FW 75: Leading farming figures' predictions for 2084

http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2009/10/30/118332/FW-75-Leading-farming-figures39-predictions-for.htm


PATRICK HOLDEN, Soil Association director

UK agriculture is on the threshold of a period of more far-reaching change than any time since the Industrial Revolution.

During the period since the Second World War, our farming systems have been treating environmental capital, including fossil fuels, mineral fertiliser, water and the fertility of soil itself, as if it was income.

Although the supply of nature's capital is not yet exhausted, we are nearing the end of this exploitative phase during which we have lived beyond our means.

Our food and farming systems need to go through a transition from our current approach, which uses up to 10 calories of mainly fossil fuel energy to produce each calorie of food, to a system of renewable and recyclable inputs.

The transition period will probably span at least 20 years but if we fast forward, the landscape of a sustainably farmed Britain will be radical different.

Mixed organic farming will be the norm not the exception; fertility for arable cropping will be built through clover grass leys grazed by ruminants. Because of this, cereal output will reduce by 40%, white meat becoming an expensive luxury, while red meat fattened on forage will be considered the more sustainable, affordable meat option.

This radical transformation will not stop at the farm gate - our staple foods will once again be sourced mainly much closer to where we live.

The infrastructure needed to enable this will include more abattoirs and processing units, most of which have disappeared over the last 60 years.

The mutual dependency between producer and consumer which once characterised the food culture of this country and which still exists in parts of mainland Europe will undergo a renaissance and the simple pleasure of eating fresh, sustainably produced and local food will once again occupy a central point in our lives.

It will return the primary producers of this country to their rightful high social, cultural and economic status.