It is now confirmed, 2023 was the warmest year on record with average global temperatures around 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. In the past few years we have seen extremes of weather which are directly impacting on crop productivity. This winter has seen widespread flooding, could next summer bring another devastating drought?
That would not be a surprise. These changes are also creating the ideal conditions for the emergence of new pests and diseases.
In 2009, Professor Sir John Beddington predicted a “perfect storm” of conditions that would lead to food shortages by 2030.
Launching the Foresight report on global food security, he said that in Britain food shortages would drive increased imports, and forecast that the country will become less able to grow crops as higher temperatures become the norm. We should also add today to these conditions the impact of wars and human conflict.
Yet Professor Beddington also offered optimism that science and innovation could come up with solutions to weather the ‘perfect storm’ of food shortages, water scarcity and depleted energy resources.
He said: “We need investment in science and technology, and all the other ways of treating very seriously these major problems. 2030 is not very far away.” Inclusion of food and agriculture in the COP28 discussions in December 2023 also served to highlight the critical role of agricultural innovations in achieving food security and climate goals sustainably.
Innovation in farming
It was also in 2023 that the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act received Royal Assent. This Act aims to modernise crop and livestock breeding, and as such represents an important milestone, the first time in decades that new legislation in the UK has been brought forward which seeks to enable, rather than restrict, the use of advanced genetics for agriculture.
It was also the year in which the potential for artificial intelligence (AI) to do good and bad was established in the public debate. The winter 2023/24 issue of NIAB Landmark explains how we’ve invested in AI to help further our ability to collect and curate data.
Implementation of the Sustainable Farming Incentives (SFI), the new farming payments introduced by Defra as part of the transition away from the basic payment system, includes support for interventions that reduce the use of fertilisers and other inputs with the objective of delivering environmental aims such as biodiversity net gains whilst maintaining current yield levels.
But, will this the case? This was one of the questions put to Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Steve Barclay following his announcement of changes to the SFI scheme at the Oxford Farming Conference in early January 2024, including higher payment rates and fifty new SFI actions. He also announced new scheme funding for precision farming and the roll out of new technology.
These announcements are clearly designed to increase farmer uptake of the new payment schemes, which to date has been low. And the sentiment in the room was that it represents progress in the right direction but a key question remains: without proper assessment of the base line and in the absence of metrics to monitor progress over time, how can we assess the impact of these interventions? These points need addressing…Read more
