Farming Matters!
Farming Our Future
W(h)ither Farming?
Dr. John Wibberley
We have to have a vision. We need to trade but we need to eat locally. We need to remember September 14th 2000; no petrol - no food!!
Old MacDonald (who had a farm)has been turned into New McDonald (with his burgers) and all the food miles etc. involved.The average supermarket product travels 3,000 miles. Britain has the smallest farming community in the world and it is getting less.
We need to be aware of the huge wealth gap between the richest and the poorest countries. World prices are the driving force. There should be a right concern for the poor, but not at the cost of losing farmers and the dismantling of our culture with all its social and environmental impact.
Farmers feel taken for granted. We need to remember that the landscape is not there naturally but managed - by generations of farmers.
'Commoditised' food carries huge risks, not least that it divorces the consumer from the producer.
Agricultural
Policy
- a personal
view
Land and
community
- developing
links
The WTO pushes for 'least cost' production so that (worldwide) farmers are selling at a loss and sales abroad put other farmers out of business and welfare etc. goes 'out the window'. The central issue is for total 'free trade' but 'grab markets' lead to farming/rural decay.
Farmers' Marketing
- opportunities
Food miles - freight miles are wasteful and vulnerable. Land links and food culture decline.
Enterprise injustice - hard work should be rewarded by being able to sell the product at a fair price.
Farming is everyone's business! - FMD has shown urban support for farmers. In Germany there are posters saying 'Power to the Farmers' and 'What sort of farming do we want?'
GMOs - Are they safe to consume? What kind of irrecoverable escapes into the environment are we making? Those who will adopt technology are always the larger farmers. Who will control it? There is too much power in the hands of the TNCs (transnational corporations) already!
Personal
stories
Sustainable agriculture and development.
Vision for:- Conserved, bio-diverse landscapes. Commonwealth rural economy which is multi-functional. Relational (rural) communities - stop fragmentation. Integrated rural development - farming; small scale rural businesses; local wares; help with grants, a 'one stop shop'.
We have to resolve the conflict between the town and the country. We have to rest in God and be alert to what is happening. We need farming organizations such as Devon 'F.A.R.M.S.; FCN; RSIN etc.
on this topic
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THE FUTURE OF FARMING - WHERE ARE WE GOING?
Dr. John Wibberley
Prof. John Wibberley PhD, FRAGS is an agriculturalist engaged in rural development in the UK and also overseas especially in Africa through RURCON (an otherwise all-African team of Christian leaders) and he is Chairman of the UK Farm Crisis Network (FCN). He is Chairman of the Isle of Wight Rural Issues Group & serves the Diocese of Portsmouth as Christian Stewardship Adviser for the Isle of Wight.
WHERE ARE WE & WHAT ARE THE TRENDS?
The present position is as follows: -
- 1. We are losing many farmers for various reasons, and many more are set to go, worldwide
- 2. There is a huge differential between farm incomes in richest and poorest countries
- 3. Farmer numbers go up in developing countries, though their % of population and 'voice' is decreasing.
- 4. World prices for farm products will kill off Agriculture in the UK and elsewhere.
- 5. Real costs far exceed ex-farm food prices; these include environmental and social costs.
- 6. There is growing ignorance that farmers have delivered our landscapes & countryside care.
- 7. Food is increasingly commoditised, controlled by processors and sold far away.
Agricultural
Policy
- a personal
view
Land and
community
- developing
links
Above all, the WTO (World Trade Organisation) central policy of non-discrimination against imports is leading inevitably to:-
- 1. Least-cost production
- 2. 'Grab markets' behaviour [no matter how distant nor who's there already]
- 3. Destruction of farming and rural communities worldwide
- 4. Air pollution from 'freight miles' - [greater oil dependence is getting riskier too ...]
- 5. Decreasing energy-efficiency of food systems; increasing political vulnerability
- 6. Loss of 'food cultures' and community identity with land 7. Loss of equitable free enterprise (Loss of equitable free enterprise anywhere- threatens true free enterprise everywhere).
Farmers' Marketing
- opportunities
On top of these trends, we stand at the brink of a surge in the 'genetically-modified organisms, (GM0s) revolution unless public awareness and prayers are mobilised against all but a compassionate and controlled application of such technology. [A simple 'yes or no 'to GM0s cannot be simplistically given; modifying sheep's milk to secrete a treatment for cystic fibrosis, or microbes to secrete insulin offer challenges to a simple 'no' vote!] While it must be appreciated that 'genetic-modification' covers a range of techniques and levels of intervention, it is generally of a different order by contrast with previous breeding technology. There are four main issues to consider in relation to GMOs:-
- 1. Is it safe to consume GM products'?
- 2. What effects may arise in the environment from release of unrecoverable genetic material?
- 3. What effects on the structure of fanning may arise? - larger businesses would take it up ...
- 4. Who would control it? This is the big issue; TNCs (Trans National Corporations) are the major biotechnology companies - often integrated with agrochemical input supplying too.
WHERE SHOULD WE OR WHERE COULD WE BE GOING?
The heritage for our grandchildren is the 'catch-all' definition of 'sustainability'. We are not living sustainably now but clearly ought to be striving to do so. [ See, e.g. Island State - an ecological footprint of the Isle of Wight (2000) Best Foot Forward, Oxford, 54 Pp.]
A. Sustainable agriculture demands simultaneous pursuit of the following essentials:-
1) Economy [NB 'Eco' derives from oikos = 'home', a place of long-term inter-relationships, not quick profits only.] 2) Ecology 3)Equity 4) Energy-efficiency 5) Employment 6) Ethics
Sustainable development is encouraged by the following promoters:-
- a) Effort-effectiveness: due reward for effort
- b) Enjoyment: in dynamic activity
- c) Enthusiasm: for worthwhile engagement
- d) Expectancy: hope of outcome
- e) Enterprise: legitimate innovation encouraged
- f) Education/Extension: on best practice.
B. Policy should foster a UK Rural Vision with simultaneous encouragement of:-
- 1) conserved biodiverse (species-rich) landscapes - [already done by best farmers]
- 2) 'commonwealth' integrated economics - maximizing local interdependence
- 3) networks of relational communities i.e. where good relationships are strengthened
- 4) Integrated Rural Development (IRD) programmes/Centres to pursue the above three.
C. Policy should encourage Farmers to:-
- 1. Get Together - to study, to share, to buy, to sell, to lobby, to think ahead
- 2. Join FARMS Groups = Farm Asset Resource Management Study Groups (+ FCN)
- 3. Form Farmer-Controlled Businesses (FCBs) to combat big business power
- 4. Support Farmers' Markets to rebuild communities, cut out middlemen, save energy
- 5. Add value to ex-farm raw products, move further down Food Chain, sell locally
- 6. Pursue agro-ecotourism for greater public access and countryside awareness
- 7. Explore Community Service agriculture & shall box schemes as in Japan, USA, EU
- 8. Accept agri-environment (land-care) payments and provide some more public access
- 9. Convert to Organic and more environmentally-friendly farming systems
- 10. Part-time farm (mix other income sources with traditional food production)
- 11. Explore all survival options, with advice to facilitate them doing so
- 12. Leave farming where inevitable by providing an 'outgoers package' deal.
Agricultural
Policy
- a personal
view
Land and
community
- developing
links
Conserving farmers is a key issue; they already perform multiple functions. [Wibberley (1992) Farmer Conservation. Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England 153,54-66.] Integration is needed; farm/food system can simultaneously yield many benefits sustainably. [The South West Forest is an example; see Thomas & Wibberley (200 1) integrated Rural Development : Agriculture & Rural Development Forestry. Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England 162.] Local relationships between producer and consumer do matter - and save transport costs. [See Hines (2000) Localization: a global manifesto. (Earthscan, London, 290 pp.)] There needs to be a re-valuation of natural 'services' and products (including food).
Farmers' Marketing
- opportunities
Two things are currently crucial in the pursuit of sustainable livelihoods:-
- a) Achieving a fairer world - such as attempted by 'Jubilee 2000' to cancel debts for poorer nations - to achieve food security everywhere (currently, some 800 million people go to bed hungry each night).
- b) Harnessing true free enterprise - to produce as well as to consume - for the maximum number of farmers which paradoxically can only be attained within responsible resource management limits and with minimal bureaucracy.
If so-called 'free trade' is carried out to world prices, UK and other richer country farmers will disappear; some say “so what?" - the poorest countries could provide food (commodified, GM via TNCs, no doubt) much more cheaply than for example the UK; The UK can become a park/wilderness, they say. Alternatively, this could be allowed to happen within countries 'with for example East Anglia chasing yet higher wheat yields by highest tech means (with accompanying food safety risks) while the Isle of Wight, Anglesey, Cotswolds, South-West peninsula are all allowed to go wild or become parkland. Such disintegration seems wholly undesirable. Economics is classically said to be about 'maximizing satisfaction'; it ought to be seen as about 'maximizing virtue'. We can harness economics holistically and imaginatively to deliver common sense and a heritage for our grandchildren. To do so, it seems we must all re-value food and farmland to secure safe, welfare-friendly farm outputs.
Prayer.- is needed for agriculture and farm families everywhere (2 Chronicles 7:14; John 1 0: 1 0).
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