NORTH East farmers representing all sectors have thrown their weight behind a new NFU campaign calling for the Government to walk the walk and increase national investment in the long term future of food production.
The campaign, Why Science Matters to Farming, has been launched at the House of Commons, and aims to highlight the importance of agricultural research in the context of the challenges now facing food producers.
These challenges were summed up by the
government itself in a recent discussion paper 'UK food security in a changing world'.
In this document Defra states that 'farming will need the capacity to respond to changes, including climate and market changes. These changes will mean using different crops and varieties and building capacity to deal with evolving risks and threats including volatile prices, adverse weather and pests and disease'.
Despite this, figures show that while government funding for science in general has doubled over the last decade, investment in agricultural research and development fell by 45percent in just 12 years (1986 to 1998).
As a result, researchers working in the field of agricultural research have been left with second hand facilities, and the institutes hardest hit are those of most relevance and importance to the productivity and environmental performance of farming.
This, says Graham Ward, chairman of the regional horticulture and potatoes board, illustrates a fundamental flaw in our national policies.
"You only have to see glasshouses full of natural predators, chrysanthemums flowering all year round or potato crops surviving even the wettest of summers to see how important scientific innovation is to our regional growers," he said.
"If we are to meet the expectation of the British public and provide a wealth of nutritious, delicious home-grown food, while continuing to reduce our environmental impact we must develop new science-based solutions and this is something the industry cannot do alone.
"Applied science and knowledge transfer must be properly funded by the government if we are to see technological advancements disseminated throughout the industry to farmers at the grassroots level. Unless this happens there is a real risk that the UK will be left further behind other nations already investing in the future of food."
