To ask His Majesty’s Government, following reports that the United Kingdom faces shortages of broccoli and cauliflower this spring, what steps they are taking to support farmers and growers to adapt to climate change.
My Lords, I declare my interest as president of the Rural Coalition. I thank those Members of your Lordships’ House who have signed up to engage today on what I believe is an important and topical issue. Our debate is about the shortage of great British broccoli and cauliflowers—and, of course, many other vegetables as well—which have been part of our staple diet for years, and the difficulties caused, at least in part, by climate degradation. It is fitting that we have this debate just prior to the start of agri-science week in this Parliament.
Farming is an extremely tough profession at the best of times, and the range of setbacks and difficulties our farmers face is huge. I have to say I am deeply troubled by the low morale and depression that I hear at the moment from farms across my diocese, in all corners of the agricultural world. I want to take a moment here to pay tribute to all farmers and those involved in associated industries for their hard work, their dedication, their resilience and the critical services they provide to us all as they produce food. We must not take them for granted.
There is no doubt that climate change is creating many challenges for farming. No community or country has been immune from the effects of our changing planet, from failed harvests and changing rainfall patterns. As climate security threats escalate, they pose profound challenges to our national security. However, I also want to emphasise the vast field of opportunity that the agricultural industry represents as a major contributor of economic growth, representing an opportunity to put the UK at the front and centre of innovative, sustainable and future-thinking policy solutions. Farmers are uniquely placed to solve some of the most pressing challenges we face when it comes to climate change.
The increase in frequency of extreme weather events and the changing climate cannot go unnoticed. My noble colleagues may recall that I led a debate in the House last October on the impacts of flooding on farming. I see that the Met Office has again instigated yellow warnings for the next few days. In the age of climate change, extreme weather does not just mean more rainfall but could also mean more heatwaves, droughts, storms and even unusually cold weather. Heavy rainfall this past autumn and winter has damaged crops, particularly cauliflower and broccoli, while the mild winter has resulted in some crops arriving earlier than expected. Much of our broccoli would normally be imported from Spain, but the crops there have been devastated by heavy rainfall and flooding, particularly in Valencia and the areas around it, so it is difficult to supplement our supplies with imports from Europe.
September 2024 saw farmers face collective losses of around £600 million following what emerged as one of the worst harvests on record, after staggering levels of rainfall. Climate change threatens the sustainability and profitability of farming businesses, as well as our food security. His Majesty’s Government initiated a strategic defence review and are undertaking a review of national resilience. However, a report published in October 2024 by the University of Exeter, Chatham House and the IPPR highlighted climate change as a glaring blind spot in the UK’s national security strategy, with risks to the food supply chain as a critical concern. These threats have been significantly and consistently underestimated and now feature as major security threats.
My Lords, I congratulate the right reverend Prelate on again bringing a very timely issue to this House. Food insecurity is a serious matter and is increasing across the world, partly because of global conflict, the pandemic and of course climate change. Our severe weather events in the UK—the result of climate change—have included the wettest period on record, as he mentioned, between September 2022 and February 2024. This obviously affected livestock and the drilling of cereals. The first estimate of the 2024 cereals and oilseed harvest in England shows a 22% reduction in wheat compared with 2023.
Inevitably, domestic food security will be increasingly threatened by these severe weather events, as the right reverend Prelate pointed out. The measures which can be taken—improved drainage, drought-resistant crop varieties and sustainable soil management, as he mentioned—require investment and government support.
Our farmers produce about 60% of our food. Despite the global shocks of Covid and global energy price rises, our national food security has shown some resilience, but the horticulture sector faces particular challenges, such as labour supply problems and high regulatory requirements. Like all employers, growers face increases in national insurance contributions and the national living wage, and the cumulative effect means that there will inevitably be less investment, with some growers leaving the industry altogether.
Obviously, a real problem for farmers and growers—who are the guardians of our food security—is the effect of the recent Budget. I am sorry to grind on about this again, but it is in the forefront of my mind and those of all farmers and growers. The IHT changes are the most serious because they will reduce stability, confidence and therefore investment in the whole sector. Horticulture is arguably the most vulnerable to severe weather events, so it is likely to be the worst affected. Given the outraged reaction across rural communities against the Budget, I would like to believe that the Government will respond positively and helpfully. So far, that is not the case. We are talking about food security; it is a serious matter, and it is most certainly not the time to plunge rural communities into deep apprehension about the whole future of agriculture and horticulture.
My Lords, this may be a Question for Short Debate, but the right reverend Prelate has attracted a fine speakers’ list which includes many of my noble friends, and I am delighted to follow my noble friend Lady Shephard.
Noble Lords will know of my interest through my family’s business, and I am delighted that the right reverend Prelate has given us the opportunity to discuss one of the many issues creating worry and anxiety among farmers and growers. What he perhaps does not know is that Taylors grow both overwintered cauliflower and broccoli, double-cropping it with summer planting under a Lincolnshire cropping agreement—so, unlike some occasions when I speak here, I know of what I speak today.
The right reverend Prelate has read of the shortages expected this spring. That flies in the face of the company that plants, harvests and markets the crop on our farm, which agrees with me that it is a long time since the crop looked so good. However, the point that this Question raises is valid, for the labour to harvest those crops in early spring is hard to find, and the acreage may well be correspondingly reduced.
We are right to talk in this debate about climate change or unpredictable weather, for undoubtedly this has been a very difficult time for farmers and growers as they face the consequences of flooding. Defra issued a very useful press release addressing the issue on 7 January, following a meeting with the Environment Agency’s chief executive, Philip Duffy. But causes and consequences were perhaps better illustrated by the Lincolnshire Free Press of 14 January, which told of a farmer I know who has been waiting 12 months for the Environment Agency to repair a bank that topped in the Storm Henk overflow due to badger damage.
The Black Sluice pumping station was decommissioned some years ago on the grounds that it provided no benefit for people and their houses. Now, the Black Sluice Internal Drainage Board has noted that had the pumps been working, they would have got rid of half a million cubic metres from the swollen South Forty Foot Drain and saved my friend’s farm in the Bourne Fen area and properties in Boston from flooding.
My Lords, agriculture is possibly unique in its relationship to climate change. At the same time it is a major cause, victim and source of solutions. I have often spoken about the need for farming to reduce its environmental footprint, but I stress that this can and must happen at the same time as an increase in farm productivity. The world needs to increase food production and availability by up to 70% over the next 25 years to keep pace with the needs of a rapidly expanding global population. As the right reverend Prelate said—and I thank him for introducing this debate—our agricultural productivity growth is negligible.
To help farmers cope with the changing climate, there must be a long-term strategic plan for managing water scarcity and flooding events, and the infrastructure to capture, store and move water in times of plenty, taking a whole-catchment approach. Managing the wider landscape by improving soil management to increase the rate at which water permeates the ground, reducing surface run-off, is an additional approach to managing flood risk.
Although a simple beetle bank of coarse grasses planted on a slope, as invented by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, can increase water infiltration rates by up to nine times, Rothamsted Research argues that the winter rain is now so great that multiple lines of defence are needed. Within SFI there are some useful options to help farmers, but will the Government consider incentivising farmers to employ and install treatment drains, given the huge environmental benefits to be gained? That would be an easy and cheap win.
We cannot afford to overlook the contribution of science and innovation, not only in improving the productivity and efficiency of farming but in directly reducing GHG emissions. Gene editing is one such opportunity, and I wholeheartedly welcome the recent confirmation from Defra that the secondary legislation needed to implement the precision breeding Act will be introduced to Parliament by the end of March this year.
My Lords, when I spoke in a recent debate on agriculture, I took as my text “Barley, Not Bulrushes”. I still think that is an excellent slogan: it sums up in three words the utter nonsense of current policies coming from Defra, the department responsible for feeding our nation, which no longer has either “farming” or “agriculture” in its title.
I long for the good old days of MAFF—the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. It understood farmers and farming and is sorely missed. I feel very much that with this change in title has come a change in purpose and priorities. Feeding the people and maintaining a healthy, balanced countryside is crucial to our nation’s well-being. We lose sight of this at our peril, and we are rapidly doing just that.
Our worldwide striving to increase food production is as old as time itself. Broccoli and cauliflower are excellent examples of growers’ ability to experiment and improve. Along with Brussels sprouts, they all belong to the cabbage family and derive originally from broccoli, which was enjoyed by the Romans in the sixth century BC. In fact, Pliny the Elder wrote in the first century AD that broccoli was a standard favourite in Rome. By careful selection and breeding over the centuries, we now have many different and improved vegetables to enjoy.
Improvement is the watchword. Farmers and landowners in the 17th and 18th centuries bred better livestock and improved all farming practices. They were known as the improvers, and so it has continued until the present day, with massive improvements in yields, both arable and livestock, and the use of computers to plant and to harvest. Some crops can even now be grown without soil—a technique known as hydroponics. All seemed set fair to continue improving, but the Government had other ideas.
In the name of a crackpot scheme called “net zero”, fertile, well-drained, carefully cultivated and productive farmland is to be flooded to grow bulrushes. Just when we need it most, growing food is no longer a farmer’s top priority. Is it any wonder that farmers are asking the nation what is expected of them? The farmers and their sons and daughters, whose families have nurtured their land for generations, are to be deliberately—I stress “deliberately”—taxed out of existence. It must be stopped.
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Framlingham has reminded us of the many different members of the brassica family, which include tenderstem and sprouting varieties of broccoli, mustard, oilseed rape, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower and Calabrese—even the purple sprouting broccoli, which matches the colour of the right reverend Prelate’s episcopal garb.
Broccoli is good in iron and high in fibre, and sprouts can be strong in taste. This is particularly important, because we are not getting enough vegetables in our diet at the moment. We know that curly kale is packed with antioxidants that reduce inflammation, and the Telegraph tells us of how green smoothies can slow brain ageing—which is important in this place. John Innes has bred a fast-growing broccoli that can be harvested twice a year in the field and five times in the greenhouse. I suppose I should declare my interest in the agricultural and farming industries in Norfolk, because I know that our local farmers grow strong English mustard, and the more of their products that are left on the side of the plate, the more prosperous they will become, and deservedly so.
So, let us celebrate this humble family of vegetables, which we are being told is in the middle of a cauliflower crisis—and which, we are told, is being caused by climate change. I just do not buy it. I am sorry to bring a sour note to proceedings. I am not bitter, like undercooked sprouts can sometimes be. But let us examine the real reasons for the right reverend Prelate’s fears.
This year, slugs are a particularly bad problem for broccoli and caulis. Unfortunately, owing to the slow performance in the chemicals regulation division of the Health and Safety Executive, a new and more benign slug control pellet is not coming to the market fast enough, because the new slug pellet that was released for assessment in 2020 is still not approved. As a result, the crops are harder to grow.
A lack of skilled staff under the seasonal agricultural workers scheme has made the crop harder to harvest, and progress on robotics to replace this labour is slower, so it is harder to grow. Not allowing UK producers to treat homegrown seeds for cabbage stem flea beetle, but permitting the use of pretreated seed from Canada or Ukraine, has given overseas growers competitive advantage. We know that brassicas need sulphur to grow strongly, and cleaning up the power stations has made the crop harder to grow as well.
My Lords, there is a lamentable tendency in the debates of the nation—and even in the discourses of your Lordships’ House—to elide from food security to self-sufficiency. We heard it a little just now. It was hinted at by the right reverend Prelate in introducing the Motion. He did not exactly make the link, but he spoke about the decline in self-sufficiency since the 1980s, and it was made explicit by some of my noble friends on this side, but it is fallacious, it is specious and a moment’s thought reveals why. Food security depends on being able to source your supplies from the widest possible diversity of suppliers, so that you are not vulnerable to a localised shock or disruption, which might as easily happen on your own territory as anywhere else.
When we come specifically to the broccoli and cauliflowers being debated this afternoon, I think we have a pretty robust and diverse system in place. Yes, we grow a lot of these brassica in Lincolnshire—I think that is the most concentrated place—some of it from my noble friend Lord Taylor, but all of it, I am sure, excellent. We then buy from the EU—mainly Spain, a little bit from France—and then we buy from beyond, from Morocco, from Kenya and, I, think a little bit from Mexico.
The difference is that, when we move beyond the EU, at a time when we are complaining about these shortages, we are still, incredibly, applying tariffs. We are saying that we do not have enough of the stuff and we do not have food security, and yet we have, if I understood the figures from the department this morning correctly, an 8% tariff for most of the year on brassica—or at least on chilled and non-chilled fresh cauliflower and headed broccoli from countries that either are not in the EU or with which we do not have a special trade deal. How on earth can that be sensible?
I at least understand that we produce some of our own brassica in this country. When we look at some of the other food tariffs, it becomes utterly unsustainable. I have gone on and on endlessly in your Lordships’ Chamber about the tariffs we continue to impose on Moroccan tomatoes, even though we produce barely any tomatoes. I know we produce some tomatoes—I used to be a Member of the European Parliament and I had the Isle of Wight in my constituency—but even at the height of our very short tomato-growing season, we are still importing about 80% of our tomatoes. Whom do we think we are protecting?
My Lords, I congratulate the right reverend Prelate on securing this debate and welcome the Minister to his place.
I will share with my noble friend Lord Hannan the figures that I have received from the Library. Our exports to the EU of fruit and vegetables combined, in the 12 months to November 2024, were £378 million in value. Our imports from the EU were £5,086 million. There seems to be a bit of a mismatch there, so his plea to remove tariffs does not seem to be working. We are importing millions of pounds-worth more in fruit and vegetables from the EU that we are exporting to it.
Today, we are looking at potential shortages of broccoli and cauliflower, and regrettably also of other greens, such as kale, brassicas such as collard greens, and turnips. This is very disappointing for someone who loves their greens, as I do. The Minister is in a good position to help vegetable growers with how climate change is impacting them. What steps is he taking to protect farmland from loss of crops and vegetables through floodwater, and through coastal erosion? What steps, such as adaptation measures, is Defra looking at to protect farmland? I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Association of Drainage Authorities and join my noble friend Lord Taylor in paying tribute to the work that it does.
Will farmers be reimbursed for storing floodwater on farmland? Can the Minister confirm that this will not breach the current de minimis rules under the relevant reservoir Act? Currently, farmers are not funded to store water on their farmland, nor are they reimbursed for managed retreat encroaching through coastal erosion. Will Defra and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government ensure that internal drainage boards are properly funded and resourced to do the excellent work of draining and dredging that they do? Their work is entirely complementary to the work of the Environment Agency but performs a function that no one else is reimbursed for or paid for on minor watercourses throughout low-lying areas of England.
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Defra’s Food Security report, published last year, highlights the significance of rising food insecurity, precipitated by climate change, among other factors. UK self-sufficiency when it comes to food production has declined since the 1980s and is far lower when it comes to fresh fruit and vegetables—somewhere in the region of 53%, much lower than for other crops such as cereals. In addition, food waste represents a significant economic and environmental loss in the UK food system. The report also highlights the degradation of the UK’s natural capital as a key factor threatening our capacity to produce food into the future. Environmental restoration and sustainable, high-quality food production have to go hand in hand.
That brings me to the opportunity that these climate-based challenges pose. The agricultural sector is ripe for innovation and investment. Huge amounts of excellent work are already taking place. This is a vital opportunity that must not be missed. For example, in my diocese in Hertfordshire an organisation called Groundswell, with which some noble Lords will be familiar, is doing brilliant work, providing a forum for stakeholders to learn about regenerative agriculture, including no-till, cover crops and various other methods of improving soil health and thereby reducing the impacts of erosion, pollution and flooding. Some of this farming is at the forefront of world technology; we are making great progress that we should be hugely proud of and celebrate. Resilient agriculture is sustainable agriculture. This is one of the core beliefs of Groundswell, with the evidence showing that nature-friendly farming does not need to oppose profitability with environmental concern. They can be symbiotic.
The APPG on Science and Technology in Agriculture published a report earlier this week highlighting eight key areas for farming innovation that would help towards improving our national food security and meeting the Government’s net-zero targets. I will pick out just one: the use of novel protein sources for animal feed. The development of insect protein as animal feed alone is set to become an $8 to $12 billion global market by 2030. That is an immense economic growth opportunity for the UK to harness and represents a window for us to become a world leader in the science of insect farming. Insect proteins are a very low-carbon alternative to other protein feed sources, thereby contributing to the Government’s net-zero targets and combating some of the negative impacts that farming has at the moment in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.
If we can overcome regulatory and policy obstacles, ensure that the barriers to innovation and adoption of new technologies do not get in our way and roll out, share, develop and implement best practice across the entire industry, we could be a world leader in sustainable, green agriculture while increasing our food production and improving our self-sufficiency. I do not have time to go into detail on the rest of the policy recommendations in the APPG’s excellent report, but I hope the Minister and relevant officials will read it in detail.
I very much look forward to hearing other noble Lords’ contributions to today’s debate and to hearing from the Minister what the Government’s plan is to ensure that the UK is proactive and innovative in its approach to farming, climate change and food security. We need to work with our farmers, who play such a valuable role, and protect our supplies of cauliflower and broccoli for future generations.
I assume the Government must be getting feedback from their own MPs, newly elected to rural constituencies. They must know that the furious reactions from rural communities to their Budget, which included farmers’ demonstrations—unprecedented, in my experience—are not going to diminish, and rightly so. Our food security is at stake; it is one of the most serious issues facing the Government and they need to take it seriously.
The lesson is clear: the Environment Agency must get its priorities right, and the Government, if they want plentiful supplies of wholesome British produce, must ensure that the agency has the funds to do so.
Alongside gene editing, from methane-inhibiting feed additives and green fertilisers to novel proteins and precision farming, there are enormous opportunities for scientific innovation to help farmers both adapt to and mitigate the impacts of climate change. Many are discussed in the new report from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Science and Technology in Agriculture, of which I am a member, entitled Farming Innovations to Deliver Net Zero, which I commend to the House. It has been produced in advance of Agri-Science Week in Parliament, which the all-party group is hosting in the Upper Waiting Hall next week. Has the Minister read the report, and will he encourage all Defra and Treasury Ministers to visit the exhibition next week?
The Motion asks what steps the Government
“are taking to support farmers … to adapt to climate change”.
The answer is: they do not need help for this purpose. Any climate change that takes place will be gradual, and farmers are famously imaginative and resourceful. They will produce our food if only we let them get on with it.
There is an old saying: “If you can’t help, don’t hinder”. If we really want to help both our farmers and food production, we should do two things: drop the destructive inheritance tax proposals and abandon plans to flood farmland or smother it in solar panels. We should remain faithful to our agricultural traditions and improve, not destroy. The slogan should be—must be—“Barley, Not Bulrushes”.
Our larger supermarkets share the concerns raised by my noble friends about the new inheritance taxes that will stifle innovation and investment and put our farming industry on the back foot. New packaging taxes make it harder to profitably present our products on the shelf. The conversion of land to solar production on grade 1 farmland in Lincolnshire, the county of my noble friend, makes it harder to grow too.
Taken together, it is a miracle we have any broccoli at all, especially when the British Growers Association tells us that British growers have scaled back production since 2017 as a result of poor profitability and reducing yields, not climate change. I do not want to trivialise the difficulties caused by bad weather—hot or cold, dry or wet. I know how many parts of Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire have been under water for months, but let us be honest with ourselves: this is nothing to do with climate change, which was debated seven days ago in your Lordships’ House. Shroud-waving on climate change when it has absolutely nothing to do with the broccoli breakdown is obscuring scrutiny of the real underlying causes that the right reverend Prelate raises. Look: it is time to change the record and to prioritise the practical actions that will get Britain farming immediately, rather than falsely concluding, “Well, there is no point, because the Chinese are opening a new coal-fired power station every other week”.
If we think it is silly when we get to tomatoes, let us consider the real spike in prices which is happening this year in our supermarkets, which is of olive oil, as a result of some of the same climatic changes that were being discussed earlier. We do not grow any olives in this country, to my knowledge. There is always some story in the Telegraph about someone in Cornwall having managed to grow tea or something, so maybe we do—no offence if any Cornish olive growers or would-be olive growers are watching on television, but let me say that we are not a major producer of olives, yet we are still imposing tariffs on olives and olive oil imported from Turkey, Tunisia or wherever it is.
In other words, we inherited tariff schedules from the EU that were designed to protect growers, particularly in Spain but also in Italy, Portugal and France, and five years almost to the day since Brexit, we have still not repealed them. This country led the way as a free trader, especially in foodstuffs. For the century that led up to the 1930s, it made us the richest place in the world. The parties that were in the forefront of arguing for what was, in a phrase of the Labour Chancellor, Philip Snowden, the “free breakfast table”, were the Lib Dems of the day and, after its foundation, the Labour Party. They understood that agricultural protectionism is a racket whereby the poor are forced to pay the rich. Now that we have these freedoms and are once again in charge of our own trade policy, please can the party opposite look to its own heritage and recover that global vision which once made us the wealthiest and most prosperous country on earth?
On the wider issue of self-sufficiency, given the figures I referred to earlier and the increased threat to food security from the Russian invasion of Ukraine and other global conflicts, what steps will Defra and the Department for Business and Trade take to boost self-sufficiency at home in fruit and vegetables, and boost opportunities to increase our exports abroad? These trade issues have been debated on many occasions in this House, not least during the passage of the agriculture, environment and trade Acts, and more recently in discussions around individual trade agreements. We must take measures to boost production of fruit and vegetables at home and opportunities to export. Some 62% of the food that we need is produced at home, but only 53% of fresh vegetables and, woefully, 16% of fruit. I hope the Minister takes heed of and looks at this. Will he address it through the land use framework, which we look forward to, and respond to the NFU’s plea to Defra to ensure that all ELM schemes are available and properly resourced?