Category: News

It might be thought unashamed advertising that I choose this title since it belongs to the School of Agriculture, Policy & Development at The University of Reading – my alma mater where I am now a Visiting Professor. However, the linkage of these three words is especially crucial at this time as we review and chart our way forward as an independent country post-Brexit. Agriculture comprehensively defined must remain foundational to our rural and national economy through environmentally astute land management. Ways must be devised of financially rewarding and recognising farmland and forestry’s overall contributions to ecosystem security, not simply related to traditional farm production alone. Policy must take account of all factors relevant to the long-term public good and provide due reward for those who deliver it within agriculture. Development must be duly scrutinised in terms of unfettered encouragement of proper enterprise but with due regard to precautionary principles in terms of the long-term interests of the nation and of our grandchildren.

Within our Fellowship of Royal Agricultural Societies, we have members whose experience and contributions already encompass all three aspects of progress – in agriculture, policy and development. Practitioners, researchers, policy-makers and influencers of policy-making can all make a contribution to the formulation of agricultural and land-based policies during the forthcoming transitional phase of two years or so as the UK develops new arrangements. These arrangements must include maintenance of the highest standards in our own agricultural produce while filtering out from our imports anything produced in sub-standard ways in terms of animal welfare or cropping practices. Between us, we have a responsibility to raise the voice of rural realities and to promote factors influencing viable rural livelihoods in a predominantly urbanised society. We need to allay the fears of those who have assumed that Britain without EU countries having a higher proportion of farmers in their populations will ignore or marginalise farming support. Some years ago now, the Women’s Institute published posters announcing ‘Farming is Everyone’s Business’. That case has to be made strongly now in an independent UK. Communicating it effectively, as does Hamish Dykes ARAgS in Scotland through TV and other means, is vital for all and there are many innovative ways this happens via members, including Tractor Ted by David Horler ARAgS in England, and at Pennywell Farm in Devon run by Chris Murray FRAgS with its farm-based activities business. Engaging with our local authorities in their food-sourcing is part of this process, as done by Kate Morgan FRAgS in Wales, and by championing local food as does Michèle Shirlow ARAgS in this Northern Ireland’s inaugural Year of NI Food & Drink. Parallel work is being led by Ray Jones FRAgS in Scotland. We need to go further with the past decade’s efforts to ‘build the middle’ in the food chain by adding value to farm produce and providing more local foods. Innovative marketing of vegetables led to the recent award of Tracy Hamilton ARAgS in Northern Ireland with her highly successful Mash Direct since 2004 with its turnover of £15 million through both local and global sales. Our members who own land and farm have done much to enhance the countryside in outstanding ways, including the late Tecwyn Evans FRAgS in North Wales. I was privileged this past summer to again visit the estates within the North Wessex Downs AONB in England managed by Chris Musgrave FRAgS where he was instrumental in catalysing the only private initiative towards nature conservation across whole landscapes by collaboration among neighbouring farms in response to the challenge fund put out by Richard Benyon MP, ARAgS while he was Minister.

John Wibberley
Professor of Comparative Agriculture & Rural Extension

2016 is the UN International Year of Pulses – more later. 2015 had all year to hail soils as The UN International Year of Soils! Since soils yield 95% of our global diet, plus many other ecosystem services (carbon capture, water filtration and storage, ‘culture’…) it is self-evident that they’re the basis of all farming systems and ‘where the answers lie’ gifting true sustainability. Towards the close of 2015, Defra sought contributions to its separately announced consultations seeking views on a 25 year Vision for Agriculture, and another 25 year Vision for Environment (2015-2040). It seemed to me that these could not and should not be treated ‘in separate silos’. Accordingly, I submitted a concise Paper, which is summarised below. Of course, Members of the CARAS Fellowship will have different Visions of the future and would express these in other words than those below. However, this was offered to promote among us: thought, discussion and – hopefully – progress.

1. In a world of some 7.25 billion; 1 in 8 hungry; up to 500 million farming families, these are hopeful times for farming when our UK and each country’s Agriculture must again become central in Ecosystem Security including landscape, livelihoods and rural communities
    People are integral to global environmental management & Civil Society needs to be mobilised accordingly
2. An enabling, simple and understanding governance framework is needed both within the UK and in taking international leadership with Defra alongside DFID in raising agriculture’s world-wide profile.
   International issues require concerted leadership:- climate change mitigation & adaptation, soil & sea care
3. Further encouragement of Food Chain linkages is merited from ‘land to mouth’ in all countries.
   Whole systems approaches need analysis & monitoring for environmental impacts, both negative & positive
4. Relationships between farmers and government need to nurtured. Better TB control is vital in this, as are initiatives to catalyse Farmer Networks and to strengthen Farmer Sovereignty in decision-making and voluntary collaboration for resilience.
   Environmental good practice is only deliverable through positive relationships with farmers & local people
5. Reintroduction of Regional Advisory Panels/Fora of Farmers and objective rural Practitioners would help to harness the pool of experience, professionalism & good will for UK agricultural progress.
   Engaging with over-arching experience & wisdom of communities is vital + specialisms alongside to inform
6. Great caution needs to be exercised regarding GM technology. A principal issue is its potential to erode farmers’ control over their natural resources, including timely availability of seeds & intergenerational selection from a wide gene-pool of crops & livestock breeds. Research on GM needs to be independently and not commercially funded (NB. USA RR soya & maize issues). Other improved technologies within agro-ecologically mixed frameworks offer much greater scope e.g. use of gene markers, composite crosses; precision aids, low ground-pressure, less oil-dependent farming; conservation agriculture (globally adopted more than yet in UK).
   Agro-ecological approaches are sustainable; technology innovations need objective, precautionary research
7. Energy-efficiency needs to become the accepted baseline technical criterion for comparing alternative agricultural systems and in encouraging & evaluating integrated rural development & resilience.
   Energy-efficiency on a planet ‘big picture’ basis needs analysis, monitoring, & ‘best practice’ guidelines
8. Renewable Energy sources notably micro-hydro need an enabling planning environment but beware biofuel crops & solar-panelled arable when reasonably-priced food is increasingly important worldwide.
   Renewable energy contests with priority land uses need cataloguing, strategic appraisal and management
9. Encourage special schemes for family-worked farms and ‘territorial succession’, including using revised National planning laws that once unduly restricted housing retired farmers on their own farms.
   Cultural heritage is a vital part of ecosystem services and environmental integrity for future generations
10. Explore modulation using satellite-maps based on real land area to take account of the greater costs and difficulties of farming uplands & steep slopes. Retain, simplify & improve upland support from 2015.
    Conserve Family farms & coastal/marine communities retaining those ‘there to care’ vs. displacement costs
11. The UK needs to assume a clear leadership role in reform of WTO trading rules and versus land-grabbing so that genuine, private enterprise of smaller farms and rural micro-businesses is not ruined.
    Fairer International Agricultural Trading (FIAT) is required to counter adverse environmental impacts
12. The UK needs to lead in improving sustainability of global farming practices/farm livelihoods, rewarding farmers for ‘comprehensive Ecosystem Security’ i.e. food, timber plus clean water, carbon capture, and other income streams from therapeutic, recreational/touristic & heritage/cultural values of land.
    Ecosystem Security needs to be embraced & templated as over-arching Environmental Management Vision.

Whatever the outcome of the June 23rd 2016 EU Referendum here in the UK, future policies will need to pay due regard to the imperatives of agricultural livelihood viability and associated environmental management care. This is crucial for the public benefit that all of us in agriculture must surely strive to serve. While it is the clear mandate of CARAS to seek to recognise outstanding contributions to UK agricultural progress, our Awards of ARAgS and FRAgS are intended to spur us on to further effort for the common good.

E. John Wibberley, April 2016

HRH The Countess of Wessex, GCVO, DStJ, FRAgS was presented with her Certificate before being asked to present certificates to some 23 new Associates (ARAgS) and 18 new Fellows (FRAgS) at a ceremony hosted at the House of Lords by Baroness Byford, FRAgS. One picture shows her with [from L to R]:- Baroness Byford, Christopher Bourchier (Chairman of the English Panel); HRH; Rosie Carne (Chairman of CARAS); Professor Malcolm Stansfield (Hon.Sec. English Panel) and Professor John Wibberley (Hon.Sec. of CARAS).The second picture shows various members of CARAS Council and friends. Soem 125 people attended the ceremony at The Cholmondeley Room & Balcony, House of Lords on February 10th 2016. The citation read concerning the Direct election of HRH The Countess of Wessex can be viewed here.

Now, this International Year of Soils 2015 merits our Fellowship’s recognition, reflection and response:

SOILS CELEBRATION

An annual World Soil Day was initiated by the UN on December 5^th 2014 but 2015 has all year to hail soils! Since soils yield 95% of our global diet, plus many other ecosystem services (carbon capture, water filtration and storage, ‘culture’..) it is self-evident that they’re the basis of all farming systems and ‘where the answers lie’ gifting true sustainability. Long ago the Psalmist (65:9) wrote, ‘You care for the land and water it; You enrich it abundantly’. As with a farming business, it is not the exact amount of organic matter that soils contain so much as its turnover rate that indicates dynamic fertility and soil health.  Threats to soil health include erosion, exhaustion, pH imbalance, wetness, drought and infestation with weeds, pests and diseases. Solutions offered by good soil management – proper land husbandry – to these respective issues include:- soil conservation, soil nutrient management, pH adjustment (usually to 6.5), drainage, moisture conservation and/or irrigation and positive soil health through proper weed, pest and disease prevention and control.

Worldwide, around one-third of all farmed soils are reckoned by the FAO to be degraded to varying degrees, and this proportion is increasing. Soil degradation may be due to erosion, compaction, soil sealing, salinisation, depletion of soil organic matter and nutrients, acidification, pollution and other processes caused by unsustainable land management practices. Furthermore, while world population grew by some 30% between 1990 and 2010, soil  losses are estimated at some 24 billion tonnes of fertile soil each year, that is the equivalent of 3.4 t/year/person on earth. José Graziano da Silva, Director General of FAO, notes, “It can take up to 1,000 years to form one centimetre of soil (1 tonne per hectare per year), and with 33 percent of all global soil resources degraded and human pressures increasing, critical limits are being reached that make stewardship an urgent matter.”  Urbanisation led to loss of some 705,000 hectares of British rural land between 1945-1990, and building is now leading to loss of some 1400 hectares per year from UK agriculture. Globally, some 2 hectares of soil per minute (300 acres an hour!) are sealed over by expanding cities. Furthermore, although some undergrazing by sheep is possible, covering productive fields with solar panels exacerbates this loss of productive land – notwithstanding their sound short-term business sense given recent UK energy grants, and the appeal of generating renewable energy…

Soils are reckoned to contribute some 25% of the world’s biodiversity, with their myriad micro-organisms (more than the global human population of 7.25 billion in a thimbleful of normally fertile loam) plus the larger contributors such as the humble yet noble earthworm. Our forebears were not far out in reckoning the potential productivity of a pasture in terms of meat, wool and milk being proportional to the population of earthworms within its underlying soil! The International Union of Soil Sciences reckons that there are over 100,000 different types of soil – that’s biodiversity indeed!  The hefting of particular breeds of sheep – and of types within them – to particular soils and their associated climates contributes hugely to the rich agricultural biodiversity within the UK; not forgetting our rich heritage of crop ecotypes such as Suffolk’s Kersey wild white clover or Kent’s variant of the same species. In this connection, I have just read and commend to members a superb book Counting Sheep: a celebration of the Pastoral Heritage of Britain by Philip Walling (2015, Profile Books, London, 266 pp.). I don’t have shares in the book or the publisher!!

As might be expected, we have many members cherishing and striving to care for their soils while obtaining optimum productivity from them by means of correct cultivation, appropriate planting techniques, strategic use of cover cropping and suitable crop rotation. I was taught 3 great principles of soil management by my late great Professor E. Walter Russell at Reading, which I have sought to pass on to others and to apply:-

1. Maintain Soil Cover as much as possible; especially with loose, light soils on erodible sites

2. Keep the nutrients in; maintaining vigorous nutrient cycles and pursuing nutrient management plans

3. Keep the weeds out; this is easier said than done in the case of such recalcitrant ones as blackgrass!

Conservation Farming – CF is an overall soil management system that is gaining ground worldwide (Indo-Gangetic Plain, Southern Africa, Brazil and elsewhere in South America, North America, Australia, as well as in parts of continental Europe, and here in the UK). It is also called Conservation Agriculture – CA, and often historically called Minimal Tillage or Reduced Cultivations in the UK, which some members have assiduously practised. However, CF has a set of associated practices that are combined together:- it links reduced early cultivation, seed and nutrient placement, mulching and rotations. Its efficacy lies not only in saving the operational/energy costs of traditional cultivations (by moving only some 15% of soil by contrast with overall tillage) but also in conserving moisture which can substantially increase yields in dry seasons and drought-prone climates. In such situations, farmers have doubled or even trebled yields quite commonly with proper CF adoption where ample nutrition is maintained using composts, manures and fertilisers.

CF offers a disciplined but adaptable management approach. CF benefits of Water and Organic Matter Conservation combined with soil structural improvement are cumulative but rely on enough previous crop yield and thus proportionate root activity and enough healthy mulching matter residues to use for the next crop. Minimal cultivation tends to change weed ecology needing more initial in-crop weed control and maybe more perennial, especially grass weed control later.

Professor John Wibberley

Throughout the four nations of the UK so far this year since April 2014, 37 new Associates (ARAgS) have been awarded and coincidentally 37 advancements to Fellowship (FRAgS) have been made plus one (exceptional ) direct election. Nobody applies to join but potential candidates recognised for their outstanding contributions to agricultural progress within the UK are invited to apply by the National Panel of CARAS in their UK nation of residence and objectively assessed.  The quest for people worthy of such recognition is, like painting the Forth Road Bridge, a continual search. The resulting Body of almost 1200 members represents a dynamic pool of wide experience and independent thought for the public good of British Agriculture, UK Society – and beyond.

Meetings held recently in each of the four nations have seen new members and those newly advanced to Fellowship being presented with their certificates:-

• In Northern Ireland, this took place in May 2014 at the new site of the Royal Ulster Agricultural Society, which has relocated from its cramped Belfast city site to the former Maze Prison where space allows creative development and inspiring re-use. Members have enjoyed a McConnell Farm visit and other gatherings during the year.
• In Scotland, the Reception for receipt of certificates was at The Royal Highland Show in June 2014 with the swirl of bagpipes and the buzz of debate about Scotland’s future within the UK ahead of their September 2014 vote mingling with excellent livestock lines and variety. In February 2015, members held their conference on Planning for Tomorrow’s Generation.
• In Wales, new members and those advanced to Fellowship crowed into a large pavilion during the Royal Welsh Show at Llanelwedd, Builth Wells in July 2014 where Welsh Cobs and other horses delighted the many visitors and diverse displays brought all ages together. In February, members held a conference on The Future of Agriculture – Productivity or Ecology.
• In England, certificates were presented in February 2015 in the House of Lords, London. Members in England had toured north Lincolnshire and Blenheim Estate, Oxfordshire in 2014 as well as holding seminars round the country, including Royal Agricultural Society of England (RASE) collaboration on Innovation in Agriculture.

2015 is the UN Year of the Soil – so watch this space! Since 2014 was the UN Year of the Family Farm, members considered the role of such farms – 500 million of 570 million farms worldwide:-

The Dynamics between Family & Farm at the Heart of Global Ecosystem Security