UK farming needs to produce more not less, says the NFU

Farmers in the UK need to produce more, not less, NFU Vice President Gwyn Jones said today.

Speaking in London at the Inside Government forum on food security, Mr Jones outlined some of the progress that is being made in food and farming, and covered changes in the messages coming from the Government, investment in science and technology, and what farmers are doing to address skills shortages.

Congratulating the Government on the recent commitment made in its Natural Environment White Paper, Mr Jones said: It will bring together a group to work on how to achieve the dual goals of improving the environment and increasing food production at the same time. That is in line with last weeks declaration by the G20 agricultural ministers.

The Governments commitment to set up a group to reconcile how they will achieve these two goals is a step forward. The result might not end up being called a food plan but the title isnt as important as the message that we need to produce more in this country.

We would be completely out of line with our European and G20 partners if the Government didnt have increasing production as an explicit policy goal. We in the developed world, the rich west, have to increase production too. We cant just leave it to developing countries to feed us.

On science and research, we recognised a long time ago that individual farm businesses werent in a position to spend vast sums on their own research. But if we pool our resources together, we can. Thats why it is so encouraging to see the HGCA, for example, investing in research projects aimed at increasing wheat yields. Thats a great example of farmers playing their part.

On training and skills, we know a lot of training is happening on our farms, but it is often informal and on-the-job. We have to get more professional about it, so that the skills people are developing are given formal recognition. Thats a big challenge, but were making progress as an industry.

The Inside Government forum on food security, Meeting the global food security challenges of the future through science and innovation took place in London today.