meals that demonstrate and normalise healthy diets, rather than
cheap junk food.
The Food for Life programme, run by the Soil Association, is
proof that good food can be served on public sector budgets. I
have seen this for myself over many years. It serves 2 million
meals a day and is produced to higher environmental and welfare
standards. The Government are currently consulting on introducing
a target for 50% of local food, of which at least 20% should come
from high production standards, as I have proposed in an
amendment to the Procurement Bill.
On what we actually eat, changing how we farm will not be enough
to break the vicious cycle of poor diets and environmental harm;
only by radically lowering the demand for meat in high-income
countries can we do that. Animal products are an important part
of high-quality protein but they are a huge drain on global
resources. Our overconsumption is costing us our planet as well
as our health. One-third of all the grain grown in the world is
destined for animal feeds, and if population and the demand for
meat keep rising as is forecast, agricultural production will
have to increase by 50% in the next 30 years. Clearly, that is
quite impossible. As an aside, right now there are 80 billion
animals living in cages or feed-lots to feed us—that is four for
every single person. It is quite disgusting.
The Committee on Climate Change has repeatedly called for the UK
to reduce meat and dairy by a fifth, while the Dimbleby-led
national food strategy called for a 30% increase in fruit and
veg. How do we get there? The time for being reticent on making
policy interventions to shape how we eat must be over. We are not
just facing a climate and nature emergency but a big public
health one. Governments, policymakers and parliamentarians can no
longer claim that this is a simple case of educating children
better or asking them to exercise more. In England alone, 28% of
adults are obese and 36.2% are overweight; the Covid pandemic has
exacerbated that. This is a disgrace.
How have the Government responded to this new challenge? In
April, they cut £100 million of funding to local authority weight
management services and in May introduced a go-slow on their own
obesity policies to restrict “buy one, get one free” on junk food
and junk food marketing. I would be interested in hearing from
the Minister an explanation of exactly how junk food adverts help
citizens afford good food.
The problems of poor diets do not just lie at the feet of
individuals, and not all meat and dairy has the same impact. The
challenge for all of us—government, policymakers and
businesses—is how, in the face of a rocketing cost of living, to
guarantee that everyone has access to a healthy diet that does
not cost the earth. According to the Food Foundation, there has
been a 57% increase in food insecurity since January 2022, and we
now have 17.2% of households with kids experiencing lack of food,
which affects 2.6 million children. The poorest fifth of UK
households would need to spend 47% of their disposable income
just to meet the cost of the government-recommended healthy diet.
Clearly, they cannot do it.
Here are some things that the Government could do: uprate
benefits in line with inflation; increase Healthy Start; and have
supermarkets, the top four of which announced pre-tax profits
this year of £4 billion, top up the value of vouchers. Government
could auto-enrol eligible children in free school meals. The
Child Poverty Action Group estimates that currently nearly
900,000 kids are missing out, and they have parents on universal
credit. If we are to live in a green and pleasant land, all
children going to school must receive a hot and healthy meal, in
the same way that they receive a pencil and a ruler.
Can the Government think more creatively about shifting dietary
habits? Are there ways that prices could be lowered on healthier
foods? Given how resource-intensive and damaging intensive meat
farming is, what could Governments, national and local, do to
curb their spread? We need to study food insecurity in the round.
We should at the very least have a special inquiry into this
issue.
It is possible to get a better world, but changes must be
fundamental. Farming lobbies are powerful, leaving politicians
reluctant to shift from large-scale agriculture. while advising
people what to eat is regarded as the nanny state. The result is
that our tackling of the environmental harms of industrial
agriculture is weak to pathetic. The worst health outcomes have
been blamed on the individual, never the system. Food poverty and
food insecurity is the result of being unable to cook or being a
rotten household manager. We have done everything to prop up a
system that is not only killing us—diet-related disease is now
the number one cause of preventable death on the planet—but
killing our wildlife and soil, and contributing massively to the
climate change that is destroying the planet.
Finally, what are the Government for if they fail to look after
their people and ensure that they are adequately fed, their
children can grow into healthy adults and the soil, the country
and the fields they inherited are not used just as an
inexhaustible cupboard? This is no easy task for any Government,
but I should really like the Minister to agree that just because
something might be really difficult does not mean it is not worth
doing.
3.50pm
(Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, for securing
this debate and the amazing tour de force of her speech. Food
security is a huge area, but she covered most of it and I shall
not attempt to try to do the same. I am also glad to see my noble
friend on the Front Bench; I hope he has a good deal of Araldite
to keep him there a bit longer, because we need his experience
and knowledge.
It is also a pleasure to welcome the recently published
government food strategy. I should like to mention three aspects
in particular: the commitments to maintain the current levels of
domestic food production, which is very important; to a separate
horticultural strategy; and—such good news to me—to develop a
land-use strategy. At long last: we have been banging on about
this for many years and have always had the thumbs down from
Defra. At long last, the Government will produce a land-use
strategy next year, and I look forward to it. However, I feel it
is a bit of a cart before the horse, because the Government are
half way through the ELMS programme, and we needed a land-use
strategy before a policy for the land.
It is good to see the change in Defra’s approach, because the
past decade has not been its finest. In the first part of the
past decade, it flirted with sustainable intensification in
agriculture. That followed Professor John Beddington’s Foresight
report—many of your Lordships will remember it. No sooner had
that gone cold and started to collect dust than the pendulum
swung and Defra moved off in totally the opposite direction, on a
rather nebulous path to sustainable agriculture. At long last,
the pendulum is a little more central.
I fear that in the past few years, Defra has been too influenced
by some NGOs and well-meaning environmentalists who have rather a
picture postcard view of the country and what farming was about.
Ideals were based on emotion rather than science and fact. I now
want to concentrate on the importance of Defra making all its
decisions on hard, provable science. Without that, we will not
get the resilience and sustainability in our farming system that
we so badly need, as just highlighted by the noble Baroness, Lady
Boycott.
Let me start with production levels. I go back to the 1960s, when
I was working on farms before I went to agricultural college. If
we had kept the same yields as we achieved then, we would have to
farm 85% of global land surface, rather than the 35% we do at the
moment. That is a huge credit to our farmers, not just in this
country but throughout the world, who have increased their
production to keep us fed as they have. We owe them a huge debt
of gratitude, and we rely on them to keep us fed in future. Can
my noble friend confirm that the strategy set out by Henry
Dimbleby in his National Food Strategy will be followed by the
Government: that is, to have high-yield farming, low-intensity
farming and natural habitat? It is important that there are these
three different parts.
Conservation scientist Andrew Balmford said:
“Most species fare much better if habitats are left intact, which
means reducing the space needed for farming. So areas that are
farmed need to be as productive as we can possibly make
them.”
That will be anathema to some people, but it is absolutely vital
because we must improve the biodiversity. Is it possible to farm
in the way that Henry Dimbleby suggested? It is; we have been
doing so for 30 years at least. The Game & Wildlife
Conservation Trust, in its Allerton project, have been doing
exactly this. It has increased the number of farmland birds,
productivity and the areas of land subject to wildlife and to
low-intensity farming. It can be done, and I hope the Government
will use that as a template for the future of farming in this
country. That was a question I posed to my noble friend when he was a
Minister; I am glad to see him in the House. He did not give me
an answer then, but I hope that my noble friend the Minister will
give me an answer today.
It was the late Harold Macmillan who allegedly said, “Events,
dear boy, events”. The question of Ukraine and what it has done
to farming was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, but
it shows how resilient and adaptable we must be in the future, to
adapt to all the new circumstances thrown at us.
My penultimate point is to ask my noble friend about the soil
health action plan for England. Many of us were delighted when we
got a commitment from my noble friend of Richmond Park that there
would be a soil health action plan. Alas, Defra seems to have
gone to sleep on it. It was promised to me in a Written Answer in
the spring. Well, spring is a long time away. I have followed
that up with Written Questions but there has been obfuscation. I
wonder whether we were accidentally misled by my noble friend, or
whether there is a new policy in Defra. Can my noble friend tell
me what the up-to-date situation is?
In conclusion—this is all related to science—I pay a particular
welcome to the noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown. Being a
scientist, she is exactly the sort of person we need in this
House, to help us and guide us through our deliberations. Some of
our hard—perhaps crusty is the wrong word—farming and
environmentalist noble Lords are in the Chamber at the moment,
and the noble Baroness will get to know us all pretty well in a
short time.
3.57pm
(Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, for this
timely debate, at a time of growing concern about rising food
prices and increasing food shortages. I add my welcome to the
noble Baroness, Lady Willis, who comes with a significant
reputation already. We know that she will make a major
contribution to the environmental debates that we will be
involved with. This debate is also timely because we have a new
Prime Minister, a new BEIS Secretary of State, and a new Defra
Secretary of State. We are all anxious to know what their plans
are for the environment. I have to say that, so far, it is not
looking good.
Of course, has been the Defra Secretary of State before, so I was
keen to see what she made of it last time. I googled her record.
In the two years that she held the post she never made one
keynote speech and gave the impression that she could not wait to
leave. What we do know is that in that period she cut the
Environment Agency’s budget so much that it became unable to act
against water polluters, a legacy that we are still living with
today.
Today, she announced the opening of new oil and gas licence
applications, and the lifting of the ban on fracking. She is also
cutting the green levy, which was introduced to help energy
companies fast-track to renewable energy growth. As a result, our
progress towards delivering net zero by 2050 is in danger of
going into reverse. Can the Minister please tell us whether the
PM is still committed to the net-zero target? If so, what steps
is she proposing to take to achieve it, given that we are already
behind on the current targets and her emphasis on gas and
fracking will make matters worse? Given that she has made great
play of her plans to rip up remaining EU legislation, where does
that leave the retained environmental legislation, such as the
habitats and birds directives, which underpin our current
biodiversity strategy?
One of the reasons there is so much uncertainty about the future
is that Defra lacks a coherent plan to deliver its climate change
and biodiversity strategies. The Committee on Climate Change and
the Commons EFRA Committee have consistently criticised the
department’s approach to this. As they have said, a long-term
strategy is required to prepare the agriculture sector for the
risks and opportunities that arise from climate change, including
higher temperatures, drought and increases in the spread of pests
and diseases.
We have seen the huge impacts that arise from extreme weather
globally, in the devastating droughts and fires in Australia and
the loss of life and homes in the recent Pakistani floods.
Clearly, the droughts that we faced this summer are a portent of
things to come. The result is lower yields of crops, livestock
being fed winter feed as the dried-out grass cannot sustain them,
and poor horticulture outputs. This is impacting the bottom line
of farmers and growers at a time when fertiliser and energy costs
are already making their businesses increasingly unviable. So I
ask the Minister: where is the Defra plan to help farmers adapt
to the challenges of climate change, so that they can play their
full part in delivering net zero?
We already know that the water companies are failing to play
their part. We clearly need a strategy to preserve the
increasingly scarce and precious water supplies that exist. This
means building more reservoirs for storage and fixing the leaks
in existing pipework. Farmers and growers need to know what is
expected of them from future water use.
A couple of years ago, I spent the day with Norfolk farmers, who
are growing many of the fruit and vegetables that feed the
nation. They had been told by the Environment Agency that their
access to the local aquifer was about to be restricted, as it was
running low. Their argument, which was well made, was that if
they had been given longer notice of this change, they could have
invested in their own water supply units. They simply did not
have time to adapt, given the short notice they were given. These
are the sorts of challenges that producers across the country are
facing.
We know that much bigger changes in agricultural practices will
be needed to meet our climate change obligations, including a
switch away from livestock farming. This has the twin advantage
of also improving the nation’s health. But where is the Defra
plan to reduce our share of carbon emissions from agriculture? We
are falling badly behind the necessary targets.
Meanwhile, as Minette Batters has said, proposals to help farmers
increase food production have been stripped to the bone. We know
that costs are rising dramatically for farmers and food
producers, putting further pressure on food price inflation. The
closure of the UK’s biggest fertiliser plant will add to costs,
as will its impact on the supply of CO2. At the same time, tonnes
of food are being left rotting in the field and over 40,000 pigs
have been culled, simply because of labour shortages—a problem of
the Government’s own making. Our farmers are increasingly being
undercut by low-quality imports from abroad.
Where is the plan to support British farmers to increase local
food production and ensure that British food is affordable? The
Committee on Climate Change flagged up the possibility of a major
switch to produce food more suitable to hot, dry climates, such
as peaches, apricots, tea, sunflowers, sweet potatoes,
watermelons, walnuts and, of course, wine. Is this the future the
Government see for horticulture? There is huge popular support
for the notion that we should become more self-sufficient in food
production in the UK. The increasing food scarcities from war and
drought will exacerbate that need, so why do the Government not
aim to increase our home-grown production of vegetables beyond
the current 54%? Why do we not incentivise planting more fruit
trees as part of our tree planting strategy? At a local level,
why do we not encourage communities and individuals to grow more
of their own food in gardens and public spaces?
Last week, volunteers on my allotment picked six crates of apples
and pears to give to FareShare. This is, in effect, free food,
and we should replicate that model in communities wherever we
can.
Of course, we did have a comprehensive food strategy that began
to address these issues. The Dimbleby report set out a
comprehensive road map that would have allowed us to fix the
broken food system and provide more nutritious and accessible
food for the nation. Sadly, as we have debated before, the
Government’s response was late and totally inadequate.
The truth is that the Government have failed to deliver a food
strategy, are failing on our climate change commitments and are
failing farmers. I suspect that they will be punished—rightly—by
rural communities at the next election. I look forward to hearing
what the Minister has to say, but I doubt there is much he can do
to stop that inevitability.
4.05pm
(CB) (Maiden
Speech)
My Lords, it is a great honour to address this House for the
first time. I start by thanking all the staff in the Chamber of
your Lordships’ House, as well as my fellow Peers, for the very
warm and helpful welcome that I have received. I also commend the
noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, for securing this debate.
I started my academic life as a palaeoecologist, which is one of
those terms that makes people look very puzzled when I mention
it. For the benefit of the Convenor and others who might not
know, this is the study of fossil pollen, plant macrofossils and
leaves contained in lake sediments over thousands of years, which
you can then use to reconstruct vegetational responses to
external perturbations such as climate change. This is
particularly important for larger organisms, including one of our
most important, our trees. If you think about it, the average
generation time of most trees is 50 years. You need these
longer-term records to understand how trees will respond.
This research was looking predominantly at dead plant parts, but
this all changed when I went on secondment to the Royal Botanic
Gardens, Kew for five years as its first director of science.
Suddenly I was surrounded by this incredible biodiversity of
plants. In fact, in a single lunchtime I could see the world in
plants. When at Kew, I was responsible for around 360 scientists.
Many people do not realise how many scientists there are at Kew.
I was also responsible for the incredible collections in the
Millennium Seed Bank, the Herbarium and the Fungarium. Since
returning to Oxford from Kew, I have held a professorship in
biodiversity in the department of biology, and I am also head of
one of the oldest colleges in Oxford, St Edmund Hall.
Today’s debate—
“that this House takes note of the impact of climate change and
bio-diversity loss on food security”—
therefore links very closely to my current and past roles. In
terms of understanding the scale of biodiversity loss, some of
the most startling evidence I have ever come across as an
academic was when I co-led a team of scientists from all over the
world to assess biodiversity trends in the last 50 years. This
was as part of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on
Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. We examined thousands of
records. It was incredibly depressing, because plants, animals,
fungi, species, communities and genetic diversity have all
declined significantly in the last 50 years. Two main drivers
emerged from this biodiversity loss: land-use change and climate
change.
But why should we be concerned about the impact of global
biodiversity loss on food security? Often when we look at global
biodiversity, we think about David Attenborough programmes and
beautiful landscapes, but there is actually something much more
critical here, which is its impact overall on food security. This
is why: of the nearly 420,000 vascular plant species that we know
about on the earth to date, just nine supply over 75% of our
plant-derived calories in human diets, with wheat, rice and corn
alone providing almost half of the world’s calorie intake.
These crops have been selected for decades, if not hundreds of
years, for the high yields that we heard about earlier. This has
resulted in high yields and the very good-tasting food that we
want to eat, to buy and to feed ourselves and livestock, but as a
result we have less and less genetic diversity and smaller and
smaller species numbers. The loss of that genetic diversity means
that in these crops we have lost our resilience to climate
change.
A lot of modelling is going on, and it indicates alarmingly that
with global warming of even 2 degrees Celsius, there will be a
20% to 40% reduction in cereal grain production, particularly in
Asia and Africa but also in the UK. So we urgently need to
restore the genetic diversity of our crops or find alternative,
more climate-resilient crops, and this is where there is a
critical link back to biodiversity.
Work by scientists at Kew and other institutions, notably the
Crop Trust, have identified around 320 species of wild relatives
of crops and more than 7,000 wild and semi-domesticated plants
used by societies all over the world that are not in major
production. The vast majority of these crop wild relatives and
underutilised plants grow in much more extreme climates than
their highly domesticated versions and, crucially, have genes
that allow them to do so. They are effectively climate-resilient.
We need to breed that kind of resilience back into our crops.
This work is already going on. Some notable institutions,
including the John Innes Centre in East Anglia, are breeding
climate-resilient crops from the crop wild relatives. The species
being looked at are rice, durum wheat, legumes and potatoes.
In line with United Nations sustainable development goal 2, we
need to be conserving these crop wild relatives and underutilised
crops, yet this is where the problem comes in. These wild
relatives of crops and underutilised plants grow in the same
biodiverse landscapes where we are seeing the most dramatic
declines. Biodiversity loss, including of these crop wild
relatives and underutilised crops, is removing in many ways our
get-out-of-jail card when it comes to creating create
climate-resilient crops, and we should be deeply concerned by
that.
However, it is not just the impact of climate change and
biodiversity above ground that we need to worry about—we have
already heard some of this—it is also about the impact below
ground and, in particular, the mycorrhizal fungi that are
attached to 80% of terrestrial plants across the world. It is a
symbiotic relationship, which means that the fungi get food from
the plant and in exchange there is a network across the soil that
greatly enhances the uptake of nutrients and minerals and water
retention by those plants. Many plants, and many of our economic
crops, have very specific mycorrhizal assemblages associated with
them.
Application of mycorrhizal fungi to crops has already shown that
it can increase grain yields by 16% in crops such as corn, rice,
sorghum and wheat. There is now clear scientific evidence to show
that this is one of the ways forward to get climate-resilient
crops. However, increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide,
temperature and pH significantly alter the composition of fungi
in the soil and affect their ability to function, so I would go
as far as to say that the hidden impact below the ground of
climate change and biodiversity loss might be even more
significant than the impact above ground. Without the right fungi
in the soils, some crops will simply not grow.
To conclude, the combination of climate change and biodiversity
loss poses an extremely serious risk to global food security and,
in particular, to our ability to grow high-yielding,
climate-smart crops. I therefore strongly commend this Motion and
thank the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, for bringing this
critically important topic to the attention of your Lordships’
House.
4.13pm
(Lab)
My Lords, what a pleasure to rise to congratulate the noble
Baroness on her maiden speech, which I do on behalf of everyone
present here today. She put a powerful and persuasive argument
utilising all the expertise she could bring to bear. You would
never know that the noble Baroness has been a Member of this
House for such a short time. The House will recall that she took
her seat on the last day before the Summer Recess, and here she
is making her maiden speech four sitting days later. I do not
know what the record is for the gap between being introduced and
making a maiden speech—I dare say some Minister holds the
record—but nevertheless for a Cross-Bencher it is a very
distinguished way to start.
The research to which the noble Baroness modestly alluded,
whether conducted at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge or
Bergen, or at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, is an example of
how important it is that the House of Lords Appointments
Commission can produce for this House people of the noble
Baroness’s calibre. We are due tomorrow—though I understand a
statement is to be made at 6 pm tonight—to discuss the
Appointments Commission, but we will see. In the meantime, I
congratulate the Cross Benches on the arrival of their latest
Member. I hope she will not mind if I say this, but I have found
since my relatively recent arrival that it is the almost
intolerable good will of this House that is sometimes difficult
to bear. I hope that I have conveyed just a hint of it in
welcoming her speech today. The trouble is that I now have to
make some remarks of my own.
I begin, like others, by saying that we all owe a debt of
gratitude to the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, for introducing
the debate in the way in which she did. You cannot imagine a more
important debate than one on the future of the planet earth and
our ability to feed ourselves. It is very timely, and I
compliment the noble Baroness on the way she introduced it.
In my short contribution, I want to mention some of the risks of
biodiversity loss, because biodiversity loss and climate change
are two sides of the same coin. Biodiversity is a term we use to
describe the variety and variability of life on the planet, from
the biggest mammals to microscopic single-cell organisms. The
diversity of life and the interactions between organisms are what
create the natural ecosystems that in turn regulate the
environment and make the earth habitable.
As the House will know, the Royal Institute of International
Affairs, Chatham House, among many others, has drawn attention to
the fact that biodiversity loss is accelerating by stating:
“Despite increasing recognition of the crucial role of
biodiversity in maintaining human and planetary health,
biodiversity is declining faster than at any time in human
history, and perhaps as fast as during any mass extinction”.
That is a serious warning we need to take seriously.
I heard the other day that it is thought that by 2035 the
National Health Service will be spending more money on the
complications arising from type 2 diabetes than on cancer. That
is a result, in part, of what might be called the “junk food
culture” of the western world, because we are not necessarily
eating the best or most healthy food. When it comes to
mind-blowing statistics, I understand that the world is going to
need to produce in the next 40 years more food than it has
produced in its entire human history—which shows the scale of the
challenge we face.
As the noble Baroness correctly pointed out, I think about
two-thirds of the world’s plant-based food comes from just nine
species of crop. The House really needs to know how vulnerable we
are when we read a statistic like that, and the noble Baroness
speaks with much greater authority than I do. The noble Baroness
also referred to the resilience of plants, which is going to be
crucial to our survival. Converting land to agriculture does not
just destroy natural ecosystems such as prairies, grasslands and
forests. It also deprives wildlife of the food sources and
shelter that it depends upon to survive.
Beyond the destruction of ecosystems, the intensification of
farming is also driving biodiversity loss. I think it is
estimated that about 100,000 species of insects, as well as birds
and mammals, pollinate more than two-thirds of the food plants
that are responsible for about one-third of the world’s crop
production. I am only in many ways repeating in a pale form some
of the points made by the noble Baroness. The variability and
availability of living organisms are essential to agriculture as
they ensure that the natural processes can take place,
contributing to important functions such as soil fertility.
There are one or two things that are going wrong, and I will
briefly draw attention to them. Land use, which has been
mentioned, is a major driver of biodiversity loss and many
agricultural practices are unsustainable in the long term. I
suppose the deforestation of the Amazon is the most obvious
example.
Then there is corn. We have been growing corn for 9,000 years
but, as demand for it has soared, one of the most worrying
aspects is the loss of diversity within the crop itself. Studies
have pointed to a troubling erosion of genetic diversity within
corn crops that could impact the crop’s ability to be sustained
and grown in future.
In the last 40 years there has been a reduction of about
one-third in all insect pollinator species where they have been
measured, while biodiversity loss in marine fisheries is likely
to continue and global heating can threaten that recovery
completely as the oceans warm and become increasingly acidified.
That matters because about 3 billion people on the planet rely on
fish for a whole host of their food intake. In light of the time,
I shall close by saying that biodiversity loss is as great a
threat to the world as the phasing out of fossil fuels.
Perhaps I could conclude with a word of hope. I think I am right
in saying, although I am sure I will be corrected if not, that
there has been some fascinating scientific research that hints at
breakthroughs in the productivity of plants and the possibility
of significant increases in, for example, the yields of soya
plants that could make a big difference in a world with a growing
population and significantly amounts of farmland lost to climate
change.
I hope the Minister might say a word about the current COP 15
process in relation to biodiversity and when we might expect a
White Paper from the Government in response to the
recommendations of the national food strategy, as referred to by
my noble friend among others. I look forward to hearing from the
Minister in his reply, and I end by congratulating once again the
new expert Member of the Cross Benches on biodiversity, the noble
Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown.
4.21pm
The Lord
My Lords, I begin by adding my own compliments to the noble
Baroness, Lady Willis, on what was a most excellent maiden
speech. I am very much looking forward now to her deep scientific
learning informing many future contributions. We need good
science in this House. I also echo the sentiments of my right
reverend friend the in the previous debate,
assuring your Lordships that Her Majesty is very much in the
prayers of the Lords Spiritual at this time.
I am deeply grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, for
securing time for us to discuss the important matters in this
debate. I draw attention to my interest as set out in the
register as a Church Commissioner; we are one of the largest
owners of agricultural land in England.
This year we have seen unprecedented consequences of climate
change, both at home in the UK and abroad: record temperatures,
shifting weather patterns, rising sea levels and biodiversity
loss. Climate change is alive and kicking, and we need to work
together at all levels, locally, nationally and internationally,
to address the crisis.
I am glad to be able to commend actions taken by the Government
to address food security here in the UK. The Government’s food
strategy that was published in June was a clear step in the right
direction. However, much more still needs to be done to address
food security across the country. Like others, I urge the
Government to pay attention to the Dimbleby review, particularly
its recommendations to pass new legislation to protect our food
security and the environment.
As the cost of living crisis and energy bill increases bite—I do
not know what the Prime Minister planned to announce today—we
must ensure that we are doing all we can to guarantee food
security for all. Almost all the churches in my diocese have a
food bank that they are supporting. But there other things that
we can do: we can invest in the transition to sustainable farming
and fisheries, and we must strengthen local food systems and
reduce both UK meat consumption, as the noble Baroness, Lady
Boycott, urged, and food waste.
I want to speak mostly beyond the UK. We need to look over the
horizon to the need for global food security. The United Nations
has estimated that 50 million people in 45 countries are
living
“each day on the edge of famine”.
Indeed, speaking at the Global Food Security Call to Action
ministerial in May this year, UN Secretary-General António
Guterres spoke of climate change’s impacts on global hunger,
saying:
“Over the past decade, 1.7 billion people have been affected by
extreme weather and climate-related disasters.”
As noble Lords have discussed, the impacts of climate change on
food security are only going to worsen. The IPCC has said that an
increase in global warming of 1.5 to 2 degrees centigrade would
increase pressure on food production and access. Beyond 2
degrees, it would lead to severe food insecurity across certain
regions, particularly in Africa, Asia and the Americas. Global
warming beyond 3 degrees would significantly expand the areas
impacted by severe food insecurity. As we have heard, these
changes compound biodiversity loss, which in turn compounds food
insecurity—this is a vicious spiral.
Two days ago, I returned from a trip to Namibia. I have been
visiting churches and communities in that diocese because we in
the diocese of Manchester have the pleasure of being twinned with
it. The majority of Namibia’s population depend, directly or
indirectly, on the agricultural sector. It is estimated that the
mean annual temperature will go up by 2.7 degrees in the next few
years and that annual precipitation will decrease by 7%. This is
likely to cause longer droughts, increased heatwaves and greater
flooding, and implications for the agriculture sector in the
country are obvious—food production is already being
destabilised.
Namibia is a semi-arid country; the soil in many places is almost
like the sand on a beach. It is highly dependent on grazing
animals that can survive through the long dry season on its
marginal grasslands. Namibia is probably one of the few countries
where I would struggle to maintain my meat-free diet. Sadly, poor
rains in the last few years have increased the numbers of people
who have lost their cattle. Many have been forced to migrate,
particularly from the rural north to the capital, Windhoek. This
has created huge pressure on services in the city, led to
increased numbers of people living in wholly unacceptable
conditions—these have to be seen, heard and smelled—and raised
the number of people, especially young men, who lack meaningful
employment. Elsewhere, as noble Lords are well aware, such
factors have been observed to put social harmony and cohesion at
risk.
My diocese is also twinned with the diocese of Lahore in
Pakistan, and it has been heart-wrenching to see and hear of the
devastating impacts of climate change there. Noble Lords will
have seen that more than 33 million people have been displaced
from their homes by the recent floods, which cover more than
one-third of the country. Huge swathes of farmland, crops and
stockpiles have been destroyed, while supplies of rice,
vegetables and wheat have been severely disrupted.
These are just two countries—two I happen to know well—among many
whose food security is already being negatively impacted by a
climate crisis for which they are not primarily responsible. I
hope that, in this debate, the Minister will be able to assure us
that Her Majesty’s Government will use all their influence and
powers, not least to uphold the pledges made at the COP 26 summit
to address the challenges of adaptation, loss and damage. It is
essential that we all take responsibility, not just individually
but collectively, for our part in climate change and biodiversity
loss, and that we act to stop them now to ensure a more
food-secure future for us all. Let this debate be a significant
step in that direction.
4.27pm
(Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, for securing
this important debate. I add my welcome to the noble Baroness,
Lady Willis of Summertown, and congratulate her on her excellent
and highly informative maiden speech.
There is no greater illustration of the impact of climate change
on lives, livelihoods and, inevitably, biodiversity and food
security than the calamitous events that have unfolded in
Pakistan in recent days. I will use the time allocated to me to
focus my remarks mostly on that country. As the right reverend
Prelate pointed out, an area the size of the United Kingdom has
been flooded due to torrential monsoon rains even more forceful
than the norm, following the soaring temperatures this year, and
due to the melting glaciers in the north of the country. The
impact of these floods on those directly affected and on the
country as a whole cannot be adequately expressed.
Noble Lords will be familiar with the statistics: more than 1,900
people have been killed, more than a million homes have been
damaged or demolished, 10,000 schools have been lost, 900 health
facilities were wrecked, and more than 3,000 kilometres of road
and over 100 bridges were destroyed. There is the additional
destruction of huge tracts of farmland, with roughly 2.2 million
hectares of crops ruined and 800,000 livestock swept away. The
estimated total loss to the economy is $30 billion. Rice, cotton
and sugarcane —both in the fields and in stores—were destroyed,
and 1.7 million fruit trees were ravaged. It is an apocalyptic
scene, the kind that might be imagined in a disaster movie.
Sadly, however, this is reality and a sign of things to come for
our planet.
Pakistan is just one of a number of countries on the front line
of climate change, while also being one of the countries which
contributes least to pollution. The challenges the country faces
on food security are beyond measure. Wheat planting in the month
of October is now under threat, and the shortage of around 2.6
million tonnes, even before the floods, will be further
compounded. Vegetables, such as onions and tomatoes which are a
staple in that country, are in some areas completely wiped out.
Prices for these foods prior to the floods had soared due to
inflation, but they are now unaffordable for many.
The Government of Pakistan have warned that there is a food
security crisis looming. The UN Resident Coordinator and
Humanitarian Coordinator for Pakistan has described the emergency
as a “climate-change driven catastrophe”. With Pakistan the fifth
largest exporter of rice—exporting around 4 million tonnes—the
loss of crops will have an impact on availability and prices
elsewhere.
In 1989, the former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher warned in a
speech to the United Nations General Assembly on global
environment that:
“Of all the challenges faced by the world community … one has
grown clearer than any other in both urgency and importance … the
threat to our global environment”.
That was 33 years ago, but we are nowhere near meeting the
challenge or putting in place adequate defences to mitigate the
impact of climate change. The climate finance target of $100
billion by 2020 promised by the wealthier countries, as a
recognition of their responsibility for historic carbon
emissions, to lower-income countries to deal with the impacts of
climate change has never been reached.
With other vulnerable countries on the front line of what has
been pointed out by experts as an exponential growth in climate
change, it is fair to say that these events will happen more and
more frequently and with equally devastating consequences.
Bolstering the resilience of countries most immediately
vulnerable to climate change should be paramount. I know that
this is not the responsibility of Defra, but I hope that my noble
friend the Minister can give some assurance that Her Majesty’s
Government would offer a commitment in this regard, because, as
the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, pointed out, everything is
interconnected.
In Pakistan, the devastation of food crops due to flooding is
starkly visible, but the full impact and the loss of biodiversity
will become apparent in due course. When vegetables and crops are
replanted, once the waters have subsided and the conditions will
allow, there is a danger that the pollinators will no longer be
there. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on
Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services has argued that
“biodiversity loss would leave agricultural systems more
vulnerable to threats such as pests, pathogens and climate
change”,
and that it would lead
“to an increased risk of crop failure”.
The current devastation will be tragically further compounded by
disease and malnutrition.
Here in the UK, heavy rainfall and flooding in some areas in
England have caused sewage overflows into rivers and around the
coast. We have also experienced unusually high temperatures this
year, with the Environment Agency declaring droughts in parts of
the south-west, southern and central England, and the east of
England. As a result, it is estimated that food yields may be
lower. If local food supplies continue to decline due to the
impact of climate change, then imports of cheaper or
lower-quality, highly processed foods that have little
nutritional value would have a detrimental impact on health and
further exacerbate the stresses on our healthcare system.
What has happened in Pakistan is of proportions that are
unimaginable. It can seem that such events are very far away, but
the threat is accelerating and will reach us sooner than we
imagine. The hope remains that technological advances and human
innovation will save the day, but the emergency is real and
immediate and requires urgent action and co-operation at every
level and among all nations.
4.35pm
(Lab)
My Lords, I declare my interests as chair of the Woodland Trust,
as a commissioner at the Food, Farming and Countryside
Commission, and as vice-president of a range of environmental and
conservation charities. I commend and welcome the maiden speech
of the noble Baroness, Lady Willis; it is really great to have
another biodiversity freak on board. I very much endorse the
statements made about the powerful contributions that excellent
scientists have made in this Chamber—it is great to have the
noble Baroness here.
Climate change, biodiversity and food security are totally and
deeply interdependent, both globally and nationally. The
Armageddon in Pakistan described by the noble Baroness, Lady
Mobarik, is absolutely an example of that, and we will
increasingly see other examples. Climate change, biodiversity
decline, and food and survival catastrophes for people across the
world will become more and more frequent.
Right now in the UK, apart from any of the international actions
that we can take, we need to ensure that policies are in place
that focus on the environment and climate change impact not only
of our food production but on our food production. Both are
equally important. The current international tensions make it
even more important that we address issues of food security in
this country. The UK will never be self-sufficient in food
production until we learn how to grow pineapples in Kent—that may
yet come, of course—but there are some commodity groups where we
could produce more of our own food. We are currently only 16%
self-sufficient in fruit, 54% in fresh veg and 71% in potatoes,
so we could do more. I raise this issue of self-sufficiency in
these commodities simply to indicate how that in itself raises a
challenge. Expanding potato production, for example, would need
more land and water, and potatoes are notoriously hard on
soils.
That takes me to the key point on which I want to focus. There
are many in the Chamber today who will have guessed that I want
to bang on about land use. There are many competing demands for
land in this country: agriculture and food production;
biodiversity; carbon sequestration; generation of energy; timber
production; water protection; development; housing;
infrastructure; and land that people can access close to where
they live and gain the health and spiritual benefits that those
services provide. There are more land needs and pressures than,
at the moment, it would seem we have land for. The Cambridge
Conservation Initiative has calculated that, if we were simply to
use land in the way that we do currently, we would need a third
more land than we have. The risk is that we consider all these
land-use needs as being in competition and that we continue to
make decisions about them in silos.
As I said, many noble Lords will have heard me banging on for
years about the need for a land use framework for England, which
would provide support for decision-makers at all levels in
breaking down the silos of decisions about land use. I simply say
that Scotland is on its third land-use strategy. I know that our
new Prime Minister does not think a lot of the First Minister of
Scotland, but she may have got it slightly more right on this
occasion in having a third land-use strategy. It brings into one
policy framework the land aspects of a whole range of issues:
food production, biodiversity, climate, economic development and
social justice. We are not making any more land. I thought it was
really fascinating that we have lost sight of the theme of the
post-war settlement in this country—of the three capitals: of
labour, capital and land. We have lost sight of the fact that
scarce land is as important a national asset as capital and
labour. I commend that thought to the Treasury and the new
Chancellor.
As has been said, the Government recently agreed, in their
response to the Dimbleby food strategy, that England needs a
land-use framework—hurrah—but we appear to have rather a
different Government today, so I ask the Minister to reassure the
House that the Government are still committed to developing and
launching a land-use framework by 2023. I urge him to widen the
perspective of the strategy to cover not just the narrow range of
Defra issues of carbon biodiversity and food production, but also
the whole range of land-use pressures, especially infrastructure,
housing, the built environment and energy generation. In
particular, the framework needs to be completely seamless with
whatever changes to the planning system the Government are
working on. I also press him to give us an indication of the
Government’s current intentions on planning reforms, because at
the moment they have kind of gone into a hole.
Some other wider government policy currently seems a bit confused
as well. As the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, said, the solar
panels versus food security argument is unreal, although I do not
think the new Prime Minister has yet twigged that. If the
Government were to tackle, systematically and urgently, a major
programme of energy efficiency and retrofitting in all domestic
and commercial properties, and if they were to restore their own
zero-carbon new homes policy that was cancelled in a rather
cavalier fashion by in 2015—if these two things
were done—we would need less energy and we would not need solar
panels on farmland, because solar power would be generated
intrinsically on buildings.
The biodiversity versus food security and carbon action versus
food security dichotomies are also unreal. Modelling commissioned
by the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission shows that
multifunctional land use, where the same land delivers for a
range of purposes, means that we can have enough land for all our
needs and one land use need not be at the expense of another.
Many of the decisions about the best multifunctional land use are
made, in reality, at local level by myriad land managers.
Whatever framework the Government develop needs to be able to
inform decision-making processes below national level, at
regional and local level, involving land managers and landowners
of all kinds.
Let the science speak: when the land is used effectively in a
multifunctional way, we can see a wholly revitalised landscape
that is rich in both food and nature and combats climate change.
This is about being smarter with the finite land we have. At the
risk of a pun, we need to be able to have our land and eat it.
Perhaps the Minister will be able to tell me whether he is still
committed to a land-use framework that will be broader than just
the Defra issues and how the planning reforms are going.
Before I finish, at this tense time for the country in a whole
variety of ways, I commend the Queen’s Green Canopy initiative,
which Her Majesty has hugely supported and has very graciously
allowed the Woodland Trust to be involved in. Her Majesty knows
about these things.
4.44pm
(CB)
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness,
Lady Young. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, for
securing this debate, and add my congratulations to the noble
Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown, on her excellent maiden
speech. I look forward to hearing more in the future.
As Peers will know, I am something of a climate change obsessive,
but I tend to focus mostly on energy. However, I have become much
more interested in agriculture, food and land use and how it
relates to climate, because it is a fascinating area. It is one
of those aspects of life that we tend to take for granted, but
the way we manage our land will be severely affected by climate
change. It is also a source of that change to our climate and,
unlike energy, which—although let us see what happens—is largely
a privatised system, with the Government providing guardrails to
companies to make decisions on how we produce our energy, there
is huge involvement of the public purse in agriculture. We have a
very large subsidy that passes from the public purse—the
Treasury—to the guardians of our land every year.
It has been really curious watching this evolution of policy,
with Brexit coming into force and uttering the immortal words
that we will pay only
“public money for public goods”
before departing the scene, leaving us slightly unclear as to
what he actually meant by that, and what the detail will be in
terms of knowing what we will be paying for in the future. I have
a question for the Minister: can we press ahead with providing
clarity for the guardians of our land and our agricultural
stewards so that they can plan for the future?
It strikes me that farmers are a very isolated breed in general.
They obviously have ways in which they communicate among
themselves but, by and large, they are being guided by people in
whose interests it is to keep them purchasing fertilisers, seeds
and chemicals. The people who visit the farm regularly have a
vested interest in keeping the status quo. I am not saying that
this is true of all farming, but there is a need to think about
whether this is right—whether we are providing farmers with the
right information for them or the right information for those who
benefit from this highly industrialised form of agriculture that
has become a norm. I wonder whether there is more of a role for
government to create an educational service for farmers to help
them understand what they are likely to be facing—a destabilised
climate in this country—and how they can expect things to change
around them. They are witnessing it themselves but they may not
be thinking 20 years hence, when we know that this is just the
beginning of the impacts we are likely to see.
Coupled to that, can we be clearer about the payments that we
will make to the guardians of our land to provide us with public
goods? It strikes me that this subsidy is very good value for
money, because we get a whole host of services from our land that
are not accounted for or paid for directly. We could say to
farmers that this is the minimum level of public money they can
expect because of the stewardship role that they provide, and
that we would increase it further if they could get to a point
where they were helping not only to mitigate their own impact on
climate change but acting as an active carbon sink. This would
allow other sectors to continue to emit because farming and land
use, and our land-use strategies, would deliver over and above,
and we would become much more carbon-rich and store more carbon
in our land than we currently do.
That is not easy, but it is not impossible. I looked at the
greenhouse gas inventory: at the moment agriculture contributes
around 5.5 million tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere, from
agricultural tractors, transport uses and direct use of energy.
Overall, however, our land-use area is a natural sink of around 3
million tonnes at the moment. We are not far from parity in terms
of CO2 emissions. Of course, that picture changes completely when
we factor in other greenhouse gases, for which agriculture is
largely responsible. Around 25 million tonnes of methane are
emitted from the land-use sector into the atmosphere every year,
and around 15 million tonnes of nitrous oxide. We have a long way
to go to get this sector into a carbon-neutral position so that
we can be ready for our net-zero targets.
We have a rather large amount of money available to us that we
have been paying out for years and years in agricultural
subsidies. It could be repurposed to deliver this increased
carbon sink and will, I am sure, deliver increased biodiversity.
To get there, we will have to embrace science and I endorse the
words of the noble Earl, : we have to allow modern
technology and approaches into our agricultural system to allow
us to spare the land. and let nature take a greater role in other
parts of the land. We can do that only if we have a land-use
strategy and framework that enables us to see where the use of
science will be appropriate to increase yields, and where we can
afford to allow land to return to a less productive state and
deliver more social and environmental benefits.
I have come back from a summer holiday in the Brecon Beacons; it
is a beautiful part of the world and I highly recommend it. There
are about a million sheep there, however, and I was talking to
local ecologists who said the carrying capacity of the area is
probably about 100,000—nowhere near a million. We are by a factor
of 10 overgrazing this part of the world, which is an incredibly
important eco-system with all sorts of benefits. We have to find
a way to help farmers move to a position where they are, yes,
still farming the land and providing us with the things that
society requires, but not encouraging them to keep with livestock
that creates methane and is damaging our biodiversity, while
probably exacerbating flooding and changing the way the landscape
appears aesthetically.
There must be a way of doing this. We have the money and the
intention, but we do not seem to have the plan. We need to open
up a way of getting farmers to think creatively about how they
can contribute. It could be done by setting aside a portion of
the money into an auction, so that we pay people to deliver the
outcomes we seek. I know some trials have taken place under the
ELMS reforms, but that is an established way of helping people to
find the best and least-cost solutions to reducing greenhouse
gases. I am sure we have the capacity to do that; our carbon
markets and carbon financing expertise in the UK are second to
none. If we can harness them and help to unleash the creativity
that I know is out there in our country, then we stand a chance
of having agriculture neutralise its own emissions but then
contribute to the reaching of net zero across the economy.
Although I am, in general terms, quite depressed and rather
scared about where we are on climate, I think the UK is uniquely
positioned. There is huge potential to lead the world in showing
that this sector can not only reach a sustainable future for
itself but assist us in solving climate change more generally. I
look forward to hearing from the Minister and I thank my
colleague and noble friend Lady Boycott, who I know will continue
to champion these causes in this House. Thank you.
4.52pm
(LD)
My Lords, I join other noble Lords in sending our best wishes and
prayers to Her Majesty the Queen and the Royal Family.
I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, on securing this
debate and on her very powerful introduction. I pay tribute to
the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, for her maiden speech, and what
an excellent maiden speech it was. I am not sure it was only the
Lord Convener who needed her previous title to be explained, but
thank you for that. The noble Baroness’s expertise will be hugely
appreciated in this House.
I want to focus on the impact on developing countries, and I
declare my interest as co-chair of APPGs on Africa, South Africa
and Zimbabwe. Some 38 years ago, aged 14, I sat down and watched
the famous broadcast by Michael Buerk from northern Ethiopia
which brought the world’s attention to the catastrophe that was
going on in that region. As many noble Lords know, that inspired
many people; it created Band Aid and Live Aid, and a whole
movement to try to change things.
As a precocious 14 year-old, at the time of EU intervention in
stocks and the grain mountains, butter mountains and wine lakes,
I felt, along with many others, the outrage that people were
starving in parts of Africa when we were awash with plenty.
Perhaps unlike most other 14 year-olds, I decided that I was the
only person who could solve this, and for complicated reasons—I
will not go into them now; I do not have the time—I ran away from
home to Ethiopia. I arrived in Addis Ababa, and I quickly
discovered, as your Lordships may not be surprised to hear, that
the demand for totally unskilled 14-year-old English kids was
zero, and that Ethiopia at that time, under a Marxist military
dictatorship, was a pretty scary place to be.
Thankfully, I was rescued from that situation by an Anglican
clergyman. He gave me some very good advice: first, to go home,
although he was kind enough to let me stay there for a little
while. He also told me, “Do not lose interest in these issues,
because they will be ongoing, but go and get yourself some
skills”. I took his advice and subsequently worked as a teacher
in Zimbabwe, and in the first democratic Parliament in South
Africa.
One of the tragedies is that, today, we are again facing a
perilous situation in Ethiopia and the Horn, which is driven by
climate factors but exacerbated by conflict. Large parts of the
world are facing acute food insecurity. The World Food Programme
tells us that it is delivering more food aid at present than it
has in the whole of its 60-year history. A study published
earlier this year in the Annals of Nutrition and Metabolismon
tackling protein-calorie malnutrition during world crises
highlights the fact that 54% of children are malnourished, while
1.9 billion people are overweight or obese. The statistics around
malnutrition show that 462 million people are underweight. In the
most vulnerable population, that of children under five, 45
million are wasted and 149 million stunted. We know that that
point in life, between ages one and five in particular, is
crucial to the future life chances of those children and the all
impacts this has on future economic development in those
societies.
The acute crisis in food security, driven by climate and
biodiversity loss but exacerbated by the Covid pandemic and
Russian aggression against Ukraine, is creating a terrifying
situation in the world. I was in Sudan a couple of months ago,
and the fear of what is coming is palpable. I spoke to the new
South African high commissioner in London yesterday, and the
impact that the situation is having on household budgets here is
of course terrifying, but in places with much more vulnerable
populations and economies, it is absolutely terrifying. We have
sadly chosen this time to cut our aid budget massively, slashing
the nutrition budget by 80%. That is a tragedy to me, because one
thing I learned when I was in Ethiopia is that however precocious
or determined you are, you cannot change the world on your own.
But you can change it if you stand with other people and campaign
with them.
One of the things I did when I came back from Ethiopia was to get
involved with many other people—across all parties and none, from
the faith communities, et cetera—in arguing for us to play our
part in sharing some of our wealth with other parts of the world.
I was delighted that, during the coalition Government, we reached
that 0.7% target. We did much good, not just with the money but
with the expertise that DfID developed in issues such as
nutrition and food security. Sadly, we are losing that, and that
is a tragedy.
It sometimes seems like we have just noticed climate change,
because we had temperatures of 43 degrees and there were
wildfires in California, and realised that something is happening
to the climate. Something has been happening to the climate for a
long time. Talk to people in the climate-vulnerable
countries—Zimbabwe is one of the most climate-vulnerable
countries on earth—which have suffered over many years some
devastating impacts, such as waters drying up. Rivers in the
rural area where I used to teach were no longer functioning.
There was also a terrible cyclone in east of the country driven
by climate change. This is not something new; it is something
that has been happening for a while and we have to get a grip on
it.
We have had much focus on climate, rightly, but it is very
important that we also focus on biodiversity. As the noble
Baroness, Lady Boycott, and others have said, they are
intrinsically linked and we cannot tackle one without the other.
Indeed, all three issues are intrinsically linked.
The noble Baroness, Lady Willis, made an important point, which I
hope I have got right: nine out of 400 vascular plants are
responsible for the majority of the staple foods that we rely on
and, in the face of climate change and the need to build
resilience, we have to develop the genetic diversity of crops. It
is critical.
The noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, made a very powerful point
about the situation in Pakistan, where flooding has been going on
since August, if not before, and noted its impacts on people and
food security.
We face many challenges. What can we do? The noble Earl, , gave us some hope about
approaches to farming which can help deliver food security and
restore biodiversity. There are many initiatives. The Food and
Land Use Coalition has put out a 10-point transition plan about
how we need to deal with these things holistically. The most
important thing we have to do is act on the things we know how to
do. The Climate Change Committee has told us many of the things
we need to do in the UK and we know many of the things we have to
do in the world.
We also all know that story about the frog which, if put in a pan
of cold water that is heated up to boiling point, allegedly will
not jump out. We probably also know that frogs are not that
stupid and they will jump out. However, that story still appears
to be true; it is just that it is about humans. We have been
watching what has been going on with the climate and biodiversity
and we have just sat in the pan and let it get hotter and hotter.
We have to jump out now and start to act seriously, in line with
the crisis that we face.
5.04pm
of Ullock (Lab)
My Lords, Her Majesty the Queen and her family are very much in
our thoughts at the moment. I am sure that across the House we
are all deeply concerned.
This is an important debate. I congratulate the noble Baroness,
Lady Boycott, on bringing it to the House and on her
comprehensive introduction, which was often quite sobering. I
also congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown,
on her maiden speech, which was excellent. There are few maiden
speeches that I have learned quite so much from. It was very
interesting and I look forward to her future contributions in the
House.
On the debate, the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization has warned that global loss of biodiversity is
threatening the security of the world’s food supplies and the
livelihoods of millions of people. Land use changes, pollution,
overexploitation of resources and climate change were listed as
the biggest drivers of this biodiversity loss. My noble friend
Lord Stansgate said that biodiversity loss and climate change
were two sides of the same coin, and I absolutely agree with
him.
Agriculture and its related industries depend hugely on the
climate. Crop production and livestock are the largest global
food industries and are highly sensitive to climate change.
Increases in temperature, changes in precipitation patterns and
changes in storm frequency and severity all can significantly
affect food production, and we have also heard about the added
impact of the war in Ukraine. So it is clear that, in response to
these huge challenges, agricultural production and how we manage
our food security have to change.
Over the past 20 years, most countries have industrialised their
animal agriculture practices, and there is an increasing amount
of trade in animal products globally. The noble Baroness, Lady
Worthington, talked about the impact of industrialisation. Yet,
insufficient steps are being taken to address this issue and curb
practices which drive greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation and
biodiversity loss. Farm animal waste and other aspects of the
animal agriculture sector generate greenhouse gas emissions, as
we have heard during this debate. The national food strategy
considered the impact of animal agriculture, so I ask the
Minister whether the Government have looked at how to address
this further.
The IPCC has stated that climate change is already directly
affecting food security and nutrition, which it defines as
“when all people, at all times, have physical, social, and
economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that
meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and
healthy life.”
We need to look at how we can make sure that we provide this, not
just for people in our country but right across the globe.
The RSPB says that the role that agriculture, land use change,
pollution, unsustainable fishing practices, climate change and
development have played in the significant loss of biodiversity
in the UK is now widely accepted.
The NFU rightly recognises that climate change is arguably the
greatest challenge facing the world and that British farmers are
in the front line of increasingly frequent weather extremes. July
this year was the driest in England since 1911, and before that
were the driest nine months since 1975-76. The right reverend
Prelate the talked about the clear
signs of climate change right across the world this year, and the
noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, talked movingly about the impact on
Pakistan.
Farmers are clearly concerned about the future and need support
in protecting, maintaining and enhancing the environment. The NFU
also agrees that optimal environmental outcomes should seek to
improve nature, enhance air and water quality and build soil
health, and has set itself the challenge of agriculture reaching
net zero by 2040 in the UK. But the Government have a crucial
role to play in this. Food security must be placed at the heart
of wider government policies, with a reporting system and clear
oversight to ensure that we do not allow our domestic food
production to diminish.
CAFOD provided a helpful briefing in which it reminded us that
the UK Government made welcome commitments at COP 26 on food and
agriculture under the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and
Land Use. Can the Minister give an update on progress towards
delivering on these commitments? We need clear indicators for
reporting on new policies and laws, as well as on reduced rates
of deforestation, increased land titles for indigenous peoples
and local communities, finance for agroecology and actions to
repurpose agricultural subsidies.
In their 2021 Food Security Report, the Government described food
security as a “complex and multi-faceted issue”. At the same
time, it identified risks to the UK’s long-term food security. It
said that climate change, climate variability and biodiversity
loss all threatened the long-term security of global food
production, and concluded that climate change and biodiversity
loss were among the biggest medium to long-term risks to UK
domestic food production, alongside other factors such as soil
degradation and water quality. The noble Earl, , mentioned the soil health
action plan, and I look forward to the Minister’s update on where
it is.
As we have heard, the Government also commissioned the Dasgupta
review, which looked at the risk to the world economy of the loss
of biodiversity, particularly to food security. It also said that
biodiversity loss was damaging the health of the soil needed to
grow the food. The noble Baroness mentioned this in her maiden
speech, and it is absolutely critical.
Defra’s outcome delivery plan for 2021-22 reaffirmed the
Government’s “vision and mission” for the environment. It
said:
“We are here to make our air purer, our water cleaner, our land
greener and our food more sustainable. Our mission is to restore
and enhance the environment for the next generation, leaving it
in a better state than we found it.”
Further, the government’s agriculture transition plan said:
“By 2028, we want to see … a renewed agricultural sector,
producing healthy food for consumption at home and abroad, where
farms can be profitable and economically sustainable without
subsidy”
and with
“farming and the countryside contributing significantly to
environmental goals including addressing climate change.”
All the work I have just mentioned is excellent—there are lots of
fine words here—but we need an integrated approach and real
action. The NAO, the Environment Audit Committee and the Treasury
have all highlighted the need for Defra to take a lead role in
demonstrating the value of more integrated approaches to
environmental policy-making, and there are opportunities to
develop these approaches. In particular, the National Food
Strategy, about which we have heard, and the enabling provisions
in the Agriculture Act provide the chance to consider food use,
land use and environmental systems all together, so that we
deliver for the environment as well as for the economy and
society.
The noble Earl, , mentioned the land use
strategy, and my noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone spoke with
her usual passion about the importance of land use. Why are all
these opportunities not being fully grasped and acted on? There
is plenty of strategy and policy coming out of government, but to
be successful, we need effective delivery. Little is achieved by
strategy and policy alone. The resilience and sustainability of
our farming system are absolutely critical. The noble Baroness,
Lady Worthington, mentioned that the UK has huge potential to
lead the world on this, so let us get on with it, act on that
potential and deliver what we need.
We know that any farming system we set up, and any new
arrangements that come out of the ELMS agreement, must not be at
the expense of tackling climate change and mitigating
biodiversity loss. Farmers will need proper government support to
achieve this while maintaining food production. My noble friend
Lady Jones of Whitchurch mentioned the lack of a coherent plan in
Defra. The noble Lord, , said that we know what we need
to do. My question to the Minister, who I am sure has listened
very carefully to the debate, as he always does, is: what plans
do the new Government have to deliver on all their fine
words?
5.14pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs () (Con)
My Lords, I refer noble Lords to my entry in the register. I
start by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, on
securing this debate, and welcome this opportunity to respond on
the matter of climate change and biodiversity loss impacts on
food security. I thought she made an outstanding speech. I agreed
with so much of it, and I shall try to address as many points as
I can in the course of my speech. I recognise her extensive
experience in the area of food insecurity, particularly as chair
of the London Food Board and as a trustee of the Food
Foundation.
The Food Foundation is a fantastic organisation doing extensive
work on the rise in UK households experiencing food insecurity
and providing key research in this area, helping the Government
to shape policy.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Young, for drawing to our
attention, on this poignant day, the Queen’s Green Canopy. I echo
all the sentiments offered to the Royal Family in today’s
debate.
I join everyone in welcoming the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, to
this place, and congratulate her on an absolutely outstanding
maiden speech. One of the best duties that I have as a Minister
is being responsible for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and
before being a professor of biodiversity at the University of
Oxford, the noble Baroness was director of science at Kew, an
extraordinary institution of global repute. It delivers so much
for this country, not just in terms of what it provides to us as
policymakers and to people who learn from it, but also soft power
abroad, giving enormous heft to the attempts to tackle the very
subject which we are debating today. The role of the noble
Baroness there, and the roles of those people who are still at
Kew, are extraordinary. Her addition to this House will be of
enormous value. We need people who understand science and who can
inform debates. I welcome her wholeheartedly and congratulate her
on her maiden speech.
In the UK, we are privileged to have a highly resilient food
supply chain, as demonstrated in the Covid-19 response. It is
well equipped to deal with situations with the potential to cause
disruption. Our high degree of food security is built on supply
from diverse sources: strong domestic production as well as
imports through stable trade routes. We produce 61% of all the
food we need, and 74% of the food we can grow or rear in the UK
for all or part of the year. These figures have changed little in
the last 20 years.
It is vitally important that we continue to meet our food
production needs, while protecting our food supply and resilience
from the adverse effects of climate change and biodiversity loss.
As the noble Baroness on the Front Bench opposite said, the FAO,
in its report The State of Food and Agriculture 2021,
asserted:
“To feed a world population forecast to reach 9.7 billion in
2050, agriculture may need to produce 40-54% more food, feed and
biofuel feedstock than in 2012. Improving water security,
restoring species abundance—particularly in pollinators—and
protecting soil health so that it functions effectively, is
crucial to food security, and closely linked to the significant
action that we are taking to tackle climate change and
biodiversity loss.”
It is very welcome to have the Climate Change Committee’s chair
here today. Its Independent Assessment of UK Climate Risk was
published in 2021. It offers a detailed and up-to-date insight
into the growing risks and opportunities that the UK faces from
climate change, including the risks to food supply chains. In
this report, the committee notes that the risks to future
domestic food productivity and food supply chains are high. Water
scarcity is likely to be an early factor affecting the viability
and quality of agricultural land in many parts of the world,
impairing the ability to grow crops in the conventional way. Many
noble Lords have made powerful statements about both the domestic
experience that we have had here of recent weather extremes, and
experiences abroad.
This means that international food security could become more
dependent on the ability of the temperate regions of the world,
such as the UK, to produce food sustainably. Here in the UK,
climate impacts could include reduced soil function due to
erosion and through extreme weather events, causing flooding and
leading to increasingly compacted soils, and droughts, thereby
causing low soil-moisture levels. There is also a greater risk of
pests, pathogens and invasive species, as well as disruption to
supply chains from climate change overseas.
Every month, we have a biosecurity meeting. I confess, at times,
the picture of some of the pests and diseases that are either
here or coming here, and with which we are trying to deal, is
very bleak. This is a very sobering immediate impact from climate
change to which we need to react.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, asked about net zero. The simple
answer is that, yes, there is an absolute commitment. It really
would not matter if there was not, because it is in law. No
Government could possibly get a reversal of our intentions to
achieve net zero through both Houses. It was announced today that
my colleague in the other place is to lead a review on net
zero to find the most efficient and fastest way to reach our
climate targets. That will report to the new Prime Minister by
the end of the year.
Recognising the importance of food security, under the
Agriculture Act 2020 the Government made a commitment to produce
an assessment of our food security at least once every three
years. The first UK food security report was published last
December and covers food security in the widest sense, from
global food availability and sustainability to domestic supply
chain resilience, household food security and food safety. We
published the government food strategy this summer, setting out a
plan to transform our food system to ensure it is fit for the
future.
The point of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, about the ability
to produce food from less land was well made. Martin Lines, who
runs the Nature Friendly Farming Network, said to me—I think this
is right—that he is producing the same amount of food from 11%
less land. That 11% is turned over to nature. I will come on to
talk about how we can be positive because, as we have seen,
nature can recover very quickly. There are plenty of examples of
that now. We can produce food and be secure in our supply chains,
but we can also do it sustainably and protect future generations,
as the Dasgupta review requires of us, if we follow that
excellent report.
We announced in the food strategy that we will publish a land-use
framework for England in 2023, which will set out land-use change
principles to balance climate, food and environmental outcomes.
We are seeking to deliver as much as we can from our limited
supply of land and to deliver the full range of government
commitments through multifunctional landscapes. I hope this
addresses the good point that the noble Baroness, Lady Young,
made. A decade ago, people such as Sir Graham Wynne were talking
to me about this need and, I confess, I did not really understand
what was meant. I do now and it is vital. The House of Lords
report that presaged this government commitment is worth reading;
it is the most powerful reason for backing what we seek to do. I
hope to keep the House informed of progress, if I am still here—I
have yet to be told, in answer to that question.
I was greatly moved by what my noble friend Lady Mobarik said
about Pakistan. The UK has committed to spend £11.6 billion of
climate change finance, of which £3 billion will be on nature. We
are one of the biggest contributors to the International Climate
Fund and this will help economies such as Pakistan to cope with
these sorts of terrible moments. We are very focused on food
vulnerability across the world. We committed an extra £130
million to the World Food Programme and we are a major investor
in research and development, especially in areas where
agriculture is destabilised by the climate and method of farming
there. We need to support those countries to move to more
sustainable systems.
The Government are committed to taking action to mitigate climate
change and to adapt to its impact. To support farming, we are
introducing three schemes, which have been referred to: the
sustainable farming incentive, local nature recovery and
landscape recovery. Together, these schemes are intended to
provide a powerful vehicle for achieving the goals of the 25-year
environment plan and our commitment to net zero by 2050, while
supporting the rural economy. Through these schemes, farmers and
other land managers may enter into agreements to be paid for
delivering public goods, including adaptation to and mitigation
of climate change.
In her excellent speech, the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington,
talked about what more could be done in addition to ELMS and
whether this was all. There are many other schemes that farmers
can access, but I emphasise the importance of the private sector
here and the ability of private sector green finance to enhance
farmers’ income by doing public goods. Getting some of the
trillions of dollars of ESG money sloshing around into dealing
with climate change and reversing declines in biodiversity is a
very important part of what we are trying to do in promoting
green finance spending that is honest and is not greenwash. That
is a very important priority that we have in the department.
We included a requirement in the Environment Act to set a new,
historic, legally binding target to halt the decline in species
abundance by 2030. That is seven years away. To be pessimistic,
there are many reasons why any Government could fail to hit that
target, but we are utterly determined to hit it. But if I want to
be optimistic, I point out that the ability of nature to recover
very quickly has been proved, on land and at sea, if we protect
and enhance those environments in the right way, with highly
protected and properly managed marine protected areas. The
ability of soils to function properly and the ability of nature
to restore and regenerate can be remarkably quick. Nature can be
kind to us in that respect if we get on with it. That is what we
are doing.
Several measures are being developed to help improve and protect
soil in England, making it more resilient to the impacts of
climate change. This includes new future farming schemes, which
will pay farmers for sustainable approaches to farm husbandry
that deliver for the environment, improve and protect soil health
and support farm productivity. I say to my noble friend that the soil action health
plan will be incorporated into the environmental improvement
plan, which is to be presented to Parliament, as is legally
required, by January. It might be before then, but it will be by
January.
On the important point made by the noble Viscount, Lord
Stansgate, about biodiversity, we in the UK have to do that in
seven years, as I said. In nature terms that is a heartbeat, but
we are setting out very clear plans as to how we are to achieve
that.
The UK is co-chair of the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and
People, a group of more than 100 countries that are championing a
global deal for nature and have signed up to protect at least 30%
of the world’s land and oceans by 2030, to halt the accelerating
loss of species and to protect vital ecosystems that underpin our
economic security. Also, COP 26 showcased ambition and action on
repurposing public policies and support to deliver sustainable
agriculture and food systems. The UK presidency placed nature at
the heart of the UNFCCC. Some 45 nations pledged urgent action
and investment to protect nature and to shift to more sustainable
ways of farming. A ground-breaking package was agreed to halt and
reverse forest loss and to transition towards sustainable land
use. It includes 142 countries, representing over 90% of the
world’s forests, pledging to halt and reverse forest loss and
land degradation by 2030.
The UK has also announced a £65 million Just Rural Transition
support programme to help communities move towards more
sustainable methods of agriculture and food production. The UK is
driving up global ambition on biodiversity, and hopes to create a
Paris moment for nature at the Convention on Biological Diversity
in Montreal this December.
In the few minutes I have left, I will try to address some of the
other points that were raised. The noble Baroness, Lady Boycott,
made a very important point about our position in the global
battle to tackle these problems. We are stepping up to respond.
We are calling for all countries to keep food trade flowing. At
the World Bank and the IMF spring meetings in April, the UK and
our partners secured the largest ever financial commitment from
the World Bank, of £170 billion before the end of June to support
countries that are facing economic hardship resulting from the
Russian invasion of Ukraine. With G7 allies, we are discussing
Germany’s proposal for a G7 global alliance on food security to
scale up a rapid needs-based co-ordinated response, building on
current peace and security architecture and avoiding a fragmented
global response.
Obviously, tackling domestic food poverty is a key priority for
the Government. In the Spring Statement the Chancellor announced
that we are continuing to provide targeted cost of living support
for households in most need. From April, the Government are
providing an additional £500 million to help households with the
cost of essentials, bringing the total funding for this support
to £1 billion. We take food insecurity seriously, which is why
the Government added internationally recognised food security
questions to the Family Resources Survey. The latest national
statistics from the survey show that 93% of households are food
secure, but we are working hard and accept that large numbers of
households are facing wider cost of living issues.
I think I have already addressed the points made by a number of
noble Lords on the food strategy.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, asked how resilient the UK food
supply is. Thanks to our farmers, we are almost 100%
self-sufficient in fresh poultry and certain vegetables and close
to 90% self-sufficient in eggs. A lot of points were made about
fruit and horticulture. Our horticultural plan is soon to be
announced, as well as incentives to support that sector and make
sure that we are producing as much as we can nationally and
locally. We want to disrupt the rather clunky supply chains
through new technologies such as vertical farming, and we will
see this happening in coming years.
There are a number of other points which I will seek to write to
noble Lords about, given the pressing time.
I finish by saying that my noble friend has been leading work to
ensure that the success of COP 26 is embedded in the COP 15
conference, which was due to the held in Kunming, China, as half
of the food we eat is totally dependent on biodiversity. This is
a key point. This COP could not come at a more important time,
and we have to make sure that we have success at the end of it.
What we do nationally and domestically is important—it is
important to our citizens; people really mind about the state of
our countryside, nature and how we produce food—but we cannot do
it in isolation from the global challenges that we face at this
important time. Frankly, with the at times terrifying statistics
on biodiversity decline, we need to be part of international
focus on trying to tackle that as well as making sure that
domestically we are farming and producing food sustainably and
reversing the tragic decline in species that we have seen in
recent decades.
5.33pm
(CB)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. As I think he
knows, I have a great deal of time and respect for his points of
view. I am afraid I do not completely share his optimism that we
are getting it all right and looking at green and pleasant lands
or sunlit uplands—whatever you want to call them. I have been
told that I only have two minutes, so I cannot refer to
everyone’s fantastic contributions, but I would obviously like to
single out the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, and say how thrilled
I am that she is here.
I also point out that people have talked about what is happening
in Pakistan and across the world. In this country we have always
been shielded from this stuff; we do not think it affects us. In
fact, it is affecting us hugely. The noble Baroness, Lady
Mobarik, talked about the rice production of Pakistan being
severely curtailed. That will affect not only our supply but our
prices. I chair Feeding Britain and see this every day.
Food security is to do with everyone. Food is at the bottom—or
top, wherever you want to put it—of practically everything we do.
We can live without energy, but we cannot live without food. This
has been shown by the fantastic contributions from everyone in
this House. It is in everything, whether we are talking about
water, soil or big companies that run the world. It needs an
extreme shake-up. At the moment, we fiddle at the margins.
Politically it looks impossible, but that is no reason to say
that we should not try.
I thank noble Lords very much for being here tonight. I would be
grateful if the Minister could write to as many people as
possible as some really important points were made.
Motion agreed.
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