The House of Commons’ second report on food security is wide ranging and recommends a series of actions for the UK Government.
Among the requirements are a more proactive approach to informing the public about the benefits of GM crops, allied to a programme to counter food safety fears in that area, and greater flexibility for EU member states who wish to take advantage of GM technology.
The report points out that food security is about more than self-sufficiency. It is about extending seasonal production; ensuring a more joined-up approach in the EU; affording greater access to farmers to long-term weather forecasts as the first line of defence; and reducing carbon emissions from more intensive beef, sheep and dairy farming systems.
In addition there is a strong plea for greater funding to research generally, and particularly on maintaining and improving soil.
By any account the report is a good read. It is not all new material, and does not offer major surprises. Indeed, it joins a suite of detailed findings that have rightly drawn attention to food waste, GM crops and carbon emissions relating to farming.
In particular the report has singled out the need for more work to be done on sourcing animal feed from within the EU. This highlights the promotion of legumes, which ensure greater output per hectare, and a more effective mechanism to monitor the demand for soya and animal feeds at a global level.
One of the core observations in the report is: “While the UK may be food-secure at present, it would be unwise to allow a situation to arise in which we were almost entirely dependent on food imports, given future challenges to food production arising from climate change and changing global demands.”
One of the core thrusts of the report is the call for more targeted and properly funded research.
This has been quickly taken up by the Scottish Food Security Alliance-Crops (SFSAC), a partnership between the universities of Aberdeen and Dundee and the James Hutton Institute (JHI).
Not only have the three institutes welcomed the report, but they have offered some Scottish solutions to the vexed problem of food security.
In effect they have launched a sales pitch based on the Scottish identity, and underlining the national capacity to make a reasoned and thoughtful contribution to the debate on food security.
The point is made effectively that the UK food supply chain is intimately linked with the global food security crisis.
More telling is the contention that dealing with food security cannot be left to past ways.
There must be changes to technology and farming practices and, reflecting a House of Lords report in April, food waste has to be reduced as part of a strategic drive to tackle the challenges of food security.
This fundamental point is central to the whole debate, and it is something that society can influence from the grass roots which must be accompanied by a positive and determined commitment not only from the Scottish and UK governments but from the supermarkets with their passion for promoting offers which do little to encourage waste reduction.
Professor Iain Gordon, chief executive of the JHI, believes that Scotland is “well placed “to help meet food security challenges with quality food products and continued Scottish Government investment in agricultural science.
Scottish research institutes have also played a key part in knowledge transfer to the farming industry.
While this is true there is the key issue of GM crops to which the Scottish Government is wholly opposed, and yet there is a growing public demand for a new debate on what is seen as a key factor in dealing with food security.
Scottish research institutes will have to give thought to this thorny issue.
And they will have to give consideration to short-term policy and the longer strategic demand of dealing with food security. The call for a shift in cropping patterns and the need for more land has to be balanced against the CAP’s focus on setting aside 5% of land as Environmental Focus Areas (EFAs).
The House of Commons report is timely, not least in its recognition of threats posed by extreme weather and giving farmers the chance to have better access to more precise forecasting.
This and other aspects of the report underline graphically the scale and depth of relevant issues connected to food security.
There is a clear opportunity for Scottish research institutes to play a significant role in tackling one of the most pressing and far-reaching issues facing food and its production.