The Times (London) | January 1, 2000 | By Graham Harvey
Graham Harvey reckons public opinion has turned against destructive industrial farming Two news events that went largely unnoticed in the final days of the old year could herald dramatic changes in the British countryside. Shortly before Christmas, a small newspaper story reported fresh evidence that mad cow disease and the human brain disease new-variant CJD (nvCJD) are caused by the same infective agent. The findings, by Scottish and American scientists, heighten fears that sections of the British population may be incubating the disease. On the same day, the Ministry of Agriculture confirmed the imminent departure of its permanent secretary, Richard Packer, who ran the department during the BSE debacle of the mid-1990s. Packer has been closely associated with the Ministry's entrenched support for industrial agriculture and the globalisation of food supplies. Taken together, the two events presage a seismic shift in British farming policy. The new fears about nvCJD also seem certain to further strengthen the demand for healthier food. But to deliver what informed consumers want, the policy makers will be forced to abandon their 30-year pursuit of intensive, chemical-driven systems of food production and switch to a more environmentally benign agriculture based on husbandry. Such a reversal would transform the countryside, bringing back more wildlife and creating thousands of additional rural jobs. It would also throw into question current Government proposals to allow nearly half of all new homes on greenfield sites. Plans for wide-scale development in rural areas are based on the notion that overproduction has produced a surplus of agricultural land. But a move to less-intensive farming systems would require more land, not less. It is likely to lead to new demands for countryside protection. An early indication of a radical new direction in rural policy came with a number of new measures announced by the farm minister Nick Brown last month. The Pounds 1.6 billion package included a measure to redirect some of the money currently spent on farming subsidies into the broader rural economy. Most of the redirected cash - which will rise to 4.5 per cent of direct farm subsidy payments by 2006 - will now go to help organic farming and other "green" farming schemes, as well as the setting up of new rural enterprises. The National Farmers' Union has denounced the measure as a "tax" on farmers to pay for rural development. But countryside campaigners claim the overall package will bring new money into farming so long as it's practised in accordance with environmentally sound principles. "This signals a welcome new direction for farm support," says Alastair Rutherford, head of rural policy at the Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE). "It will mean less money is spent on damaging subsidies and more on enhancing the countryside and producing the quality food consumers are demanding."
The return of nvCJD stories to the tabloids should increase the pressure for a root-and-branch reform of farming. The agricultural lobby, smarting from very low prices in the industry - largely as a result of the soaring pound - remains sceptical about the British consumer's readiness to pay the price of foods produced to higher health and environmental standards. Farmers cling obdurately to the view that consumers buy on price alone, whatever their private concerns on health or animal welfare issues. The NFU has consistently opposed Government proposals for a tax on pesticides, claiming that it would damage the competitiveness of British farming. But food campaigners report a profound and lasting change in public attitudes to food. As evidence they cite the unprecedented consumer backlash against genetically modified foods. As little as a year ago it seemed inconceivable that the advance of GM products could be halted. Now supermarkets have cleared them from the shelves, while the major catering firms scour the world in their search for non-GM ingredients. As a result of the UK-inspired campaign, the biotech giant Monsanto faces a multi-billion dollar lawsuit from disgruntled American farmers. Should the number of nvCJD victims start to rise, the fight against GMOs is likely to be focused on farming. Despite the durability of the Common Agricultural Policy, the popular clamour for real reform may prove irresistible. For the past 25 years or so we've adopted farming methods that degrade our food," says Patrick Holden, director of the Soil Association. "In effect we've been conducting a huge experiment in public health. The foundations of constitutional health are set in early life. Through farming policies we've managed to degrade the food of a generation. Now we'll measure the cost through our health services."
The Government's new ruraldevelopment package appears to accept the growing public anxiety about farming and health. The measure was introduced under the EU Rural Development Regulation, which was itself promoted during the UK presidency. The regulation enables member states to aid environmentally beneficial farming methods. The departure of Richard Packer from the agriculture ministry is a further indication of the changes in rural policy. For decades, the ministry supported a cost-driven agriculture, a concept that has severely damaged the countryside and may also turn out to have been disastrous for public health. Few policy makers appreciate how recent current farming practices are. Until the early 1970s, most farmers used methods that had been tried and tested over centuries: crop rotation and mixed farming, the production of livestock and crops on the same holding. Under this traditional system a sequence of cereal crops would be broken by a short-term grass ley, which was grazed or manured by livestock. The grass "break" would help to maintain soil fertility and keep crop diseases in check without recourse to chemical fertilisers and pesticides. This traditional pattern broke down only when Britain joined the European Union. Under the incentive of inflated farm prices, many farmers abandoned rotations and reinvented themselves as arable specialists, relying solely on chemicals to maintain output. Others became intensive livestock producers reliant on antibiotics and other drugs to maintain production. A demand for foods free of pesticides and drug residues would mean a return to mixed farming, and particularly the grass "break" in arable rotations. This is the kind of farming the Government appears keen to promote through its new rural development package. Such a radical policy shift would change the entire rural agenda. A return to "real farming" would help revitalise rural areas by bringing new jobs back to the countryside. It would certainly reverse the catastrophic decline in wildlife, particularly farmland birds. But it would also require a careful reappraisal of current development plans for rural areas. Traditional farming practices are less productive, so farmland - particularly the higher grades - would be at a premium.
Graham Harvey is the author of The Killing of the Countryside, published by Vintage at Pounds 7.99.
