Who should run the countryside? This was the banner of an event was hosted by Relu (the Rural Economy and Land Use programme) on Nov 16 this year in Gateshead, UK. It was a day-long opportunity for people from all walks of life to take part in activities coordinated by Relu researchers and debate major questions about the future of the UK countryside.

For one of the debates, I  argued that, although food security and maintaining a healthy environment are both important, food security – or more accurately the competitiveness of UK agriculture – is at this time more important in policy terms. This is not an either-or question, but I think we need to achieve a sustainable balance between food production and maintaining a healthy environment.

Levelling the land

Nationally, I question if we have lost track of the importance of the agricultural competitiveness of our rural environment in favour of environmental protection.

Policy steps in the 2000s reduced spending on competitive agriculture and made the environment a priority, directing resources there through the  two major environmental organisations  Environment Agency and Natural England. And the majority of Rural Development Programme for England funding, which aims to connect agricultural and economic development and promotes environmental stewardship and community sustainability, is also channeled into the environment

What’s more, of the three supposedly equal elements of profit, the environment and social outcomes emanating from the Policy Commission on the Future of Farming and Food (the Curry Commission) it was the environmental element that was predominantly picked up. I was a member of the Commission

We also have a plethora of environmental NGOs competing with each other for income, in part, I think, by painting a very black and sometimes inaccurate picture of efficient farming.

Moreover, we have a generation of students who have chosen careers in environmental studies, which is welcome as part of the wider life sciences, but we have seen, until recently, a decrease in interest in crop science and the applied skills to grow food and protect it against attack. (The recent increase in courses, especially at Master’s degree level, in food security-related areas, one of which has been described on this blog, is heartening.)

As a result, we have seen a significant reduction (PDF) in our self sufficiency of indigenous food production and, as illustrated in the Total Factors of Productivity that Defra have produced in the past, since the 1980s UK farming has become relatively less competitive than most of its major competitors in terms of  the national efficiency of  productivity factors compared to the majority of Western EU states and the US.

Finally, the present EU Commission proposals for CAP Reform from 2013 again illustrate how powerful the environmental lobby is across Europe; the existing Greening suggestion for Pillar 1 would involve 7% of subsidised EU land being taken out for environmental enhancement. Not only is this ill thought out, but it would potentially undo much of the good work completed or underway in the UK under our existing environmental schemes.

England my home

Why should we worry about food security? A succession of governments did not, arguing that we were a relatively wealthy nation and could afford to buy food in.

And by food security I am not referring to 100% self sufficiency, we are not even suggesting we should produce 100% of indigenous food (the current total in 2011 was 74% (PDF)). What we should be doing is providing a significantly higher percentage of food that we can produce reasonably competitively.

What has changed?  From 2007-2008 a combination of food shortages and resultant political turmoil, higher and more volatile food prices, a greater awareness of climate change, rising global population, dietary change and water scarcity has created political unease and a change in rhetoric. The media and consumers have also changed their perception because food, particularly the price of it, is now front page news.

The question remains to be answered – does it matter in economic terms if we put more resources into becoming more competitive, efficient and secure with our home produced food and energy? Well, yes it does.

Let us accept that we are thinking in terms of sustainable competitiveness as opposed to short term exhaustion of resources and that we do need to reduce our carbon footprint. More home production of food gives us greater control. More home production will reduce food price volatility, improve our trade balance, create employment opportunities and a more competitive industry will be less dependent on subsidies that may be cut in the future.

Finally, in most cases well managed land adjacent to well managed conservation is better for the environment than letting land revert to scrub or the prevalent dominant species.

Zeitgeist

So we need a policy that balances efficient sustainable food production with well managed intelligent environmental care. But we need to be quite clear what our objectives are.

As it goes, at the Gateshead event, the food security team that I was on not surprisingly lost the debate; the abstainers were in the majority which is illustrative of the present status quo!

But I still maintain that in production terms we need to become world leaders again, and fellow food producer Jim Godfrey has spelt out some ideas on how to do this on a previous blog post here.

We need common cause and understanding between farmers and conservationists, and in relation to the environment we should concentrate on healthy soils and beneficial insects, but above all the area that needs our attention at the moment is the commercial side of the balance.

About Mark Tinsley

Mark Tinsley is a farmer and produced arable crops, potatoes and vegetables on 600ha in South Lincolnshire. He is Chairman of the Commercial Farmers Group, a non-executive Director of NFU Mutual, Chairman of the potato cooperative Nene Potatoes Ltd., a member of Lincolnshire Local Enterprise Partnership Advisory Board and was a member of The Policy Commission on the Future of Farming and Food (the Curry Commission).

As farmers we want a competitive farming industry because that is what will be sustainable in the longer term.  A competitive industry is profitable, more resilient, better able to withstand financial, disease and other shocks; it is more likely to reinvest, better able to provide good working conditions, environmental benefits, and give greater choice, innovation and value to consumers as well as being less likely to require subsidy.

Over the last 20 years we have seen the output of UK agriculture decline, mainly as a result of less land in production and less livestock.  The UK’s self sufficiency has decreased too, and the average yields of our major crops have at best only marginally increased over this time, the notable exception being sugar beet. The pig sector has decreased substantially as a result of UK welfare legislation and subsequent under re-investment, whilst the poultry sector has increased substantially due to well targeted research and investment in buildings.

Industry focus

To help the farming industries become more competitive and address the food security challenge we require more research and development.

The UK Government invests about £420M per year into agriculture and food research, but my feeling is that much of this investment is in research for publication, policy and safety. What we need is a change of emphasis to more research for development and into knowledge transfer and uptake in the agricultural industry. 

To do this effectively we need a strategy for UK agriculture developed by the agricultural industry which we can take to Government and the research community so we can ensure we have research which is focused on our priorities. 

Agriculture is very different to the pharmaceutical industry which has a more linear pipeline from research to product.  Agriculture is a fragmented, multi-faceted industry which requires interaction between researchers and the practitioners to solve problems. Hence, the Commercial Farmers Group has set out its four areas for research:

1. Genetic improvement in crops and livestock exploiting the latest biotechnology (GM) methods to increase productivity (output per unit of input), to control pests and diseases, to reduce environmental impact and to increase nutritional benefits to human health.
2. Increased productivity and reduced environmental impacts of crop and livestock production systems through precision technology developments, such as using automated real-time diagnostics for disease detection in crops and livestock; individual electronically controlled feeding systems for pigs and dairy cows; investment in high quality buildings to reduce environmental impact.
3. Improvement of soil structure using crop management systems with lower energy input (per unit of output), such as no-till systems and controlled traffic wheelings in crop production
4. Prevention and control of crop and livestock diseases to minimise the incidence and impact of both endemic and exotic diseases, including surveillance and monitoring of existing and emerging diseases.; development of more vertically integrated livestock systems to reduce animal contact between herds and flocks.

Policy progress

Food security has come to the forefront of government policies around the world.  The UK can take credit for providing much intellectual leadership through Sir John Beddington’s “Perfect storm” concept and the Royal Society’s “Reaping the Benefits” report. The EU, too, has published its vision for agriculture in its proposals for Common Agricultural Policy reform; part of this vision is for a competitive EU agriculture and Caroline Spelman, the UK Secretary of State for the Defra, has stated she wishes to see a competitive UK agricultural industry. 

Organisation is important to achieving the desired goals. BBSRC has included food security in its revised strategy and the research institutes it funds, which  includes Rothamsted Research, the Institute for Animal Health and the John Innes Centre, who are aligning their research programmes to this strategy. The bringing together of different farming sectors under the Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board is a welcome move to create greater critical mass and the joining up of their research programmes.

The newly formed Technology Strategy Board (TSB) Sustainable Agriculture and Food Innovation Platform has started to help fill the research gaps between the BBSRC, AHDB and the private sector. 

We have a good starting point. Now we all must work together to help UK agriculture to be more competitive and to fulfil our part in ensuring global food security.

About Jim Godfrey

Jim Godfrey is an arable and pig farmer from Lincolnshire.  He is a member of the Commercial Farmers Group, BBSRC Council member, chairman of the TSB Sustainable Agriculture and Food Innovation Platform and a non executive director of the Rural Payments Agency. He is a former chairman of the Potato Marketing Board (now the Potato Council), Scottish Crop Research Institute, The International Potato Centre in Peru and the Alliance of the 15 Consultative Group on Agricultural Research Centres (now CGIAR).

My first 13 years of farming saw endless lorry-loads of fertilisers and chemicals coming on to the farm. The controls on their usage, and the consequential problems, were evidently increasing. I re-examined what I was doing and who the gainers and losers were.

Conclusion: I needed to cut down the inputs, improve sustainability, stay friends with the consumer and re-enliven my soils.

We all want to produce sufficient food to supply the full nutritional requirements of the human species, whilst attempting to live in harmony with the natural environment and its finite resources. Simple… except it’s not.

Livestock farmers appreciate that every farm has a maximum stocking rate, beyond which animals will be underfed without importing food. We need to reduce the numbers of animals farmed, because the supplies of grain and proteins are going to become pressurised by the reducing quantities of available fertilisers, oil and other inputs.

We need to appreciate the finite nature of natural key resources upon which agriculture depends. Oil, phosphate fertiliser and access to fresh water being the principal inputs. The use of ‘fossil’ water reserves illustrates the problem, and whilst it’s not a problem in the rainy UK, it is in many countries from which we import food, often to feed livestock – as seen in the staggering scale of imported GM soya from Brazil to feed British cows for example.

Farmers are the largest consumers of these resources. With what responsible logic can we justify feeding livestock tonnages of grains and proteins? As Simon Fairlie has described on this blog and in his book Meat: A Benign Extravagance, it’s a horribly inefficient way to produce food. If only we could stand back and assess it logically and not feel threatened by our own, as farmers, vested interest. 

Big problems

Why not embrace the findings of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development  which concluded that “business as usual” was not an option? 

Reducing feeding grains and proteins to livestock will save natural resources, and indirectly improve people’s health. Furthermore, huge areas of currently crop-producing land would then grow grass, still to support livestock, enabling preservation of fragile and diminishing soils by minimising soil erosion.

Some may think these policy shifts equate to less food for most people. It may for a few, but it won’t necessarily for the majority. And would that be a bad thing? Astonishing food wastage occurs through over consumption – people becoming fat – also known as the obesity epidemic in politically-correct language. We now have more obese people in the world than hungry, and the vast majority of this is avoidable. When did this become acceptable?

Perhaps these policy shifts would make food more expensive. Then we’d all eat different diets, with less meat, and those over-consuming will necessarily reduce intake. This would also lead to less waste minimisation during food processing and domestically: nobody in 2011 should accept the 18 million tonnes of food waste. Whilst some is unavoidable, a huge amount is careless at best.

By using less land to grow feed for animals, substantial areas of current cropland could be afforested, recreating the lungs of the world, and some land can switch to energy production to be used locally.

Furthermore, these significant changes would dispense with the temptation to tinker with nature’s genetics by utilising GM crops. Other nicely developing breeding techniques, such as marker-assisted breeding, will enhance yields and improved resistance to attack, whilst keeping our customers onside.

Hard solutions

Delivering radical change is difficult. Nobody would suggest otherwise. But we don’t have the choice, and the sooner we start the less Draconian the action will need to be.

If we won’t do this for society, and ultimately for our children’s sake, and continue to prefer prevarication then we drive the car towards a cliff edge. Either we make a reasonably gentle turn now, or continue taking risks, hoping for unknown options for our salvation will appear later.

Are farmers big enough to do this? It will obviously have negative implications for the capital values of many of our businesses. But, do we, as part of a bigger society, have any realistic alternative option?

About Oliver Dowding

After leaving agricultural college in 1976, Oliver returned home to the family farm in South East Somerset, a traditional dairy and arable farm, extending to over 900 acres. 

In 1989 the decision was made to convert the entire farm, including 300 dairy cows and 200 youngstock immediately to organic status, which became the subject for a TV programme. The farming area has subsequently shrunk and the dairy disbanded.

Oliver has been involved with a variety of national agri-political posts and interests, including chairing the NFU organic committee, and as vice-chairman of the leading organic dairy co-operative, OMSCO. 

He is an active journalist and campaigner, particularly on health and environmental issues.

Just after Easter I gave my first public talk about the forthcoming reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) that is due to be introduced in 2013. 

Predicting and pontificating on the ideal form of future policies is every economist’s dream. You get to show how clever you are in your analysis, how balanced you in are in your appreciation of all relevant factors, and how much better the world would be if only the government would take your ideas on board.

As part of my research for the talk I read the latest European Commission documents on ideas for CAP and discovered that the main strategic aim of the new CAP is to ‘to preserve the food production potential on a sustainable basis throughout the EU, so as to guarantee long-term food security for European citizens and to contribute to growing world food demand’. Further down the list of strategic aims are the need to ‘combat biodiversity loss’ and ‘to mitigate and to adapt to climate change’. These aims are laudable and desirable, and who would vote against any of them? 

The problem comes not in trying to achieve any of these alone, but rather achieving them in combination. This is a lot trickier today than in many of the reforms of the last 25 years because the desire to enhance food security is now so prominent. Many of the recent reforms have been able to give support to environmental and social aims, and these have gone hand in hand with policies aimed at reducing food mountains and encouraging less intensive methods of production.

But now we want to green the CAP and provide more food.

More, from less?

Devising a policy to give us more food is easy. We incentivise farmers to cultivate more land and to use resources in order to maximise production. This could be a good thing from the point of view of mitigating climate change, as generally products from intensive production systems have lower carbon footprints than do products from less intensive systems; as observed in systems as diverse as poultry, vegetables and beef. 

Unfortunately, such a policy goes totally against the philosophy of agri-environment schemes we have seen develop over the last 25 years, which have been built on the basis of extensification of production (i.e. fewer inputs and management, making production systems less intensive).

Given current knowledge and technology it is obvious to even the least sophisticated analyst that devising a policy to achieve more food, more biodiversity and fewer greenhouse gases is quite a challenge.

So what to do? First, governments should recognise the problems in trying to achieve all this in one policy. Second, conservationists need to consider this as an opportunity to totally rethink conservation policy within the CAP. 

Traditional agri-environment schemes have lots of support because they are cuddly and nice. They are familiar to farmers, good for lobby groups (PDF) and seem like a good idea – but they may not (PDF) work well. Indeed, the evidence supporting their effectiveness on the ground  is scarce. So lets be prepared to ditch them and try some new ideas. 

Third, clever people everywhere need to try and think of ways to mitigate climate change. Maybe an aspirational CAP can incentivise such a process – but maybe the practicalities of doing this within its seven-year expected life time are simply too great.

Finally, maybe its time for all of us to really examine some of the fundamental tenets of our lives, ranging from society’s opposition to new food production technologies (discussed recently by Les Firbank on this blog) through to issues of population control.  

If we fail to do this then we may discover the ultimate truth about food security – you can’t have your cake and eat it!

About Gareth Edwards-Jones

Gareth currently holds the positions of Professor of Agriculture and Land Use at Bangor University and the Waitrose Chair of Sustainable Agriculture at Aberystwyth University.  His current research interests focus around reducing greenhouse-gas emissions from agriculture and the food chain, and the economic aspects of conservation on land and in marine fisheries.

Put focused, transparent and accountable food security initiatives first for sustainable development, says Morgane Danielou of the Farming First coalition.

Last year in L’Aquila, Italy, G8 leaders pledged US$20Bn (since revised to $22Bn) to address global food security.

Since the food crisis erupted in 2008, a large number of global and regional food security initiatives have been launched or strengthened in response. The L’Aquila statement (PDF) and the subsequent launch in 2010 of the Global Agriculture and Food Security Programme (GAFSP) (PDF) are important illustrations of the commitment to action of countries around the world. 

Ahead of this year’s G8 summit, the Farming First coalition has compiled a comprehensive Guide to Food Security Initiatives, which uses an interactive map to outline the key policy objectives that each initiative has identified and how these policies should be implemented.

Food security is a complex issue requiring concerted efforts over the long term. The increased attention and leadership around this issue is a very positive development.

However, while this renewed attention and action are welcomed and needed, the proliferation of so many separate initiatives running in parallel requires that the risk of overlapping, competing or disjointed activities be addressed.

As we move towards action on these food security policies, Farming First urges G8 leaders to:

1. Promote a clear focus on a common goal for food security at the global level through policy and operational coherence
2. Encourage increased transparency on how much pledged funding has been committed, and to what types of programmes
3. Engage a wide range of stakeholders to ensure that efforts are coordinated, clear, collaborative and ultimately successful

How the many current programmes are coordinated and contribute to food security is unclear.

In the UN system, the Secretary-General’s High-Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis (HLTF) represents an effort at giving an overarching direction but how non-UN efforts relate, for instance, to the Comprehensive Framework for Action (CFA) (PDF) developed by the HLTF, is not articulated.

In addition, despite a great amount of funding pledged by many countries to support food security initiatives, we do not know how much and in what ways it has been delivered. For instance, the L’Aquila statement included targeted investments as well as support for innovation, research and technology as essential components of long-term food security. But what investments? How much, and where?

Finally, how the relevant stakeholders required for successful policy implementation interact with these programmes is also in many cases undefined. Farmers, scientists, civil society and the private sector need to be involved in order to ensure plans meet existing needs and are successfully implemented. For example, Farming First suggests that GAFSP create a dedicated seat for farmers and the private sector on its Steering Committee given the essential role that the Committee will play in supporting initiatives around the world that will affect farmers.

Farming First urges G8 leaders to renew their commitments to food security at this year’s summit, and we welcome the opportunity for further collective action in addressing the hunger and poverty concerns at the heart of sustainable development.

About Morgane Danielou

Morgane Danielou is Director of Communications for the International Fertilizer Industry Association, based in Paris.  She works on behalf of Farming First, a global coalition of 131 organisations, representing the world’s farmers, scientists, engineers and industry.  For more on Farming First’s position on food security, visit www.farmingfirst.org/foodsecurity

At the launch of the book Science and Innovation for Development on 19 January, co-author Sir Gordon Conway said: “It doesn’t matter where the technology comes from, it matters that it is appropriate.”

Too often international development researchers, policy makers and practitioners get caught up in the source of a technology, and use this as the metric for whether it will be successful. The way a technology is designed, the country it comes from, the type of institution that produced it – while all important considerations – are not as important as whether the product is appropriate.

An appropriate technology is accessible, affordable, easy-to-use and maintain, effective – and most importantly it serves a real need.

For example, a rice seed that has been bred or engineered to mature faster can be appropriate anywhere the variety thrives. Local farmers have a need for such characteristics, regardless of whether the seed comes from local efforts or from global centres like the International Rice Research Institute.

Many scientists and policy makers in developed countries also often hold on to the idea that you can’t apply different types of technology to the same problem. In fact, this is often exactly what is needed.

For example, for farmers in drought-prone areas to deal with persistent and increasing water shortages they need solutions which draw from the full range of scientific innovation. These can include ‘traditional’ water conservation techniques and planting methods such as the ‘zai’ system in West Africa, where farmers use small holes filled with manure and the extensive underground termite tunnels that result, to both capture water and recycle soil nutrients.

Then there are ‘intermediate’ technologies such as drip irrigation, where plastic tubing is used to apply small amounts of water to each individual plant, and ‘new platform’ technologies such as cereal varieties that are genetically modified to survive, and even prosper, in drought conditions.

Farmers should have access to all types of solutions – so they can pick and choose the best combination for their own field, and adapt and innovate as conditions change.

I came across a telling example of the strong bias which some hold for particular sources of technology at a recent plant biotechnology conference. A number of presenters at the event introduced the methods they had been working on to control weeds, in particular the parasitic weed Striga.

On one side was the biological systems approach: intercropping enemies of the weed with the maize crop with plants that suppress Striga. The other side advocated a technological solution: breeding resistance to the herbicide that kills the weed into the maize seeds themselves, so that the seeds can be dipped into the herbicide. The treated maize seeds kill the parasitic seeds in the ground, allowing the maize to grow and the environmental impact to be minimised.

Both systems have drawbacks – more labour and local knowledge needed for biological control, and higher research costs and risk of resistance developing for the seed modification approach.

So why not use both? Why not work together?

Instead I saw the two sides actively arguing. Then when another presenter introduced the idea of increasing the use of conventional herbicides in Africa it was met with immediate derision, partly due to the source of the herbicides (US manufacturers). Most did not consider the fact that, if applied in an educated and selective manner, conventional herbicides may be a great tool for poor farmers.

But this may be changing. As Science and Innovation for Development’s other co-author Jeff Waage stated in the book: “Between the extremes of a technological ‘silver bullet’ approach to development science, and the belief that local and intermediate technologies are the only legitimate approach, there is emerging today a new community of scientists dedicated to an inclusive view of appropriate science for development”.

About Sara Delaney

Sara Delaney joined Imperial College in July 2009 to work on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded project ‘Africa and Europe: Partnerships in Food and Farming’. She is assisting Gordon Conway with the writing of a second edition of his 1999 book The Doubly Green Revolution. She recently completed work with the UK Collaborative on Development Sciences (UKCDS) and the London International Development Centre (LIDC), supporting the publication of the book Science and Innovation for Development. Sara studied biological and environmental engineering at Cornell University and ‘Science, Society and Development’ at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS). From 2005-2007 she served as a US Peace Corps volunteer in Mali, working in the water and sanitation sector.

Contact Details

Sara Delaney
Imperial College London, SW7 2AZ
Tel: +44 (0)20 7594 8040

The second decade of the last century was an important decade for food research with the setting up of six research institutes focusing on specific sectors such as dairying (National Institute for Research in Dairying) plant breeding (Welsh Plant Breeding Institute) and human nutrition (Rowett Research Institute). 

The second decade of this century is witnessing a resurgence of interest in food research, but this time with a difference. Today, the research objectives are not so much about maximising production of food, but producing nutritious food while minimising negative impacts on the environment, including limiting greenhouse-gas emissions. 

Addressing these challenges requires a broad range of skills, both in conducting the research, but also in prioritising the problems and defining funding strategies. 

Personally, I have long been keen on collaboration and working across disciplines and thus I genuinely welcome the new Global Food Security partnership of funders which was launched on 11 March. I consider such joint working to be an essential part of meeting our responsibility, as scientists, to provide the evidence to enable society to make informed choices on what to eat. 

We already have labelling to tell us whether a particular purchase is healthy or not; the information on the labels being informed by years of research on nutrition and physiology (funded, for example, by the Food Standards Agency). Consumers now also want to know what impact the production of a specific product has had on the environment. 

We have to catch up quickly. By working together, scientists and science funders can build upon past experience to achieve a desired outcome more rapidly. 

Another example lies in the area of plant and animal health. Climate change is predicted to increase the risks of severe negative economic impacts being caused by some diseases. Both the assessments of risks, and diagnosis at the molecular level, have many similarities between the plant and animal sectors yet often that knowledge has not been exchanged. 

Alternatively, working in partnership inspires the rewriting of objectives which often provides new insights into the intransigent problems of the past, again learning from best practice in other disciplines. 

Another aspect of this partnership is the fostering of collaboration between funders who focus on ‘upstream’ (or more basic) research, such as the Research Councils, and those charged with the responsibility for ensuring that research outputs have impact (e.g. government departments such as Defra). Development, together of strategic objectives, ensures that the outputs from upstream research do not just ‘sit on a shelf’ as a peer-reviewed paper, but are effectively used to deliver impact and benefit societies. 

Enhancing our ability as a group of public sector funders to deliver both excellence in science, and a useful and measurable impact on society, is both challenging and exciting. I have high hopes that the Global Food Security partnership will inspire the science community to help us achieve our goals.

About Professor Maggie Gill

Maggie Gill is (since 2006) the Scottish Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser for Rural Affairs and the Environment for 80% of her time and works for DFID-Research, as part of the Food Team for the remaining 20%, on secondment from the University of Aberdeen (DFID is the UK Government’s Department for International Development.). 

Maggie’s career has included both research and research management starting with livestock production and moving on to the interface between agriculture and the environment and natural resource management issues. Her research has included collaboration with scientists in Australasia, North America and a number of developing countries. 

She worked for the Grassland Research Institute (which evolved into IGER) for 13 years before moving into international development in 1989. After 11 years of research, research management and ultimately as Chief Executive of Natural Resources International Ltd. (1996-2000), a company which was ‘spun out’ of the privatisation of the Natural Resources Institute (NRI), an Executive Agency of the Overseas Development Administration, Maggie returned to Scotland as Chief Executive and Director of Research at the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute in Aberdeen (2000-2006).

Contact details

Professor Maggie Gill, Director Rural & Environment Research and Analysis, The Scottish Government

Why is such a policy important?

Because for developing countries, the consequences of insecure food supplies are severe and undermine development and progress. 3 out of 4 people in developing countries live in rural areas, and most depend on agriculture for their livelihoods.

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation says developing countries may experience a decline of between 9-21% in overall potential agricultural productivity as a result of global warming.

When crops or livestock are affected by climate change impacts or other factors, such as disease, the effect on local families, communities and the wider country is devastating.

Lack of available produce means less food and less income for small-holder farmers and their families. Consequently, cases of malnutrition rise – particularly in children – resulting in potentially long-term health problems which inhibit people’s capacity to attend school or earn a living.

The food crisis of 2008 caused an additional 110M people to suffer from hunger and permanent damage to 40M malnourished children.

We have only 5 years left until the 2015 deadline to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and the first of these, to reduce the proportion people who suffer from hunger, is veering further off target thanks to the food crisis, global economic crisis and climate change impacts. 

But UK science can help.

The UK has historically been seen as a world leader in both research and knowledge exchange in development agriculture. As detailed in the UK Agri-Food Science Directory, we have at least 280 agricultural and food-related research organisations and 5 research councils committed to research that is either directly relevant or applicable to developing countries.

Take the near elimination of rinderpest as an example. A major outbreak of this infectious viral disease in 1982-1984 had a devastating impact on Africa’s livestock, causing losses valued at over £300M. UK scientists have been behind the development of a vaccine that will soon result in an announcement of the eradication of the disease.

Links between development funders and UK researchers are strengthening. The Department for International Development (DFID) has made agricultural research a priority and will now double its support over the next 5 years from £40M in 2009 to £80M per year by 2014.

New research programmes between DFID and BBSRC like Sustainable Agriculture Research for International Development (SARID) and its follower CIDLID (Combating Infectious Diseases in Livestock for International Development), supported by the Scottish Government, are opening the door for more development-focused agricultural science.

And international funders like the Gates Foundation are backing more UK research projects on development agriculture, such as the Africa and Europe: Partnerships in Food and Farming project at Imperial College, London. 

The launch of the UK Cross-Government Food Research and Innovation Strategy this month is another demonstration of the UK’s commitment to food-related research.

It’s through this type of coordinated, collaborative approach to food and agricultural research, combined with the proposed new plans for an EU policy on food security and developing countries, which can help steer the Millennium Development Goals back on track.

About Dr Andrée Carter, Director of the UK Collaborative on Development Sciences (UKCDS)

Dr Andrée Carter is the Director of the UK Collaborative on Development Sciences (UKCDS), a collaboration of research councils, government departments and charitable foundations working to maximise the impact of UK research on international development.

Originally trained as a soil scientist, Dr Carter has worked closely with UK and EU governments, research and corporate organisations to protect and improve the quality of the environment and those dependent on it for their livelihoods.  

She was previously the Director of Science and Environment in ADAS UK Ltd., an agricultural and environmental research consultancy and prior to that worked at Cranfield University.

Contact details

Dr Andrée Carter, Director
UK Collaborative on Development Sciences
Gibbs Building
215 Euston Road
London
NW1 2BE

Tel: 0207 611 7330
Email: a.carter@ukcds.org.uk