Well over two thirds of the land mass of England is farmland and yet there is increasing debate about the use to which it should be put. For forty years during and after the Second World War there was no doubt, it was to provide food for the nation, but other demands seem to have gained greater priority today.
In 2020, a former Chief Adviser to Defra, Sir Ian Boyd called for half of our farmland to be planted to trees and wildlife habitat in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reverse the decline in biodiversity. He claimed that 50% of farmland provides just 20% of our food and that could easily be replaced by vertical farming, production in a controlled environment. That would mean that 90% of our cattle and sheep would disappear but it would all help the fight against climate change. A 90% drop in cattle and sheep would result in a far greater reduction in red meat and dairy products but that would be fine if we all became vegan or at least vegetarian.
Then there are demands to use farmland to create energy, be that growing crops for electricity generation or using land for wind turbines or solar farms. In this region, a large area of farmland is devoted to grow maize or winter rye to feed the anaerobic digestion plant near Andover, neither of which are restorative crops and thus are of little benefit in an arable rotation. One electricity generator, Ecotricity, however, is asking farmers to grow herb rich leys to feed their plants, the first of which is nearing completion near Reading. Herb rich leys could benefit soil health and fertility and thus help to improve productivity, but the yield is likely to be much lower than maize. Miscanthus and short rotation coppice can also be grown to power electricity generation.
Solar farms have been much in the news recently, particularly planning applications for very large areas of farmland to be covered with solar panels. Perhaps the biggest is Botley West, to the north and west of Oxford, which is proposed to cover some 3,500 acres and produce 840 megawatts of electricity. There are also plans for a 2,800 acre solar farm, Sunnica, on the Cambridgeshire/Suffolk border and another the same size at Cottam on the Nottinghamshire/Lincolnshire border that was originally expected to cover 5,000 acres.
The issue with solar panels is connection to the National Grid which is why these giant farms are proposed rather than simply putting them on the roofs of farm or industrial buildings. National Grid has recently upgraded the Oxford substation at Cowley with substantial extra capacity whilst both Sunnica and Cottam are based on decommissioned power stations. It seems to me ludicrous to cover good farmland with solar panels when they could be put on industrial roofs if only the connectivity infrastructure could be developed.
There is significant emphasis in Government countryside policy on reversing the decline in wildlife. Direct subsidies to farmers will be phased out by 2028 with public funds then only going to pay for public goods, grants for tree planting, nature conservation and public access. Defra has expressed disappointment at the uptake of the Sustainable Farming Incentive and the revamped Countryside Stewardship so rates of grant have been increased. But there is anecdotal evidence of large areas of farmland being taken out of production and put into trees or nature conservation. There have been reports of farmers taking that decision faced with rapid inflation of farm input costs, accepting a fixed income without the current market volatility. Certainly there is one local large estate that has gone down this route. To what extent these reports exaggerate the trend or whether Defra’s pessimism is more accurate is difficult to judge.
What is becoming obvious is that we are facing a potential crisis in food supply. There were one billion fewer eggs produced in this country in 2022 than in 2019 giving rise to the shortage before Christmas. Fruit and vegetable growers have cut back significantly, especially in greenhouses because they cannot afford the energy costs. Supermarkets are doing their best to hold down prices in the current cost of living crisis but that means they are not paying farmers enough to cover their increased costs. We may be able to import our food instead but will it match our high environmental and animal welfare standards? In any case, it is not guaranteed; when there was a shortage of salad due to bad weather in Spain and North Africa, any surplus went to countries that were prepared to pay more than British supermarkets. We are a market of last resort.
The there is the issue of landscape. The British countryside is very special, much loved and a huge asset, not least because it is a patchwork quilt of woodland, pasture and arable land. The main priority for farming is to reverse the degradation of soils for which grazing livestock is hugely beneficial. Do we want landscape of monoculture trees or wildlife habitat with large areas of solar farms? How many of the millions of trees recently planted will survive if they are the wrong species on the wrong soil or not looked after. There have been reports that 75% of the 850,000 trees planted by National Highways alongside the upgraded A14 have not survived.
Cannot we keep the open downland grazed by sheep or moorland grazed by cattle and ponies? The vast majority of farms have a mixture of soils; the ideal should be to grow food on the good land and wildlife habitat on the poor land. I want to continue to eat red meat and dairy products, to enjoy the landscape with small scale woodland and grazing animals on pastures. In all these conflicting demands on land use, we need to keep a balance to find space for food production, abundant wildlife and climate change mitigation.