Fairfax thinks so. “The problem is the people at DEFRA (The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs) don’t know anything about farming, they don’t have any first-hand experience,” he says.
According to environmentalist and arable farmer Nick Rowsell, agricultural policy is, and always has been, “myopic”. The absence of joined-up thinking means policies tend to be swamped by unintended consequences. For example, “After the war, the sole focus of policy was maximising crop yield,” he says. “That worked brilliantly well, but there was little, if any, consideration of environmental impacts.”
And there’s the rub: we want abundant cheap food, but we’re in the midst of a climate crisis, and because farming produces eleven per cent of Europe’s greenhouse gases, attention has inevitably focussed on farming practices. Indeed, farmers have found themselves accidental frontline soldiers in the battle for net zero; they believe they’re just cannon fodder for the authorities.
Rowsell again: “Net zero is a great aspiration and it has my full support but we can’t abandon sense.” He brings up the very serious issue of nitrates in fertilisers, they release nitrous oxide, 300 times worse for the environment than carbon dioxide. “Banning nitrates is essential but the speed of implementation is key. Do you have any idea of the hit food production would take if nitrates were phased out overnight?” he asks. “Food output would fall by at least 50 per cent!”
He continues: “It’s essential that we tackle climate change, but the authorities, both here and in the EU, seem to have lost sight of the fact that our job as farmers is to produce food.”
Rowsell has a point. I put myself through the purgatory of reading a 150-page DEFRA policy document, and there’s a glaring omission: food production isn’t mentioned at all – it seems to be seen as something that will just carry on regardless of government policy.
Elementary economics tells us that regulation increases costs, and anything that makes production more expensive is eventually going to increase prices in the shops.
Nevertheless, it would be an error to infer that farmers want to abolish regulation. As Rowsell says: “Government intervention in farming is inevitable. Food production is always going to be regulated, it’s simply too important not to be.”
However, in the short and medium terms, farmers are finding that increased costs can’t be passed on. “No matter what they tell you, when the supermarkets buy from farmers, they act as a cartel, they bully us ruthlessly,” says Fairfax.
The net result is that the farming industry is shrinking fast and people are leaving the industry by the thousands.
As I said at the start, the real world is a series of trade-offs that we like to pretend don’t exist, and politicians find it pays to indulge us in this pretence.
So what happens next? Do we import more of our food from places with less strict climate policies?
“If we import our food from unregulated countries, all we’re doing is exporting our consciences,” points out Rowsell. “The net global effect of net zero would be zero… if not actually negative.”
Legislation is increasing farmers’ costs of production at the same time as the Ukraine war and the government are putting pressure on supermarkets to cut prices. Something has to give.
You can’t have strong climate policies coexisting with cheap food… not with the current state of technology. The farmers know this: they understand that unrealistic policies are doomed to fail. I suspect the rest of us are about to find out.
*Ed Fairfax is a pseudonym
Peter Lawlor was the Chief Economist at the German Stock Exchange and continues to advise senior politicians and Wall St institutions. These are strictly his own views
Farmers are accidental frontline soldiers in the battle for net zero
Fairfax thinks so. “The problem is the people at DEFRA (The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs) don’t know anything about farming, they don’t have any first-hand experience,” he says.
According to environmentalist and arable farmer Nick Rowsell, agricultural policy is, and always has been, “myopic”. The absence of joined-up thinking means policies tend to be swamped by unintended consequences. For example, “After the war, the sole focus of policy was maximising crop yield,” he says. “That worked brilliantly well, but there was little, if any, consideration of environmental impacts.”
And there’s the rub: we want abundant cheap food, but we’re in the midst of a climate crisis, and because farming produces eleven per cent of Europe’s greenhouse gases, attention has inevitably focussed on farming practices. Indeed, farmers have found themselves accidental frontline soldiers in the battle for net zero; they believe they’re just cannon fodder for the authorities.
Rowsell again: “Net zero is a great aspiration and it has my full support but we can’t abandon sense.” He brings up the very serious issue of nitrates in fertilisers, they release nitrous oxide, 300 times worse for the environment than carbon dioxide. “Banning nitrates is essential but the speed of implementation is key. Do you have any idea of the hit food production would take if nitrates were phased out overnight?” he asks. “Food output would fall by at least 50 per cent!”
He continues: “It’s essential that we tackle climate change, but the authorities, both here and in the EU, seem to have lost sight of the fact that our job as farmers is to produce food.”
Rowsell has a point. I put myself through the purgatory of reading a 150-page DEFRA policy document, and there’s a glaring omission: food production isn’t mentioned at all – it seems to be seen as something that will just carry on regardless of government policy.
Elementary economics tells us that regulation increases costs, and anything that makes production more expensive is eventually going to increase prices in the shops.
Nevertheless, it would be an error to infer that farmers want to abolish regulation. As Rowsell says: “Government intervention in farming is inevitable. Food production is always going to be regulated, it’s simply too important not to be.”
However, in the short and medium terms, farmers are finding that increased costs can’t be passed on. “No matter what they tell you, when the supermarkets buy from farmers, they act as a cartel, they bully us ruthlessly,” says Fairfax.
The net result is that the farming industry is shrinking fast and people are leaving the industry by the thousands.
As I said at the start, the real world is a series of trade-offs that we like to pretend don’t exist, and politicians find it pays to indulge us in this pretence.
So what happens next? Do we import more of our food from places with less strict climate policies?
“If we import our food from unregulated countries, all we’re doing is exporting our consciences,” points out Rowsell. “The net global effect of net zero would be zero… if not actually negative.”
Legislation is increasing farmers’ costs of production at the same time as the Ukraine war and the government are putting pressure on supermarkets to cut prices. Something has to give.
You can’t have strong climate policies coexisting with cheap food… not with the current state of technology. The farmers know this: they understand that unrealistic policies are doomed to fail. I suspect the rest of us are about to find out.
*Ed Fairfax is a pseudonym
Peter Lawlor was the Chief Economist at the German Stock Exchange and continues to advise senior politicians and Wall St institutions. These are strictly his own views
