All-Party Parliamentary Group on Science & Technology in Agriculture

Annual General Meeting

Feeding the Future – Innovation requirements for primary food production in the UK to 2030

Tuesday 4 December 2012, 5.00 – 6.00pm, Committee Room 17, Palace of Westminster

Present:

Members George Freeman MP (Chair) Earl of Selborne Laura Sandys MP Huw Irranca- Davies MP Lord Curry of Kirkhale Baroness Sharp Duke of Montrose Lord Grantchester Lord Cameron of Dillington Earl of Lindsay

Guest Speaker Jim Godfrey, Farmer & Chair, TSB Sustainable Agriculture & Food Innovation Platform

Guest Panel Andrea Graham, NFU Professor Ian Crute, Agriculture & Horticulture Development Board Paul Rooke, Agricultural Industries Confederation

Stakeholders Martin Savage, nabim; Caroline O’Leary, nabim; Neil Hipps; David Alvis, TSB; Calum Murray, TSB; Bill Clark, NIAB; Jennifer Wilson, USDA; John Peck, BASF; Mike Rowe, Defra; Colin West, MAGB; Robin Upton; Andrew Kuyk, FDF; Nick von Westenholz, NFU; Rob Wilson, BASIS; Geoff Dodgson, FACTS; Peter Bennett, Savills; Dominic Foster, APPGA4D; Martin Collison, Collison Associates; Tony Pexton, NIAB Trust; Chris Atkinson, University of Greenwich; James Hallett, British Growers Association; Alastair Leake, GWCT; Amelia Tuckett, Lexington: Theresa Huxley, Sainsbury’s; Lindsay Hargreaves; Prof Mike Bevan, JIC; Barry Hackett, SM Hackett & Son Ltd; Richard Summers, RAGT; Jeremy Waterfield, AHDB; Michael Muir, Brand Partners; Simon Leeds, British Sugar; Wendy Gray, CPA; Simon Bright, BBSRC Crop Improvement Club; Daniel Pearsall, Group Co-ordinator

1. Welcome & Introduction George Freeman welcomed Members and stakeholders to the fourth Annual General Meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Science and Technology in Agriculture. He presented the All-Party Group’s Annual Report for 2011/12, which Members endorsed as a valuable record of yet another busy year for the Group in raising the profile of agricultural science and technology within Parliament and beyond. In particular, GF highlighted the focus of the All-Party Group’s recent programme of meetings on the lessons to be drawn from international best practice in supporting advances in agricultural productivity and efficiency. This included examples from established agricultural markets such as the United States to the rapidly emerging BRIC economies, highlighting potential growth and innovation opportunities for the UK agri-food sector, and providing important messages to feed in to the government’s Agri-Tech Strategy planned for launch in 2013.

2. Election of Chair and Officers All Members present agreed that the Group should continue to exist and operate as an approved All-Party Group within Parliament.

The nomination of George Freeman MP to continue as Chair of the Group was approved by all Members present.

Nominations for the Earl of Selborne and Lord Haskins to continue as Vice-Chairs of the Group were approved with the agreement of all Members present.

Members also approved the nomination of three new MPs as Vice-Chairs of the Group with immediate effect: Mark Spencer MP (Conservative, Sherwood); Huw Irranca-Davies MP (Labour, Ogmore); and Roger Williams MP (Lib Dem, Brecon & Radnorshire).

GF welcomed these new appointments as an important step towards broadening the Group’s cross-party footprint in both Houses of Parliament.

3. Guest speaker

Jim Godfrey, Farmer & Chair, TSB Sustainable Agriculture & Food Innovation Platform

[Please note that full copies of speakers’ slide presentations are available to download via the Meetings section of the All-Party Group web-site at www.appg-agscience.org.uk ]

Jim Godfrey opened his presentation by highlighting the enormous contribution of agricultural science and technology during the first Green Revolution in reducing food costs and ensuring security of supply for an increasingly urbanised population. He singled out semi-dwarfing in wheat introduced by Norman Borlaug as the most significant achievement of agricultural R&D, a development which – alongside the introduction of modern crop protection and fertiliser technology – had helped double and even treble average yields. Access to agricultural innovation had also helped to maintain a viable and competitive UK farming industry within an increasingly globalised market for food.

In many respects JG considered that the development of modern, science-based agriculture was mankind’s greatest success, although its contribution in securing cheaper, more plentiful supplies of high quality food had also influenced the political climate for farming. In recent decades, public attention had been directed more towards the social and environmental impacts and risks of agriculture than its benefits. In turn this had led to an overall reduction in production-related R&D investment as well as a requirement to address a wide range of environmental and socio-economic issues associated with modern agriculture. The Foresight report had shifted the debate back towards productive agriculture, placing food and energy security higher up the political agenda and introducing the concept of ‘sustainable intensification’ as the new driver for R&D in a research environment increasingly focused on delivering impact.

Through Foresight, the UK had shown intellectual leadership on global food security, but JG considered that key challenges remained to re-balance the distribution of R&D investment between basic, strategic and applied funding, to promote greater cohesion between different funding bodies (eg in relation to objectives, timescales and knowledge transfer), and to become better at measuring and monitoring the impact of agricultural R&D.

A number of reviews, studies and reports post-Foresight had clearly recognised the need for change, emphasising a requirement to reinforce the R&D delivery pipeline. The Joint Commissioning Group, bringing together NFU, AIC, AHDB and RASE with support from the Technology Strategy Board, had been established in the context of this debate to develop and articulate a producer view of research priorities. This was the background to the Feeding the Future report, which aimed to help the industry meet the mid-century challenges identified by Foresight.

The Joint Commissioning Group’s central objective in producing and launching the report for wider consultation was to add value to and support existing R&D activity, developing an over-arching, coherent strategy for UK primary production by identifying:

- cross-sector priorities, synergies and conflicts; - any barriers or impediments to realising or mitigating these; - gaps in the industry’s current R&D knowledge, capacity and services.

JG explained that the report, Feeding the Future – Innovation requirements for primary food production in the UK to 2030, had been produced following extensive consultation with a broad range of industry stakeholders, including a series of sectoral and cross-cutting workshops held during 2012, as well as a review of the existing strategy documents and R&D roadmaps produced by individual sector organisations.

This process had identified seven producer-focused, generic and long-term research priorities as follows:

(1) Utilise modern technologies to improve the precision and efficiency of key agricultural management practices.

(2) Apply modern genetic and breeding approaches to improve the quality, sustainability, resilience and profitability of crops and farm animals.

(3) Use systems-based approaches to understand better and manage interactions between soil, water and crop /animal processes.

(4) Develop integrated approaches to the effective management of crop and animal pests & diseases within farming systems.

(5) Develop evidence-based approaches to value ecosystem service delivery by land users and incorporate these into effective decision support systems at the enterprise or grouped enterprise level.

(6) Extend the training and professional development of researchers, practitioners and advisors to promote delivery of the targets above. (7) Improve the use of social and economic science to promote development, uptake and use of sustainable, resilient and profitable agricultural practice that can deliver affordable, safe and high-quality products.

JG explained that researchable issues related to Priority 1 could include the development of monitoring, control and application technologies to optimise input use efficiency, for example, or to integrate the increasing volume of yield mapping, soil, crop and animal production data to develop better decision support tools for integrated farm management systems.

In developing research programmes to deliver against these research priorities, JG highlighted a number of cross-cutting ‘big ticket’ issues as follows:

- Importance of engineering solutions for precision agriculture; - Importance of systems-based approaches to optimise resource use efficiency; - Throughout the pipeline a need to “upskill” as well as deliver new knowledge and products; - Need to involve social and economic science to maximise impact.

JG also urged levy bodies and other research funders to develop a better understanding of each others’ strategies in forging more effective research partnerships, focused on delivering impact across the industry. He also highlighted the need for a joined up approach across government departments in promoting uptake of research and innovation within the farming and land-based industries.

The Feeding the Future draft report was now out for consultation, with feedback and responses invited until 31 January 2013, prior to completion of the final report which would be formally presented to the principal funders of UK agricultural and horticultural R&D in the spring of 2013.

4. Guest panel introduction

Andrea Graham (NFU) explained that the NFU’s interest in supporting the Feeding the Future initiative was to provide a single and unified voice representing all sectors of the industry, rather than the ‘white noise’ often created by having a number of individual, sector- specific R&D roadmaps. But she warned that this initiative would only add value and deliver benefit if actions came out as a result.

Ian Crute (AHDB) highlighted the significance of the report in providing a clear, producer-led statement of R&D priorities. After 40 years in agricultural research, to his knowledge this was the first time producers had driven such an initiative, independent of prevailing policy or government positions. The outcome clearly demonstrated an awareness within the industry of the opportunities to use new knowledge, data and technology to improve the production efficiency and sustainability of UK agriculture, and the need to adapt and apply new management practices to integrate environmental objectives into productive agricultural systems.

Paul Rooke (AIC), representing companies manufacturing, advising and supplying inputs onto farm, explained that a key reason AIC was supporting this process was to ensure that a commercial, supply chain perspective – in AIC members’ case accounting for £45m p.a. of near-market R&D investment – would be central to the development of an over-arching R&D strategy going forward. It was important to ensure that the initiative did not come to an end in March 2013, but was taken forward into deliverable actions.

5. Questions and discussion

The following key issues were raised during discuission:

Huw Irranca-Davies MP welcomed the Feeding the Future report as a response to the challenges identified in the Foresight report and as a valuable contribution to the food security debate. He highlighted the importance of defining ‘sustainable intensification’ not only in terms of food production but also in relation to the intensification of environmental benefits, citing the ecosystems analysis work undertaken by John Lawton as a potential basis for valuing key aspects of biodiversity. He also emphasised the need for evidence- based decision-making, grounded not only in scientific assessment of food safety and environmental effects, but also taking account of socio-economic impacts. The implications of introducing larger-scale unit production systems within already fragile rural communities and economies was a case in point.

Lord Cameron stressed the importance of involving consumers and securing public trust in any strategy designed to unlock the economic and productive potential of agricultural science. Any perceived risks associated with hi-tech agriculture would turn consumers off, and it was therefore vital to get the public onside.

In response, Andrea Graham noted that a recent Which? investigation into consumers’ attitudes to food security had clearly demonstrated that exposing a lay panel to more information about the subject led to increased acceptance of technologies such as GM.

Lord Curry suggested that bringing all R&D funding bodies together in support of a common vision and strategy represented a major challenge, but if could be delivered the resulting impact would be step-changing. He also noted that addressing the issue of climate change did not appear to be a major priority identified in the Feeding the Future report. JG responded that action to tackle climate change would be implicit in any drive to improve the efficiency and sustainability of production, for example using less fuel, fertiliser or pesticide inputs would all contribute to reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

After so much of the UK’s applied research capacity had been eroded in recent decades, Lord Selborne highlighted the need to establish an inventory of available research facilities, personnel and expertise to ensure the research capacity was there to develop the evidence base and undertake the necessary research identified and prioritised in the report.

With 55% of agricultural R&D investment globally taking place in the private sector, Martin Collison highlighted the need to attract inward investment to the UK to exploit the economic growth potential of the UK agri-food science base. While the UK represented only 1% of farm output on a global basis, the scale of investment in agricultural R&D taking place internationally represented a major opportunity for the UK to take a lead in exporting technology, ideas and innovative solutions.

Paul Rooke highlighted the need for a new partnership between the science base, Government and industry to harness the applied research capacity of the private sector, particularly in improving the process of knowledge transfer onto farm.

Concluding the meeting, GF thanked Members and Stakeholders for their attendance and participation. 2013 promised to be a highly significant year for the All-Party Group, beginning with the next meeting on 30 January when Science Minister David Willetts would be guest speaker.