Everyone wants “sustainable agriculture,” but defining a land-use strategy that balances competing environmental and production goals is difficult

fWith global food security concerns and rising food and energy price inflation, the UK government seems to have realized the importance of having productive domestic agriculture. But reports that one of Britain’s largest landowners, the National Trust, is taking back large tracts of productive farmland from long-term tenants to plant trees and regrow, and encourage low-yield farming on some of our most fertile soils, underscores the urgent need Need for a coherent land-use strategy that recognizes the importance of food production, writes Norfolk arable farmer David Hill.

Many have interpreted the government’s latest food strategy as a welcome change in policy direction, signaling a renewed recognition by ministers of the strategic importance of domestic agriculture and food production. The war in Ukraine and the cost of living crisis will have played an important role in the government’s thinking.

For example, Defra’s nutrition plan commits to “broadly maintaining current levels of domestic food production”, developing a new horticultural strategy and investing £270m in research and innovation by 2029 to improve farm-level productivity, sustainability and resilience .

Ministers have also committed to developing a land use strategy by 2023 which, when following the three-compartment approach advocated in Henry Dimbleby’s original National Food Strategy document The Plan, will also represent a positive change in policy from the scientific evidence will mark those supporting this a land-sparing rather than a land-sharing approach.

Based on the thinking of conservation scientists Professor Andrew Balmford and Professor Rhys Green of the University of Cambridge, this creative three-compartment vision for future land use accommodates a combination of natural habitat, low-intensity farming and high-yield, high-tech farming – follows the science and, if implemented correctly, could deliver a more sustainable balance in terms of food production, resource use, conservation and climate protection.

As Professor Balmford noted in an October 2021 article in the Journal of Zoology, most species would fare “least poorly” on a space-saving approach – with high-yield production that meets food demand from a relatively small farmed area, freeing up space to preserve intact habitats in the rest of the landscape.

Building on this model in the specific context of the UK environment, the three-compartment model recognizes that a limited number of cropland types perform better under low-intensity farming systems, hence setting aside the provision of a third compartment alongside high-yield agriculture and land use for nature.

However, the allocation of land to each of these three compartments will be the determining factor in the eventual success of such a strategy. Until a more nationally representative picture of the optimal allocation for each compartment is developed, the scientists involved were cautious in estimating the relative proportion of each land-use option.

But it’s certainly not an even tripartition. Based on the detailed analysis already available for two pilot regions – Salisbury Plain and the Fens – I do not think it unreasonable to propose a rough estimate of 60% high-yield farming, 25% conservation and 15%. Low-intensity farming for the whole country.

And in my view, before too much of our productive land is left to rewilding, tree planting, or low-yield farming systems like organic, and before too much of our productive land is left to rewilding, it’s crucial to have an early idea of ​​what a science-based assessment of future land-use allocations might look like too much public money is earmarked to reward less productive farming systems when the scientific evidence is telling us to focus on high-yield farming.

In fact, the development of a coherent land-use strategy — which provides a science-based assessment of the competing demands and priorities for this valuable resource — should have preceded each of the policy options being developed by Defra under the Environmental Land Management Programs (ELMs). , be it in relation to low-input agriculture, local conservation or landscape restoration. In its report on ELMs in January this year, the House of Commons Budgets Committee criticized the UK government for failing to come up with a clear plan for land use and food production.

Two cases involving the National Trust – one of the UK’s largest landowners – underscore the risks of pursuing certain land use options without a clearer understanding of how they might impact broader policy objectives. This is especially true now that national food security and the goal of maintaining current levels of food production are embedded in our national food strategy.

The first concern reports that the National Trust is reclaiming significant tracts of productive farmland from long-term leaseholders for rewilding and tree planting projects. Those affected suggest the move is financially motivated, as the Trust seeks lucrative grants for landscape-scale restoration of nature at the expense of its leased farms – and the food they have historically produced.

The Tenant Farmers Association (TFA) has called the policy dead wrong. “It’s a vanity project driven by the current media frenzy surrounding rewilding and we don’t think it’s based on solid science,” TFA chief executive George Dunn told Farmers Weekly. The second example, reported again in Farmers Weekly, showed how the National Trust’s flagship farm at Wimpole Hall in Cambridgeshire is showing the way to a carbon negative future for organic wheat production.

From a net-zero perspective, that sounds impressive, but in terms of land use policies, is this the most efficient and sustainable use of some of the country’s most productive arable land? Yields of the KWS Siskin milling wheat variety at Wimpole Farm were a meager 5.19 tonnes per hectare, well under half the non-organic average, and the resulting crop sold for more than £100 per tonne premium over conventional wheat. So sustainable, but only for a privileged few.

Wimpole farm. Credit: National Trust

In terms of land use, former UK “food security “champion” Professor Tim Benton has extensively researched the comparative environmental impacts of organic vs. conventional farming, concluding in a 2013 article in the Journal of Applied Ecology that “the relatively low Yields from organic farms can result in larger areas of land being brought into agricultural production (locally or elsewhere) at a cost to biodiversity far greater than the benefits of organic on-farm practice.” Since grain production per unit area in organic fields is 54% lower than in conventional fields, Professor Benton advised that organic production be concentrated on more marginal areas as a result.

This may have been an early incarnation of the three-compartment model, but it again underscores the importance of developing a coherent land-use strategy that balances competing demands for food production, biodiversity, carbon sequestration, forestry, flood management, etc., and does so based on more sound Science and evidence, not on the latest media hype or celebrity eco-fads.

David Hill is a Nuffield Scholar and a member of the Global Farmers Network.

This article is part of a GLP partnership with Science for Sustainable Agriculture (SSA), a new UK policy and communications initiative providing information, comment and debate around modern, sustainable agriculture and food production. Supported by an independent advisory group of politicians, scientists and industry leaders from diverse backgrounds, SSA provides a platform to explain the crucial role of agricultural science and technology in securing our food supply, fighting climate change and protecting the natural environment. The SSA is ready to comment on and challenge unscientific positions or policy decisions on sustainable agriculture. More information about SAS can be found here.

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