Observations on the Oxford Farming Conference 2013 - RICS

<strong>Observations</strong> on the Oxford Farming Conf 2013 by rural surveyor and
commentator, Rob Yorke FRICS
If you want to present a high impact speech on something affecting the countryside,
with associated political implications, where better than the Oxford Farming Conference
(OFC ) to give an appropriately named barnstorming speech; I would be surprised if you
haven’t already heard of Mark Lynas via mainstream media over the last few weeks.
For, as usual, the conference stimulated and provoked thought on a range of topics
from precision farming, robot tractors and biotechnology (and no, that doesn’t just mean
GM) to improving how farmers communicate, need for Ecological Focus Areas and a
Secretary of State’s first major speech in his new post.
Was there a fly in the ointment of this ‘agri-science’ fest? Across the road, in a selection
of Oxford’s organic latte cafes, The Oxford Real Farming Conference (ORFC) was
unfurling its wings over the same time period on what they propose is an ‘alternative’
way to do things. Tweeting, furious at times with hash tags battling it out between
‘macho talk’ at the OFC and what the ORFC thought was more interesting stuff from
their venues, chat abounded on challenges of Community Supported Agriculture and
permaculture. In my opinion, the contents of each conference are as valid as each
other, in tackling future food production at local and global scales. It is just a pity that
the two events coincided at the same time, even though modern technology does
enable you to feed off both Twitter streams simultaneously.
Owen Paterson, Defra’s Secretary of State, is not having a smooth ride. Playing to
powerful English farmers, keeping in with Europe, throwing a bone to the GM lobby,
culling an iconic mammal and holding conservationists on side; this is no easy time to
be a Minister for an Environment being fought over by so many. He almost used the
same sentence as Dacian Ciolos, EU Commissioner for Agric & Rural Development,
addressing the conference last year, when Paterson hinted at taxpayers compensating
farmers for the provision of public goods for which there is no market mechanism.
Silence on exactly what the goods are. On direct payments to farmers, was there
another silence that could have been interpreted as these payments dropping over time
as food prices increase and open market mechanisms cut in?
Mairead McGuiness, Irish MEP, made us, here in the UK, feel very urban by saying that
90% of her home country thought the farming and agri-food sector was an important
mainstay of the Irish economy. She warned us not to gamble on the outcome of CAP
negotiations and that taxpayers will demand that Ecological Focus Areas are part of
farm payments and we should get on with bridging the divide between NGOs and
farmers. John Luxton, head of New Zealand diary, again turned the spotlight on his
population with a poll stating that 90 % of Kiwis thought that dairy was key to their
economy – even if their agriculture sector contributed to 50% of their Greenhouse Gas
emissions as against a mere 8% from UK agriculture.

Many of the speakers tried not to overegg the doom-laden prophesy facing humanity of
rising populations, eating what we like while running out of resources as the sea levels
rise. Not all could resist; one intoned the outdated Malthusian line that ‘they’re not
making land any longer’ – which is patently untrue when you look at what Hong Kong,
the Netherlands and Qatar get up to on the ‘land creation’ front. The phrase sustainable
intensification did make the rounds, though with the caveat that it meant different things
in different parts of the world. The head of Rothamsted Research spoke of an increase
in yield from 2.5 to 5t/ha in a developing country being just as important as achieving an
increase from 10 to 20t/ha in developed countries. His dry delivery on fascinating stuff
from ‘diving deep’ into overcoming nature’s photosynthetic inefficiencies, improving crop
architecture (the structure and height of plants), to the great neglected subject –
improving soils as a way of converting yield potential into actual yield. There was so
much talk of soil from many of the speakers, yet so little is done to raise the profile of
this taken-for-granted and abused resource.
A man, who has taken abuse and knows about public profile, is the pragmatic
environmentalist Mark Lynas; he could do wonders to champion soil’s lacklustre image.
As a committed anti-GM campaigner, he once used to rip up GM crops and sling mud at
the corporations behind the research. He then had a volte-face and realised that the
use of science was the probably the most realistic way forward and that obstructive
celebrity chefs and aristocrats were now the thorn in the side of progress. The French
resisted the potato for decades, refusing to allow it to be grown as it was deemed an
American import. Lynas threw down the gauntlet that the organic brigade should
remove their objection to GM if it was proved to provide a long term sustainable solution
to feeding the world without detrimental impact on the environment.
Farmland birds are a guaranteed talking shop but the only time you might find the
RSPB in cahoots with chemical companies, MacDonalds, the NFU, Woodland trust and
Freedom Food, is when the UK’s largest conservation organisation is one of the OFC
sponsors. It also laid on a working breakfast and part financed this year’s themed
report: ‘Farming’s value to society’. The wide ranging study, perhaps with too broad a
remit, was presented by two professors and then picked apart by a Countryfile
presenter, an ex-adviser to Tony Blair and the inventor of Open Farm Sunday. There
was some healthy disagreement on the message to be communicated by farmers; were
they to connect society by showing up the various tradeoffs in keeping supermarkets
rammed with affordable food or challenge themselves, as farmers, to set an example of
a future industry making a profit while providing wider environmental and public
benefits?
Futuristic science dominated the talks. If Lynas had set the benchmark in challenging us
to use the science our disposal, the Royal Agricultural Society of England’s CEO
infused us with imaginary visions of driverless tractors tracking silently across the
landscape, while Jake Freestone, an avid Twitter farmer, showed us short films of how
precision farming can reduce inputs, minimise soil compaction and maximise profits.
Over at ORFC the top man at Riverford Organic Farms, Guy Watson, was confessing to
be a reluctant capitalist, and told delegates that while the glamour had gone out of
organics since its 2008 peak, we shouldn’t ignore the business model and could try and
find ways to make co-ops not favour the least inefficient producers.

There was plenty of palpable passion to be found in a ‘slow food’ sort of way that
absorbs only a miniscule slice of the consumer £84 billion spend on food and drinks –
centred mainly on supermarket and ‘fast food’ outlets. The moot point around which
much of the arguments are set, are the levels of output and land space required for food
production systems while not impacting on ‘space for nature’ and not exporting a
potential problem elsewhere.
For all this science, there’s no replacement for the lifeblood required to keep a living
and breathing countryside alive - as the Prince of Wales reminded us via a video link.
There’s an urgency to get new entrants into the farming industry without which the
countryside will start to fail, and the OFC was pressing all the buttons; ‘Bright Crop’ is
an initiative to promote positive perceptions to teenagers about farming and the Minister
David Heath launched The Future of Farming Group to look into ways of making it a
more attractive career choice. Answers on the back your RICS subscription envelope
please.
One of the speakers said that although society may value farmers, it fears actually
meeting them face to face! Perhaps this reflects our disconnect from a high jacked
‘greenwash’ image of a working countryside that we, rural chartered surveyors, must aid
and abet farmers in assisting them to face up to and deal with the challenges ahead.
Rob Yorke FRICS Agree or disagree with him via twitter.com/blackgull