Thursday, 24 2008

A plank short.

If you want evidence that the Government isn't thinking, you may need to look no further than your nearest forestry commission wood.

Close to us, recently felled forestry is being left to regenerate naturally. This master stroke of management will provide decades of unproductive scrub at a time when the world needs timber fast. Not utilising forestry here (for environmental reasons) simply reduces timber supply increasing the price and the risk that yet more virgin rain forest is felled to satisfy demand. Crazy or what?

Steady on!

Any thought that the arable sector was in for a bumper period is receding fast as input costs soar. In less than a year fuel and fertiliser costs have doubled and now as the area sown to wheat grows, so the futures have fallen. Making money in agriculture is always a lot harder than it first looks.

Wednesday, 23 2008

The importance of agriculture

After a decade of trying to rid UK agriculture of its productive ability, the government has finally woken up to its importance.

Worldwide, the rising cost of food is pushing millions into absolute poverty while at home the cost of the family shopping basket has soared.

"something must be done"

Unfortunately the rush to condemn biofuels is missing the point as yesterday's rise in the price of crude illustrates. Reserves of fossil fuels are declining fast and their use is contributing to global warming. Some when soon we are going to have to learn how better to harvest today's sunlight for our energy needs. Besides which, in the UK we hardly have a biofuels industry anyway. With the exception of British Sugar's bioethanol plant (a great use of sugar beet), UK manufactured biofuel is thin on the ground.

Sadly government thinking on agriculture continues to run decades out of date. In the 1980s we needed an environmental policy. In the 1990s we needed a biofuels policy. Right now we need a production policy - one that helps maximise the effectiveness of our land for food, energy and conservation. No sign of that however as the government continues to strangle the industry with red tape and reduce investment.

Given the long term trends of climate change, rising population, rising wealth, changing patterns of consumption and the need for biofuels, agriculture now needs to come centre stage in government thinking – critically we need a renewal in the importance of science. Out must go the tired anti-agriculture prejudice; lets make a start by investing in:

production efficiency
second generation biofuels
wastes for fertiliser
genetic modification
diffused CHP

and our universities. Agriculture will play a huge role in world affairs over the coming decades. Let's hope UK agriculture is part of it.