Scottish farmers may be less inclined to think about Europe and more about Edinburgh and Westminister, as the UK enters its final year as an EU member. However, the issue of climate change and the blame attached to livestock farming will continue either inside or outside the EU. At the Forum for the Future of Farming Conference in Brussels this week, the global challenge facing the livestock industry in Europe and across the world was laid out.

Future of farming

The conference is a now annual event, where the farming and environment interests come together to debate the shape of farming in future. Among the contributors was Jordan’s queen Noor Al Hussein, who described herself as an almost total consumer of a plant-based diet with the occasional lapse into meat and dairy. Given her insight to the Middle East, she was also an advocate of the enhanced role of engaging with women as they were the core food providers and, indeed, huge contributors to farming.

A topic that generated huge debate was the role of food waste in the developed world while up to two billion people were undernourished. Indeed, there are up to four regions of the world that could have been categorised as in famine this year, but it was accepted that this, and indeed many cases of undernourishment, was more to do with political instability than unavailability of food. Affordability remains an issue, however, for many in the developing world, where basic food will account for up to a third of a family’s budget while in western Europe and the USA this figure is well below 10%.

Diet and livestock farming

The other issue with western diets is that highly processed food is universally accepted as unhealthy and a driver of obesity. Parallel to this is the fact that up to a third of food is lost through food waste and there is a sizable population even in the most developed societies that goes hungry for whatever reason.

An Italian chef shared his story about how he and his team captured food that otherwise would have been lost and used it in a food programme that gave people the benefit of top-quality cuisine they could not otherwise afford.

There was a recurring theme of sustainability and livestock were not regarded as a positive by many contributors. The greenhouse gas contribution by ruminant livestock makes this part of farming a ready target in any discussion that includes environmental impact. As well as the methane output, there is the frequent element of pointing out the amount of grain and water that is required to produce a kilo of beef. In this respect at least Scotland has to be well ahead. Much of the land that is occupied by livestock in Scotland is unsuitable for arable and as for water, the annual rainfall levels are sufficient to dismiss that element.

The final case for livestock farming in Scotland can be made along the lines of ‘there is no other way to convert the natural pasture land of much of Scotland that is not suitable for arable to food that humans can use in any other way than through feeding livestock to produce milk, beef and lamb’.

Small farms won’t feed the world

There was an interesting contribution from Louise O. Fresco, president of the Wageningen University and Research Executive Board. She commented that the quality and availability of food today would have been unimaginable a century ago, yet there has never been more suspicion among consumers or lack of confidence in food production. Logic suggests that when there is an abundance of supply, consumers become more discerning on quality and anything that suggests a drop in the expected quality is immediately published across the world through the instant nature of modern communication.

She also addressed the issue of loss of confidence in science and the recent glyphosate debate in the European Parliament was referenced to as an example. Science is now increasingly treated as just another opinion, rather than a definite. This was a reflection of disconnect between science and the wider public, which was the fault of science itself.

With much of the debate focused on the contribution of small farms, Fresco added a note of reality to proceedings, pointing out that large conurbations in excess of 10m population couldn’t be serviced exclusively by small artisan-type production and that there was a place for the larger industry as well.

Role of CAP

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) tends to act as a lightning rod for committed environmentalists who are instinctively opposed to farming, particularly in the livestock sector. Some elements of the CAP are easy to criticise, such as the fact that farm payment is in many cases calculated on the basis of what was carried out on the farm 20 years ago. This point has been picked up in a draft report being prepared on CAP communication that is out for consultation at present.

In his contribution to the debate, the Commissioner for Agriculture Phil Hogan was robust in his defence of CAP, while accepting the need to simplify and modernise it. He acknowledged the role of the environment and did point out that the 2020 CAP would have to have higher ambition in this respect. He was also committed to convergence of payments with eastern European countries that were among the last group to join the EU, though he was careful to add the proviso that budget would shape what he could do here.

At an EU level, there is almost a tug of war between productive agriculture and the environment, yet in deep debate there is a recognition that the two are interlinked. A year from now, and perhaps sooner, Scotland will be framing its own agricultural policy under an umbrella policy formed in Westminster, to have effectively a common market within the UK. Much of the conflict between farming and the environment will remain for Scottish farmers, just the venues for the debate will change.