Highlighting concern over the lack of focus on increasing food production and securing the nation’s food needs in a global market that is weather, conflict and now tariff challenged, mixed farmer Paul Temple urges incoming AHDB chair Emily Norton to underpin her new strategy for the organisation with an ambition to help UK farmers produce more from less. But with Graham Wilkinson stepping down as AHDB chief executive, Ms Norton’s prominence in recent years as cheerleader-in-chief for a transition to regenerative agriculture makes him nervous for the organisation’s future direction. He suggests the industry will be watching closely for the appointment of a new AHDB chief executive, and looking for someone with the ambition to drive farm-level performance to match the market challenge, and capable of honestly holding an increasingly unsubsidised UK agriculture to the productivity of our global competition.

      

I never cease to be amazed at the continuing lack of focus, or of apparent concern, regarding the nation’s short-term food requirements. It is scarcely a year since drought and wildfires in southern Europe caused shortages of some food items in supermarkets here. More recently, even cyber-attacks have led to empty shelves at the Co-op and M&S.

 

I dread to think what the impact of this year’s driest spring for more than 100 years will have on final crop yields. Some estimates have suggested that each day without rain knocks 100,000 tonnes off domestic cereal production.

            

And after reading that Japan has just released Government-held rice stocks to calm market jitters in the face of a shortage of supplies and rising prices, I’m reminded of past French colleagues who pointed out that we may come to see managed markets as not such a bad thing.

 

The planet today is much hungrier, more populous, and warmer than 40 years ago when European milk lakes, butter mountains and stockpiles of grain led to the introduction of production-limiting farm policies such as set-aside and environmental cross-compliance.

 

Of course, the UK Government may have just done something very similar to the Japanese on domestic wheat markets with its recent US trade deal. Allowing greater access to American bioethanol supplies could lead to the mothballing or closure of UK bioenergy plants, placing hundreds of valuable northern jobs at risk, disrupting valuable local markets for wheat and co-product protein feed. 

 

Unlike the situation in Japan, however, we must face up to the fact that our domestic farm policies are not sufficiently focused on increasing food production and securing the nation’s food needs in a global market that is weather, conflict and now tariff challenged.

 

Despite Defra ministers’ repeated insistence that ‘food security is national security’, we are still using the public purse to reward farmers for taking land out of production, for growing food for birds rather than humans, and for adopting lower yielding practices. For some unknown reason net migration of over 700,000 in a year is never viewed with food consequence. Even more ironic is the demonstratable fact there is growing demand for food banks and nutritional risk while at the same time we are producing less.  

 

And we are still allowing taxpayers’ money to be spent on encouraging the conversion of highly productive farmland to organic farming to service the wealthier end of society. These policies not only reduce overall food supplies, but also prioritise the production of higher-priced food which many people cannot afford.

 

At a time of heightened concern over food poverty, and when Food Standards Agency research suggests that one in four UK households consider themselves to be ‘food insecure’, it is nothing short of scandalous that this should be happening under a Labour Government.

 

Which brings me to the AHDB.

 

The departure of Graham Wilkinson as AHDB chief executive and the confirmation by Defra ministers of Emily Norton as incoming chair makes me extremely nervous about the future direction of AHDB as an organisation. Indeed, about its future survival.

 

For a simple and glaringly obvious fact is that the AHDB is a levy-funded organisation. Its annual income depends on the tonnes (or litres) of crops, meat and milk produced each year. Having served for many years on the AHDB, I am acutely aware that in some years, the organisation has struggled on the back of low production years. 

            

The AHDB has for some time lost its way, using levies to subsidise work for niche practices and markets is not its purpose. Levy payers in the cropping sector have a very simple need: turn around the yield decline, and help find solutions to problems like cabbage stem flea beetle using new technologies. 

 

Emily Norton has, in recent years, carved out a position as cheerleader-in-chief for a national transition to regenerative agriculture. This is fine provided it embraces the science and particularly the genetics that will help us get there.

 

She currently serves on the board of Soil Association Exchange which, with the support of Lloyds Banking Group, is encouraging farmers to embrace lower yielding regenerative practices on the assumption that the reduced income from food production will be more than compensated by the anticipated market premium for regen ag, as well as new income streams such as carbon credits, biodiversity net gain and, wait for it, optimised options under the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI).

 

Writing in October 2024, former NFU chief economist Dr Derrick Wilkinson described Lloyds Banking Group’s support for the Soil Association Exchange programme as ‘surprising and worrying’ in view of the initiative’s lack of focus on food production. He said it was ‘rather reckless’ for Lloyds Banking Group to be encouraging its farming customers down a path of unknown and unchartered territory, which would result in much lower yields yet with no guarantee of financial reward.

 

I agree.

 

As Dr Wilkinson points out, much of the optimism behind the prospects for a transition to regenerative agriculture appears to be based on a number of ‘bold’ assumptions contained in a June 2023 research brief by Savills (where Emily Norton was previously head of rural research).

 

This is how Dr Wilkinson summarised the Savills research:

 

“Net margins for regenerative agriculture are assumed to be 41% lower in year one of the transition, primarily due to 31% lower yields, However, after six years of soil fertility and soil organic content building - despite still yielding 24% lower than conventional – the profitability of regenerative agriculture is forecast to be higher based on three key assumptions:

 

• regeneratively farmed products will attract a 16% price premium;

• SFI payments will remain unchanged;

• carbon payments equivalent to £38/ha will be available.

 

When each of these three assumptions takes us into the realms of unknown and unchartered territory, to me it seems rather reckless for Lloyds Banking Group, which also includes the Agricultural Mortgage Corporation and Bank of Scotland, to be encouraging its farming customers down that path.”

 

Since Dr Wilkinson penned the article, of course, one of the three ‘bold’ assumptions has already been thrown into the air with the sudden closure of the SFI scheme to new applications when it ran out of money.

 

Dr Wilkinson continued:

 

“Surely a major lender in the agricultural sector would instinctively want farmers to be more efficient and innovative, embracing new technology, and above all producing stuff they can sell, rather than backing an agroecology-led agenda, and banking on the bitcoin-style promise of future carbon markets, or on successive future UK governments’ willingness to use public money to support farmers (and landowners), potentially at the expense of health, education, social care etc?”

 

Again, I could not agree more.

 

On her appointment as chair of AHDB, Emily Norton described her mission as “strengthening the resilience, sustainability and prosperity of the UK’s food and farming sectors.”

 

No mention of productivity which post-Brexit is the blindingly obvious key to UK agriculture's success.  

 

When AHDB returns have already been dented severely by the loss of its potatoes and horticulture sectors (and associated redundancy/pension liabilities), does a more secure future for the organisation really lie in a transition to farming systems which research shows could reduce AHDB’s future income prospects by a further 24%, or will it simply run the risk of the cereal and oilseed sector triggering a vote?

 

The term 'sustainable intensification' is as relevant now as when it was first termed and I would encourage the new chairman to underpin her new strategy with that ambition.

 

The industry will be watching closely for the appointment of a new AHDB chief executive to succeed Graham Wilkinson, and looking for someone with the ambition to drive farm-level performance to match the market challenge, and capable of honestly holding an increasingly unsubsidised UK agriculture to the productivity of our global competition.

 

Paul Temple manages a mixed arable and livestock farm on the East Yorkshire Wolds, producing cereals for seed, oilseed rape, vegetables and beef. He is a past vice-president of the National Farmers Union, former chairman of the Copa Cogeca Cereals, Oilseeds and Protein Group, and founder of the European Biotech Forum. He is a former member of the AHDB Board, and chaired the AHDB Cereals & Oilseeds sector board for seven years from 2015. Paul is also a board member of the Global Farmer Network, which brings together strong farming leaders from around the world to amplify the farmers’ voice in promoting trade, technology, sustainable farming, economic growth, and food security.