Independent RSA Commission warns current farming system has exacerbated deforestation, soil degradation, and pollution - but change is possible
The UK's existing food and farming system has "damaged and depleted our precious and finite resources", and without an urgent overhaul risks further exacerbating deforestation, wildlife loss, soil degradation, widespread pollution, and climate change.
That is the uncompromising conclusion of a two-year inquiry by the RSA's Food, Farming and Countryside Commission published today, which proposes a major revamp of the farming system to better protect the natural systems on which the UK relies for healthy food and defences against increasingly prevalent climate impacts.
Based on an "extensive consultation" across the agricultural sector and beyond, the Commission found most farmers agreed that with the right support they could make major changes to the way they farm within five or 10 years, which would help guard against increasing risks of environmental degradation and "rocketing diet-related ill-health".
But without stable policies, regulation, advice, and access to relevant finance and innovation, farmers will remain locked into current business practices, warns the Commission's report, which has won the backing of Environment Secretary Michael Gove among a raft of MPs from across trhe political spectrum.
Sir Ian Cheshire, chair of the Commission and former CEO at DIY chain Kingfisher, said the UK had the potential to be a world leader in "healthy, sustainable food production" within a decade if radical actions were taken.
"Our planned exit from the EU creates a once-in-50-years opportunity to change our food and farming system, but we need to act now: whatever happens next, the climate emergency makes urgent, radical action on the environment essential," he said. "We offer government our shared vision for a UK food and farming system which changes our countryside and rural economy and puts farmers in the driving seat. And we invite government to adopt this plan to establish an agro-ecological, sustainable future."
The government is working on wide-ranging plans to reform agricultural subsidies post-Brexit to incentivise farmers and land-owners to enhance environmental protection and climate resilience. Ministers are working on a new Agriculture Bill that is expected to set out precisely how subsidies would be reformed. But while broadly welcoming the proposals, green groups have also warned that the government has failed to provide sufficient details on how the new approach will work and risks diluting environmental protections post-Brexit.
The new RSA report sketches out how sweeping policy reforms could result in a major shift towards greener farming practices. It proposes an ambitious 10-year transition plan to sustainable "agro-ecological" farming by 2030 that would result in an agricultural system based on working with and enhancing natural and social systems, such as through organic farming, agroforestry, and regenerative agriculture.
The government should integrate long-term green farming policy into its trading networks, such as standards on chemicals and antibiotic use, and the climate impact of imported feedstuffs for intensively-reared pigs and poultry, it states.
It also calls on public bodies to purchase more fruit, vegetables, nuts and pulses, as well as meat and dairy from sustainably-managed livestock, in order to boost demand for more environmentally-friendly food production in the UK.
And, with the government currently developing plans to new post-Brexit farming payments systems to incentivise environmental enhancement action, the report recommends public finance is specifically tasked with enhancing public value, bolstered by stronger cross-departmental accountability at all levels of government.
Local enterprise partnerships should also partner with local natural partnerships to ensure they are all focused on climate adaptation and nature protection in their investment plans, while a new National Agro-ecology Development Bank could help bring together long-term investors to help fund farmers' much-needed transition to a more sustainable agriculture system, it suggests.
Gove - who will today call for urgent action to address climate change amid speculation he is keen to keep his current brief in government under the next Prime Minister - welcomed the report's findings.
"This report raises issues that are hugely important for changing the way we produce food in this country when we are outside of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy," he said. "We know that it is in the interests of farmers and landowners to move to a more sustainable model, which is why our Agriculture Bill sets out a new framework that will reward them for the work they do to protect and enhance the environment."
Backing for the report also came from Labour's Shadow Defra Minister David Drew, Lib Dem environment spokesperson Alistair Carmichael, and Green Party MP Caroline Lucas.
The report came as a new UN study yesterday estimated more than 820 million people worldwide are now going hungry, leaving an "immense challenge" if the world is to eradicate malnutrition and achieve the global target of zero hunger by 2030.
The number of people going hungry had been declining for a decade, but has slowly increased over the past three years, according to the joint report by UN agencies the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the World Health Organisation (WHO), the World Food Programme, UNICEF, and the International Fund for Agriculture Development.
It estimates around one in every nine people on the planet are suffering from hunger, with numbers increasing in many countries where economic growth is lagging. At the same time obesity is increasing in every region of the world, particularly among school-age children and adults.
Hunger has risen almost 20 per cent in Africa's sub-Saharan regions, while it is also inching upwards in Latin America and the Caribbean, the report states. In Asia, meanwhile, undernourishment still affects 11 per cent of the population.
The study draws a strong link between income inequality and access to adequate food, and stresses the importance to economic and social policy for counteracting the effects of adverse economic cycles, in addition to avoiding cuts in essential services. It also reiterates previous UN warnings that climate impacts are at least partly to blame for worsening food security, as extreme weather impacts crop production and forces more farmers from the land.
Nevertheless, the UN emphasises that "with real political commitment, bolder actions and the right investments, zero hunger is still achievable", referring to the UN's Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number two on eradicating hunger by 2030.
"Our actions to tackle these troubling trends will have to be bolder, not only in scale but also in terms of multisectoral collaboration," the heads of the UN agencies behindf the report said in a joint statement.
With increasingly prevalent climate impacts, societal shifts to greener, plant-based diets and greater pressure on land-use for food, biomass crops, and natural carbon sequestration, it is clear that the existing farming system both in the UK and globally needs major and rapid change.
Brexit certainly offers an opportunity to put required changes in motion, but until the government's Environment and Agriculture Bills - and EU-trading arrangements - are finalised, it remains to be seen whether that opportunity will be fully seized.