Farming often gets a bad press, but the reality is that modern agriculture has benefited society by delivering huge efficiency gains in food production in recent decades. Looking forward, a continued focus on technological innovation and resource use efficiency will secure a win-win-win for low carbon farming, more food and higher farm incomes. Farming has a great story to tell and a bright future – it’s time to celebrate this as we look to farmers to feed 10bn of us by 2080, writes agricultural economist Professor Paul Wilson.

 

Ask a food consumer of their view of a farmer and they will possibly envisage an old man leaning on a five-bar gate, or someone running a mega-sized intensive unit polluting the environment just for fun.

 

Farming sometimes gets a bad press. It uses 40% of all land, 70% of fresh water and generates 30% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. But it also feeds 8.2bn people, and employs 27% of the world’s workforce.

 

What’s more impressive is that since 1960, the land required to feed one person for a year has fallen from 1.4ha to 0.6ha. Globally, we are supplying more calories per day than we have ever done. These are impressive credentials. But how have we got here and where are we heading?

 

While in total we now use more land, resources and water, we are feeding vastly more people than we were in 1960 – indeed the global population has almost tripled.

 

This a major achievement. It benefits society and has come from research and development delivering large technological advances – and from farmers delivering huge efficiency gains in food production.

 

Productivity

One way these advances are measured is through Total Factor Productivity (TFP) – how well we use resources to produce output. The global numbers are impressive.

 

One driver has been replacing people (labour) with machinery and technology (capital). In the UK, since 1975, labour productivity has increased by 150%. Tractors, sprayers, cultivators, combines have all increased in capacity and capability, so fewer people are producing much more food.

 

I challenge any UK farmer to commercially produce broad-acre arable crops now using a horse and one-furrow plough. Globally, agricultural TFP growth has seen countries develop economically and, importantly, enjoy greater living standards.

 

In recent decades, some have derided the UK’s relatively poor agricultural productivity growth. But the broad data hide as much as they reveal. Recent analysis from Defra looked at TFP growth across different farm types.

 

Unsurprisingly, TFP growth in cereals, general cropping and dairying has been impressive – sectors where mechanisation has advanced, data and advice inform decisions and resource use efficiency is king.

 

The UK uses considerably less fertiliser per ha than 30 years ago and produces more crop output. The amount of other inputs has also fallen in recent years when measured on a per tonne of food produced basis.

 

Farming has delivered all this and more amid changing policies and regulation – and in a world market subject to international policies and climate variability.

 

In England there are a raft of food policies, environmental requirements, frameworks, societal pressures (impact of diet on human health) and supply chains seeking to achieve Net Zero targets.

 

Here again, policies intervene. Coming soon is the UK Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) tax on fertiliser inputs.

 

This well-intentioned Net Zero policy is, however, missing the point. This will reduce the UK’s comparative advantage in crop production and increase commodity and food imports – without even knowing the carbon footprint of these imports.

 

One solution is an Agricultural Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (Ag-CBAM) to level the playing field and account for the carbon in imports of wheat, barley and many other products.

 

More crucially, an Ag-CBAM is needed to support global Net Zero ambitions. It will incentivise production in the most carbon efficient parts of the world.

 

It is only a matter of time until international climate agreements are adapted to account for the carbon consequence of consumption rather than the flawed focus on territorial, or production based, carbon accounting.

 

Thinking back to farm level, some farmers are understandably concerned about the raft of drivers, legislation and actions needed to reduce carbon footprints.

 

Yet if policy makers can deliver a level trade and carbon playing field, then the drive for lower carbon footprints offers opportunities for increased farm profitability.

 

Agricultural advances

Many practices that seek to reduce carbon footprints will ultimately deliver greater resource use efficiency – precision farming is key to this – both in crop input application and in terms of data interpretation and technical understanding.

 

Rather than fear the low carbon future we should use this as an opportunity to achieve even greater resource use efficiency and drive down costs.

 

This brings us back to agricultural advances. A focus on technological change and resource use efficiency will deliver low carbon farming (win), more food (win) and higher farm incomes (win).

 

A modern farmer is business orientated, technically skilled, cares for the soil and environment, controls costs, is specialised, knowledgeable and professional, and also forward thinking.

 

This may not be the image in most consumers’ minds, but it is the reality and is one UK farmers should be proud of.

 

Farming gets a bad press but has a great story to tell and a bright future – it’s time we focus on this as we look to farmers to feed 10bn of us by 2080.

 

Paul Wilson is Professor of Agricultural Economics and Director of the Centre for Food Policy and Foresight at Nottingham University. He is also President of the Agricultural Economics Society.

 

A version of this article was first published by the Association of Independent Crop Consultants (AICC) in The Independent Agronomist and is re-produced here with permission. AICC is the largest group of independent crop consultants in Europe, representing 50% of the UK arable advice market.