Environmental issues are rapidly being pushed up the political agenda and public concern is escalating as a result. According to a report by Opinion Leader Research (OLR) earlier this year, the public holds the government directly responsible for protecting the environment, with farmers, coming in second, as the chief custodians of the countryside.
This recognition is dampened by a distinct lack of awareness surrounding the positive activity undertaken by farmers, and the policies affecting the environmental functions they perform, the report finds. Consumers believe the environment should top the priority list for farmers, but feel that in reality this is shamelessly sidelined by those hungry purely for profits.
However, while there may have been some incidences of environmental abuse in the past, the tide has turned, says Richard Hirst, NFU horticulture board chairman. “There has historically been a belief that farmers are raping the countryside and damaging wildlife but that’s a view promoted by interested NGOs. When you actually get out into the countryside it’s a totally different story.”
As an horticultural and agricultural producer himself, Hirst says that, as on a number of farms in his vicinity, on his farm, wildlife, and birdlife in particular, is flourishing, which must be a testament to the state of the conditions in which they are working.
A rise in public awareness is essential in effecting change for the good of the whole country. However, those acting on behalf of farmers protest that media scare-mongering does little to instil confidence on either side, and prevents the public from forming a rational view of the status quo, leading to ignorant convictions and unnecessary anxiety.
Climate change is one term being bandied about almost daily, with little consensus as to the real impact or time-scale involved. Food miles is another, says LEAF (Linking Environment and Farming) commercial manager, Jeremy Boxall, and, while the public is justified in showing concern over the issue, blanket directives are not an option, he claims; it is simply not practical or even possible for everyone in the country to start dictating how far their produce travels.
“There are seven million people in London who still need to eat a healthy diet and this produce needs to be produced on field-scale commercial farms, not on small independent sites, from the main producing regions - Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire,” says Boxall. “These people have a right to buy into a better environment as well, so we have to make sure we can deliver this right across the country.”
The difference between organics and conventional farming is also a bone of contention, when it comes to consumer allegiance. Earlier this month, a government-funded report claimed organic farms sustain almost twice as many plant species as conventional farms, as well as a greater variety and number of wildlife, including 32 per cent more birds, 35 per cent more bats and 15 per cent more spiders.
This kind of publicity would probably not be welcomed by the likes of the NFU and LEAF, which seek to promote the value of the major farming sector. However, despite appreciating the benefit of organics in drawing attention to the issue of sustainable farming practices, Boxall believes there is greater potential for exacting a positive impact on the environment within non-organic farming, given the influence of agri-environment initiatives, such as LEAF. “In the UK the LEAF marque exceeds the area of organic production and there is no reason why any one of the UK producers can’t be leaf-marque accredited.”
With the LEAF marque still unknown to the vast majority of consumers and organic continuing to gain momentum, it is difficult to bring consumers around to this way of thinking, Boxall continues. “Understanding of LEAF is low and understanding of organics is low but the perception of organics is high,” he says.
However, farmers adhering to integrated management, as advocated by LEAF, have a point in their favour, when it comes to the issue which largely dominates consumer purchasing - price. While UK organic producers require a premium, LEAF marque and integrated farming, in particular, provide farmers with the opportunity to produce consumer-friendly produce at an affordable price, he says.
Hirst says farmers are distinctly feeling the pressure caused by the increasing awareness surrounding the environment, especially since the cost is largely borne by the growers and land-users rather than the general public, for whom the land is cultivated. But despite the problem of ever-diminishing returns and the nigh-on impossible task of reducing extraneous expenditure, the interest and sense of responsibility among farmers is great, he insists. “A lot of the work we do is because we love the environment we work in. There may be some people who don’t agree with that but I think the majority of farmers feel that if we abuse the environment we won’t have the right conditions for the crops we want to grow.”
According to the NFU’s recently published environment policy, Making Green Ground, proactive responses from the industry to environmental concerns are undeniably on the up. More than 90 per cent of farmers claim to be incorporating some kind of environment management as an annual part of their farming operation. And 1.1 million hectares of farmland have been entered into agri-environment agreements in England and Wales, it reports.
Hirst says the NFU is keenly promoting Defra’s Environmental Stewardship programme, to increase biodiversity, implement sufficient margins around fields to protect wildlife and water sources from contamination and increase public access to the countryside. Schemes such as the Entry-Level Stewardship programme are potentially attainable by all, he says, and should have an uptake of some 80 per cent. Yet, because of bureaucratic inaccuracies, the process has not been made as accessible as it should be.
LEAF is also seeking to bridge the gap between farmers and legislators, says Boxall. “We are trying to get a better understanding of farming with the policy makers,” he says. “Sometimes they don’t understand the practicalities. They don’t want us to import but they don’t necessarily understand some of the pressures for UK farmers. Just don’t legislate horticulture out of England, is what I say.”
Grower Robert Borrill agrees farmers are operating in a very difficult climate and need guidance in dealing with complex applications, as well as adapting to the forthcoming changes to regulations, set to impact their businesses significantly, such as water use and waste management.
To this end, the NFU has outlined its intention to improve understanding and enable compliance with these regulations. It will “work with the Environment Agency to develop a ‘waste module’ as part of a whole farm appraisal approach”, and raise awareness of water efficiency on farm by re-launching the NFU Waterwise campaign.
Meanwhile, Borrill says providing such support is one of the most important objectives of the sustainability project he has helped introduce, as chairman of the Forum for Sustainable Farms. Launched two and a half years ago, the initiative’s aim has been to deliver sustainability to all 400 of the pea growers, like Borrill and Hirst, who supply the UK’s Unilever-owned Birds Eye factory. Funded by Defra and Unilever, as well as the individual farmers, the project stemmed from Unilever’s global strategy for environmental protection. But the forum is owned and managed by its member growers, aided by a board of directors, and representatives of other industry bodies, including Forum for the Future, an agricultural sustainability initiative.
In the past couple of years, the project has designed biodiversity environmental action plans for each farm, and held workshops on waste management and environmental schemes and the process of application. Borrill says the forum has been working extremely well and is now eagerly awaiting the results of its bid for additional funding to continue its positive work, taking on the extremely prevalent issue of energy consumption, as an additional workshop focus. “We have been very successful and had very good recognition from the pea growers and given them the tonic they needed at this difficult time. But we are reliant on funding to be able to carry the project out as we would like next year.”
Such measures obviously incur a significant cost outlay for farmers. But, while it can be hard to encourage some farmers to see beyond the initial expense to the long-term benefits of implementing a whole new way of farming, Boxall says LEAF has been getting some increasingly positive feedback. One pair of farmers recently approached him to express their delight with the changes they had made to their farm to achieve LEAF accreditation. Not only were they now revelling in the environmental benefits of conserving water, but they had saved a significant amount of money in the process.
The NFU advocates rather than implementing untargeted blanket measures, growers should be rewarded for good practice - a view shared by 74 per cent of the public questioned by the OLR, who said farmers should be paid in accordance with their conservational activity. Hirst agrees this is a credible approach, suggesting the adoption of agri-environment schemes would achieve this aim. And with the NFU pledging its commitment to ensuring that “60 per cent of farmland is entered into (such an) agreement by the end of 2007,” rewards for success could become far more widespread.
Boxall concurs that voluntary initiatives are preferable to enforced regulations and claims LEAF’s 2,000 members are already demonstrating compliance without the need for further bureaucracy. “It takes a certain level of commitment to achieve integrated farming,” he says. “It’s a commitment to improving the environment, creating habitats, the selection of pesticides that are less harmful - all the processes that will lead to a better integrated management of the farm, and we probably go further into it by looking at energy conservation.”
However, financial reward is naturally an incentive and profitability is an important part of the LEAF marque, says Boxall. “It is better to put a carrot in front of them, along the lines of: “you will gain a premium or secure your market or engage consumers”. Most farmers would invest in the environment if they produced consistently reasonable profits.”
Boxall says there is no denying that integrated farming and LEAF offer the consumer a chance to buy into the procurement of the better environment they seek. The onus now, therefore, is on farmers to make the public sufficiently aware of what they are offering.
Since the marque encompasses an entire approach to farming, it can be difficult to measure a farm’s compliance on any formal scale but Boxall says it should rather be judged as a holistic process, which is best experienced first-hand. “Seeing is believing,” he says. “When you get people onto the farms and show them what farmers are doing to protect the environment they are amazed and want to know where they can buy produce grown to this standard.”
At present, LEAF-marqued produce is only carried by Waitrose but the organisation is now working with the organic retailer, Fresh and Wild, part of the US-based Whole Foods Market chain, and, according to Boxall, this partnership is set to expand following Whole Foods’ forthcoming supermarket launch in the UK.
LEAF now attracts 20,000 visitors a year to its many demonstration farms and the public response has been unequivocally positive, Boxall claims. In addition the organisation has introduced ‘Speak Out’, an initiative to help farmers communicate their environment-friendly practices in a public address, and ‘All on Board’, a series of explanatory guides to agriculture and horticulture, to be placed on public notice-boards on rural footpaths across the country.
Several UK horticultural businesses have merited attention for unique endeavours to promote environmental responsibility. Vitacress Salads Ltd, winner of the Worshipful Company of Fruiterers Environmental Achievement Awards 2004, has taken steps to encourage bumblebees to inhabit its UK farms. In a bid to reverse the contribution of agricultural practices to the decline of the species, last year Vitacress planted 760 square metres of wild flowers around its reservoirs and in beds adjacent to its salad crops, on which they are known to thrive. And, according to company entomologist Ben Emmett, numbers of bumblebees are steadily rising.
However, it is not just the primary producers who need to address their impact on the environment. Consumers have equally expressed concern over the issue of retailers’ responsibility, as have NGOs such as Friends of the Earth (FOE).
According to a report by FOE earlier this year, Tesco is particularly culpable, having not fulfilled its fundamental objectives. It failed to achieve its target of cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 4.2 per cent in 2004, made no overall reduction in the level of pesticide residues in its food between 1998 and 2002 and has some of the most energy-inefficient buildings in the retail sector.
Yet, the market-leading multiple has demonstrated its commitment, along with nine other retailers, to minimising waste by curbing consumers’ disposal of excess packaging and food. Last month 13 retailers pledged their allegiance to WRAP’s (the Waste and Resources Action Programme) objective to deliver absolute reductions in packaging waste by March 2010 and to identify ways to tackle the problem of food waste. As part of this agreement, known as the Courtauld Commitment, each retailer will develop individual programmes in association with WRAP, and several are already involved in relevant projects funded by an £8m allowance dedicated by the programme.
So, is this the first step on the road to a brighter, greener future? For several years now, all the major retailers have listed environmental issues towards the top-end of their corporate policies. However, words and actions do not always correlate and as these issues continue to gain importance in the minds of consumers, it will likely be beholden on retailers, as much as producers, to make sure they can compete on global sustainability, as well as more immediate concerns such as availability and price.
IMA SHOWS THE WAY
The environment and our impact on it, is now coming under the highest scrutiny in all aspects of life and refrigeration is certainly no exception, says John Dye, managing director of IMA Cooling Systems Ltd. “One of the highest users of energy in any food factory or storage facility will be refrigeration and it is therefore vital that new systems are designed to consider the impact they will have on the environment.
“This should not deter end users, who may feel that such consideration will mean greater cost to their businesses,” Dye continues. “A carefully designed system will have minimum impact on the environment and pay for itself in the form of reduced energy bills and lower general servicing costs.”
IMA offers manufactures and supplies solutions for a whole range of cooling operations.
Following the government’s incentive of enhanced capital allowances (ECA) where energy saving devices are used, the industry is rapidly responding to the need to adapt their systems. “Eighty per cent of the systems we have installed over the past two years have been fitted with Danfoss Adapkool controllers,” Dye says. “These provide the control of electronic expansion valves and also provide intelligent defrost and temperature control. The Danfoss Adapkool systems provide energy savings of up to 25 per cent and enhance evaporator performance.”
No comments yet