Ringmer debates

8th Nov 2013

Where will our food come from in twenty years time?

This is one of a series of debates organised by Ringmer Liberal Democrats.

These slides have the same material as was presented at the debate. Some of the slides have notes with additional material, and links to further information are included at the end.

There is a blog post at http://acomfortableplace.blogspot.com/2013/11/where-will-our-food-come-from-in-twenty.html

If you want to continue the debate or ask questions, you are welcome to do so here or at the blog

The material is presented under several headings:

PopulationProduction types FishProduction methods TransportFood wasteFood diversityFood ethics

Can Britain produce enough food for all its population?

What would you change?

Population

The first issue to establish is what the population will be in twenty years time.

UK population

Now 60,000,000

2030 70,000,000

2050 78,000,000

But this is not just about the population of the UK, as the UK's food supply is inextricably intertwined with that of the rest of the world.

World population

Today 7,122,000,000

2030 8,000,000,000

2050 9,000,000,000

Does this mean that food demand will increase by 8/7 by 2030?

Food demand

Probably 50% rise by 2030 due partly to population increase, partly to rising demand in developing countries. Rising demand includes changes in diet - as people get richer they tend to eat more meat, which is relatively more demanding on land than other foodstuffs.

Production types

This refers to the way in which land is used. There is a relatively finite amount of land usable for agriculture in this country and in the world in general.

I cannot reproduce here a comprehensive description of the ways in which land is used, but, as with the other issues which follow, I just give a snapshot which gives a clue as to what is going on, and how things might change.

Different forms of food use different amounts of land. This can be encapsulated in proportions like the amount of usable protein produced per square metre.

Food type Usable protein grams per square metreSoybeans 29

Rice 25

Legumes (average) 11

Milk 8.4

Wheat 8.1

Eggs 8

Maize 7.7

Meat 4

Beef 1.72

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edible_protein_per_unit_area_of_land

The figures above suggest that the land we use could produce food much more effectively if production were switched to some degree from heavy land use production, such as beef, towards lighter uses such as maize, eggs, or soya.

Nearly 60% of the world’s agricultural land is used for beef production, yet beef accounts for less than 2% of the calories that are consumed throughout the world. Beef makes up 24% of the world's meat consumption, yet requires 30 million square kilometers of land to produce. In contrast, poultry accounts for 34% of global meat consumption and pork accounts for 40%. Both poultry and pork production uses less than 2 million square kilometers of land each.

Source: http://www.globalagriculture.org/report-topics/meat.html

UK data

How much of our own fruit and veg does the UK supply? (25%)How much of our own dairy products does the UK supply? (82%)

The BRC state that 75 per cent of fresh food sold in UK stores is raised or grown in the UK. Of the quarter that's imported, only 1 per cent is flown in. UK supermarkets also sell 75 per cent of the organic food bought in the UK, compared with the 1.7% sold in farmers' markets. For organic food, 88% of the carrots, 67% beef, 93% lamb, 100% milk and 100% of eggs are produced in the UK. (Figures from British Retail Consortium)

Food origins: Diagram from DEFRA

In 2009-10, the estimated designated Green Belt land was 1,639,560 hectares, about 13 per cent of the land area of England.

The Agricultural land (% of land area) in the United Kingdom was 71.61 in 2009, according to a World Bank report, published in 2010.

Agricultural land is not necessarily all being cultivated in farms. I assume that it is land designated as agricultural for planning purposes. We heard evidence at the meeting for potentially significant amounts of land in Sussex being taken over by hobby farmers and not being used to full effect. The extent and effect of this issue may be worth investigating.

Fishhttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AA_mackerel.jpgBy Peter van der Sluijs (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Governance of the seas

“The ocean is broken”

http://www.theherald.com.au/story/1848433/the-ocean-is-broken/ The chief issue about fish stocks is the lack of governance over the oceans, which has given rise to massive degradation of fish stocks worldwide. While a lot of fish is farmed these days, we have to consider the possibility that fish will contirbute only a negligible proportion of the world's food in twenty years time. The article from The Herald linked above is a typical account.

Production methods

IndustrialOrganicLarge scaleSmall scalePersonal

The purpose of this slide is to note the ways in which food production can take place: industrial, by which I mean the typical British farm - mechanised, capital intensive, chemical intensive; or organic (or maybe semi organic). And at either large or small scale. Or personal - in our survey of a few roads in Ringmer 50 forms were returned and of those 40% said they grew some of their own food (but with no indication of scale).

The science vs the art of farming (needs sign up to LinkedIn)

http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Science-vs-Art-Farming-65094.S.5796707822989230082?view=&srchtype=discussedNews&gid=65094&item=5796707822989230082&type=member&trk=eml-anet_dig-b_nd-pst_ttle-hdp&fromEmail=&ut=2_OXDLUwykzlY1

Food production is a global issue, even if we think just in terms of how the UK might feed itself. Sometimes the global nature of the issue is hidden, particularly in the case of processed food:

“Take a typical biscuit-containing chocolate bar from a British shop, manufactured in a British factory. It contains sugar, cocoa, milk, whey, wheat, yeast, salt, palm oil and calcium sulphate (a nutritional additive) which are sourced from all the world, For instance, the salt may come from China; calcium sulphate from India; palm oil from Southeast Asia; whey from New Zealand; milk and wheat from the EU; sugar from the Caribbean; and, of course, cocoa for the actual chocolate from South America.”

Source: I have to track down again where this quote came from

Transport

Food production being global means that transport is a very big issue both in terms of cost and in terms of sustainability.

Food produced on another continent starts its journey on a truck or a train to get from the farm to the transport hub

Truck in Kenyahttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A2013-01-22_08-21-05_Kenya_Nairobi_Area_-_Ruiru.JPGBy Hansueli Krapf This file was uploaded with Commonist. [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

It continues on a ship or a plane

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AShip_Cap_Spencer_(2).jpgBy Tvabutzku1234 (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons

Then a truck or a train again

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AGardner_European_WA04BHY_(1).jpgBy Graham Richardson from Plymouth, England (Gardner European WA04BHY Uploaded by oxyman) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

To a distribution centre (itself an intensive use of resources - electricity, etc)

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ATesco_Distribution_Centre%2C_Livingston%2C_West_Lothian.JPGBy Kim Traynor (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

And then by truck again to the shop

http://www.commercialmotor.com/latest-news/tesco-to-create--jobs-with-enfield-home-delivery-hub

And then home in your car

I have seen figures that suggest that the journey from the distribution centre to the store in the truck creates less CO

2 per item than the journey home in the car.

Food miles as a way of assessing sustainability?

About half of our survey participants thought that food miles was a good way of assessing the sustainability of food production.

There are complications. For instance, importing strawberries grown in Spain may cause less greenhouse gas production that growing them here under artificial conditions.

This is linked to a question asked in the survey as to whether people would be prepared to eat with the seasons or would want their preferred foods to be available all year round. About half said they would be prepared to eat with the seasons.

Food waste

The amount of food we need to produce is affected by the amount we waste - at least in the developed world.

Tesco says almost 30,000 tonnes of food 'wasted'http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24603008

'Six meals a week' thrown away by Britonshttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24846612

Our survey participants estimated that they threw away 6% of their food on average. 71% say they use the council caddy and 35% compost.

Food diversity

The ways in which foodstuffs are created, and the proportions created by the different means may change in the future.

NaturalHybridGMOWild

There is an intense debate over the possible effects and desirability of GM food, which I don't intend to go into in detail here.

Here is an article which gives a flavour of the debate, and argues for hybrid forms of production rather than GM: http://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2013/jun/28/gm-food

Food ethics

The key issue is whether to buy fairly traded food (whatever that means) or not.

59% of our survey participants said they were prepared to spend more for fairly traded food, 61% for locally grown food, and 49% for organic food.

Can Britain farm itself?

A key issue for food security is whether Britain can produce enough food to feed its own population. The answer from land magazine is - Yes, if we switch some production from meat to other foods. The article is long and detailed, and worth reading in full: http://www.thelandmagazine.org.uk/articles/can-britain-farm-itself-2

This does not altogether solve the issue as we still expect food trade to be significant, and that we would still export a considerable amount and import other foods.

What would you change?

And finally we asked the question what would you change to ensure food security for the country in twenty years time. We did consider whether anything needed to change: it is possible that scientific advances in agriculture and water supply may keep us all reasonably fed.

But to change, for most people, would involve buying more locally produced food, eating less meat, wasting less (hence only buying what is needed), eating with the seasons, perhaps growing some more of their own.

What would you change?

We considered food security as an issue for the UK and also as an issue for the world. Growing our own is not enough if the rest of the world still does not have enough, so we considered how Britain might grow more, how the world might grow more, and how we might help to ensure that the food that is grown is distributed to the right places.

Links

I have a blog post on this topic at http://acomfortableplace.blogspot.com/2013/11/where-will-our-food-come-from-in-twenty.html Comments are welcome here (but you need to sign in to Slideshare) or at the blog.

Other links are available at my Diigo account, tagged “food”. https://www.diigo.com/user/robparsons/food There are 17 items there at the moment: they will keep you going for quite a while.