Local, not global, is the key to a sustainable food supply

We can find a way to address environmental and production concerns, says Ian Woodhurst

Ian Woodhurst
The Guardian, Friday 5 June 2009

Your leader column discussed the warning by the government's chief scientist, Professor Sir John Beddington, of a "perfect storm" that will create a global food supply crisis. In it, you asserted that the Campaign to Protect Rural England's "Vision for the Countryside 2026" had "little to say about the new demand for food production" (The countryside: turf wars, 15 May).
Protecting our capacity to produce food is undoubtedly wise. But, given England's land area, how intensively it is used and its ecological limitations, how much can we contribute to global food production even by maximising the use of technology? We also question whether globalisation of food supplies is the answer, given that food riots broke out when oil prices soared, food exports dried up and national reserves dwindled.
Our campaign fears that food security could be used by agri-business as an opportunity to justify the widespread and uncontrolled use of pesticides, fertilisers and GM technology. This would undoubtedly compromise the "hard-won gains in sustainability" made during the "golden age of conservation" over the past 20 years.
You pointed out that the "debate that is beginning" on future reforms to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), and that "could shape our countryside for a generation", is "largely unobserved". Perhaps this is because it is difficult for most of us to comprehend how significantly the complexities of European farm payment rules influence farmer's decisions on what people eat and how the countryside is managed.
Although the CAP has changed, its faults remain numerous. Payments are unfairly divided both between countries and farmers, and have minimal environmental conditions. The CAP needs further reform - but if payments fell too much or disappeared completely, many farmers who do good things for the environment could go out of business.
Your leader states that "rural policy is once again creating a division between farmers who think productivity has to regain its traditional pre-eminence and the environmentalists who are determined that ... sustainability must not be compromised". As CPRE's Vision makes clear, there are two ways to avoid this.
The first is a major reform of agricultural policy at the European level. The CAP should become an environmental and social policy rewarding farmers for their landscape management. Impoverished budgets for green farming schemes should be matched to the true value of all the countryside provides. Second, we need to encourage the growth of networks of local food producers, processors and suppliers to feed rural and urban communities and sustain the rural economy.
We know there are harsh realties to face in transforming the way our land is farmed and our food produced. Food supplies may never be completely local. Environmentally sustainable commercial farming will have a part to play. But CPRE will continue "valiantly" working towards achieving our vision. That is what visions are all about.
• Ian Woodhurst is senior rural policy officer of the Campaign to Protect Rural England IanW@cpre.org.uk