PDF file: Annual Report 2002/2003 - Scottish Crop Research Institute

Director’s Report
culturally-related services from outwith the UK; (e)
associated implications such as livestock and human
welfare, including access to foodstuffs; and (f) the
standpoint of the author(s) where science, economics,
and social perceptions can have a less-than-objective
partnership. In the absence of well-developed markets
for most environmental goods, any valuations can
only be broad-brush, even where inferences are drawn
from surveys of opinions; or from the behaviour of
other markets subject to environmental influences and
essentially assessing so-called ‘welfare impacts’; or
judging surrogate measures based on goods that have
market values, the usual example being the treatment
of waste waters, costs that are driven by legislation.
Agriculture’s damage to natural goods has been
judged to be £1.566 billion in 1996 prices (J. Pretty,
C. Brett, D. Gee, R. Hine, C.F. Mason, J.I.L.
Morison, H. Raven, M. Rayment, and G. van der
Bijl. An Assessment of the Total External Costs of UK
Agriculture. Agricultural Systems, 65, 113-136, 2000);
£1.072 billion at 1998 prices (O. Hartridge and D.
Pearce. Is UK Agriculture Sustainable? Environmentally
Adjusted Economic Accounts for UK Agriculture.
CSERGE – Economics paper. September 2001); and
£1.227 billion at 2000 prices with biodiversity, landscape,
and human-health damage uncosted
(Environment Agency. Agricultural and Natural
Resources: Benefits, Costs and Potential Solutions. May
2002). The positive environmental impacts of agriculture
providing environmental services in the form
of agricultural landscape, forest and woodland, environmentally
sensitive areas, and Sites of Special
Scientific Interest were estimated by Hartridge and
Pearce to be £594.9 million per year at 1998 prices,
and £955.5 million including the benefits of creating
photosynthetically driven carbon sinks.
Protected Land Areas Designated sites in the UK
afford varying degrees of environmental protection by
favouring land management practices that yield conservation,
biodiversity and other related benefits (see
Protected Areas and Species above). Collectively, the
National Parks, AONBs and NSAs cover 21% of the
UK land area, SSSIs and Areas of Special Scientific
Interest (ASSIs) in Northern Ireland; cover 7.7% of
the UK land area. Other protected areas include
Ramsar (wetlands) sites, World Heritage sites, nature
reserves, National Trust and Scottish National Trust
lands, Nitrate Vulnerable Zones, and various agrienvironment,
rural stewardship, and countryside management
schemes. With modulation, the protected
area is set to increase.
IFM and Organic Agriculture Environmental protection
is the focus in the UK of two types of agriculture:
Integrated Farm Management (IFM) which is an
holistic approach to minimise adverse environmental
impacts but maintain efficient and profitable production,
a system best exemplified by the Linking
Environment and Farming (LEAF) scheme; organic
farming, which has a more ideological basis, strictly
regulating inputs and technologies, and focusing on
soil fertility. Organic farming extended to 699,879
hectares by June 2002 but in value terms represented
a small part of UK food production.
AIC Agricultural representation in the UK was
changed in 2003 by the formation of the 365-member-company
Agricultural Industries Confederation, a
body that arose from the amalgamation of (a) the UK
Agricultural Supply Trade Association (whose members
produce circa 90% of the UK’s annual feed;
account for more than 90% of the grain, oilseed, and
pulses traded in the UK; and represent more than
80% of the UK’s certified seed trade); (b) the
Fertiliser Manufacturers Association (whose members
comprise 95% of UK fertiliser producers); and (c) a
group of distributors supplying more than 90% of the
UK’s crop protection products as well as agronomy
advice. The combined membership had a turnover of
£6.5 billion.
An Overview of Modern Agriculture
The transfer from a nomadic hunter-gather existence
to one of systematic and organised food and fibre production
in settlements of durable housing, with people
in stable social groupings deploying tools, keeping
livestock, and cultivating crops, is widely thought to
have begun about 9000-7000 BC in the Middle East,
although there is evidence of crop cultivation in 9000
BC in northern Thailand, and in 7000 BC in northeast
Mexico. In terms of scale of operation, however,
it is clear from archaeological evidence that the development
of agricultural-dependent villages or settlements
was most pronounced in the Middle East, in
Iraq in about 6750 BC, in Greece in 6000 BC, and in
Crete at around the same date. As the journalist A.
Browne wrote in The Times in April 2003 during the
war with Iraq, civilisation was thought to have started
in the fertile plains between and around the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers. The Bible is replete with references
to early cities and sights that were built as a result of
successful agriculture. The plough, the wheel, the
chariot, picture-symbol records giving way to
cuneiform and then a syllabic alphabet for writing, lit-
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