John Shropshire urges UK not to ‘offshore carbon footprint’ in forthright CFDL speech

G’s chairman John Shropshire didn’t pull any punches during his keynote speech at the 24th City Food & Drink Lecture on 11 March.

The experienced salads and vegetable supplier argued that the government cannot afford to prioritise green targets and offshore production at the expense of food security and domestic supply.

“The government is clear that ‘UK food security is national security’, yet there is still no clear plan to ensure that security,” he said.

“As a nation, how can we reconcile the push to farm for wildlife conservation, taking land away from food production, whilst at the same time increasing the proportion of crops imported from beyond our borders?”

He took aim at the Climate Change Committee’s plan to rewet 56 per cent of the Fens, where G’s grows lots of its crops, including lettuce, celery, beetroot and radish.

This would lead to the abandonment of 150,000 acres of “prime agricultural land” and could prove “devastating for UK food security and the economy”, according to Shropshire.

Shropshire said allowing the Fens to flood and failing to invest in sea defences is a “completely unacceptable scenario” and should never have become a “preferred policy” of the previous government.

He also urged government to “get building again” and reform the “bonkers planning regulations that totally stymie investment in the Fens”.

“It’s a national embarrassment that we can’t find political solutions to developing the Fens to a high environmental standard, with new developments providing direct financial contribution to local infrastructure and flood defences.

 “As farmers, it’s essential that we engage in these debates, to help break down misunderstandings, challenge misinformation, and avoid overly simplistic solutions.”

According to Shropshire, there are global examples of sustainable development areas in Fenland situations that combine biodiversity, farming, industrial and residential property. And the recently announced Land Use Framework is a great opportunity to find a similar solution.

Climate change is a great threat but also a big opportunity for British farmers to produce more in our temperate climate, he pointed out. To do so sustainably, the food and farming industries must invest “relentlessly” in the future – “in soils, tech, and, most of all, people”.

Shropshire set out to provoke debate about the “exaggerations and spin that we encounter discussing the future of food and farming” and discussed the need for an “industry vision”.

The G’s chairman stressed that for decades UK farmers have been working to protect wildlife habitats and argued that the public discussion about farming and environmentalism “has lost all sense of perspective”

He lamented that we now live in a world where “the doom mongers and risk analysts are in charge” and said that needs to change.

One thing that allows G’s to take greater risks with its innovation and technological developments, according to Shropshire, is the Fruit and Vegetables Aid Scheme, which offers grants to producer organisations. However, this is set to end at the end of 2025 and, as yet, no replacement has been announced.

The most important investment for a fresh produce supplier to get right, according to the G’s chairman, is in its people. And Shropshire stressed the need to empower staff through a devolved structure that gives them a sense of ownership, while allowing them to take decisions directly.

When it comes to seasonal workers, Shropshire blamed successive home secretaries for politicising the issue and failing to appreciate the huge economic contribution they make to the UK.

The direct tax take from seasonal workers is over £300 million a year, plus hundreds of millions of wider benefit to the economy, and over £4 billion to the balance of payments.

Shropshire emphasised that the government’s belief that growers can automate their way out of the need for seasonal workers is “misguided” despite some notable successes in automation.

He also said it was essential to help end the “scourge” of modern slavery and exploitation in the food industry through organisations such as the Modern Slavery Intelligence Network, which shares intelligence across the sector.

However, Shropshire stressed that “the vast majority of seasonal workers have a life-changing, positive experience.”

Panel debate

Following his lecture, the G’s chairman was joined for an interactive Q&A chaired by Charlotte Smith (presenter of BBC One’s Countryfile and BBC Radio 4’s Farming Today), Henry Dimbleby (Leon co-founder and author of the National Food Strategy), Jack Bobo (executive director of the Rothman Family Institute for Food Studies at UCLA), and Katie Pettifer (CEO of the Food Standards Agency).

Here are some of the key takeaways from their wide-ranging discussion:

• The Land Use Framework is the single most important thing happening in farming policy at the moment. It is potentially a groundbreaking piece of work for deciding how the UK supports jobs, nature restoration and food production.
• Land use in the UK is being approached with a strategic planning mindset, but the future we expect is not the best possible future. Policymakers should ask ‘what’s the future we want and how do we get there?’
• According to Dimbleby, the UK is in quite a good position on food security – particularly when compared to some other countries such as Egypt. Rather than just shoring up domestic supply, the UK should also have ambitions to make the most of climate change and become a bigger exporter of fresh produce.
• It is important to derisk supply by sourcing from a range of countries as the world becomes more volatile.
• We need to make food and agriculture sexy. It should be a sector that people are competing to join rather than the other way around.
• Food should not be marketed as medicine but rather framed more positively. We should view food as an essential part of preventing health problems rather than treating them.