To watch this event, you can rent or buy the video here.
For Organic September and the harvest equinox, 22nd September 2020 saw The Future Economy Network run an interactive webinar on “Food Security and Climate Change”. This online event was kindly sponsored by Michelmores, an award winning law firm with the largest team of Agricultural lawyers in the country and a strong passion for the importance of sustainability in the sector.
Katherine Piper, Director of The Future Economy Network, welcomed attendees, highlighting the benefits of joining the Network and also sharing updates about The Future Economy Network’s Carbon Neutral Hub in Bristol, Future Leap. Katherine also briefly ran through the plans for The Festival of Sustainable Business, and you can check out the video here.
First up, we welcomed Sarra Mander, CMO from the Small Robot Company to speak about "Rethinking Farming". Sarra opened by explaining the impact that farming has on the environment. Defra estimates that we have only 30-40 harvests left, pollution from fertilisers costs $300 billion per annum and there are huge cultivation energy emissions from arable farms. All of this on top of the challenge of feeding 9 billion people by 2050 and with an NFU 2040 net zero agriculture target. Additionally, with the MET Office predicting increasingly extreme weather conditions, farmers are finding that often it is too wet for their machinery. As such, the Small Robot Company believe Per Plant Farming will become the dominant agricultural practice by 2040. They suggest this will be the 4th Agricultural Revolution moving to lightweight machinery and minimum cultivation. A service of small, precise robots will reduce weight, reduce soil erosion, improve precision and have a net zero impact. The robots will assist with per plant mapping and monitoring, weed, pest and disease control, planting and feeding and are already in operation on 32 farms.
Next up, we welcomed Joy Carey from Bristol Food Network, who spoke about the role of cities in food security. Joy started her presentation with some quotes from the Draft Glasgow Food and Climate Declaration, looking at how cities are part of the problem and the solution – the key solutions focusing around integration of policies and strategies. She looked at types of impacts of climate change on food security, and noted that to date there is no precise picture of the impacts of climate shocks and stressors. Joy gave an example of a high-level vulnerability assessment on Toronto’s food system, where the city’s public health identified six critical vulnerabilities (ranging from urban flooding to lack of communication and coordination). Next, she looked at the “Bristol’s covid-19 community food response” report written in July 2020, giving sobering statistics on Bristol’s poverty status and taking into account the vulnerable groups in Bristol (and how their food security is being managed). Joy then looked at Bristol Food Network’s actions on how to have food resilience; their primary aim being to enable the city to collaborate. Examples given included promoting local producers, how to get help, and the Going for Gold initiative. She then explained what Going for Gold is and Bristol’s Silver status in 2016, before identifying six key food action areas that we can take to bring about food resilience. Finally, Joy showed everyone some blogs, media and social posts of their #bristolfoodkind campaign and their new initiative “Bristol Bites Back Better”, before outlining key food waste actions for businesses and organisations:
1. Conduct a food waste audit
2. Create a take-less culture
3. Be a food waste reduction leader
4. Find a home for leftovers
5. Recycle the rest
6. Tell Bristol Going for Gold about your other food waste actions
Finally, we welcomed Ben Sharples from event sponsors Michelmores. Ben introduced his topic by talking about critical bills currently going through parliament, and the “uncertain storm” brewing because of the accelerating emphasis on climate change, Brexit’s huge effects on the industry, and the increased focus on food security from covid-19. Ben spoke about the Agricultural Bill (which is currently in the report stage in the House of Lords), which focuses mostly on what farmers are doing to help the environment. It should be three-tiered; the most basic tier focusing on sustainable farming, the second tier looking at fundamental land use changes, and the final tier looking at wide scale agricultural changes and collaborations. He then spoke about the exploitation of Natural Capital and Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes, which links up organisations to reduce costs and do environmental good. Ben looked at tree planting; it is a key way to sequester carbon, but trees are not popular for farmers (they devalue land and require commitment) so a financial model is needed to show them as a valuable asset. He spoke of the benefits of woodland: bio diversity, carbon lock up, water retention, health and wellbeing, air quality etc, and looked at tailor made schemes where companies pay farmers to plant trees and water peat bogs. He gave an example of land owners in Scotland being able to capitalise on the aviation industry wishing to plant thousands of trees. Ben said that audits are happening increasingly, not just by the Forestry Commission and National Trust, but by small farms and land owners too – allowing more strategic decisions to be made. Ben finished his presentation by emphasising that the definition of agriculture needs to evolve to encompass the unique farming methods, such as insect farming and urban vertical farming, so these new sustainable agriculture methods can be better funded.
We continued with mini Q&A’s after every speaker, which created a continuous buzz throughout the event. Finally, Network members Bishop Fleming, Better Food and City to Sea gave a 60 second pitch. Everyone was then able to network in different groups using facilitated break out rooms, before the event finished. A huge thank you to our sponsors Michelmores, the speakers and attendees of this event, without which our events calendar would not be possible.
The Future Economy Network will be running an event on 20th October titled The Value of Nature to Business so come along to continue this exciting discussion. Attendees asked for some of the chat from this event to be sent out, so please find below some anonymised discussion points:
- Strikes me that little local food systems are a bit like renewable energy was in the 1970s: marginal and disregarded by the Big Players. Renewables have now 'arrived' and we can see how they could deliver a zero-emissions energy system. But to do this they have become huge and engaged with economies of scale. Would this pattern apply to food systems? Can you have mass level small-scale production and supply? Can we imagine it working without supermarkets?
- Soil Association have published an Agroforestry Handbook, downloadable on their website. It was the most downloaded asset they’ve ever had. It’s really good and has compelling and practical advice for land managers and farmers to integrate trees into their working land
- Agro businesses focussing only on carbon capture or net zero goals is contentious. You can stick a load of solar panels on an intensive farm shed housing pigs, but what are the benefits to other things like biodiversity, soil health etc?
- Agriculture is only 0.5% of the UK's GDP. What a bargain! Doubling this would hardly be noticed, and should allow generous payment to farmers for carbon sequestration and ecosystem services.
- We wrote a blog on the “bargain” argument (looking at the arable portion) last week after Tony Juniper’s call for funding: https://www.smallrobotcompany.com/blog-posts/2020/9/18/netzero-how-are-farms-going-to-get-there
- My local organic farm shop has been so busy that they had to start an ordering system as a means of managing and rationing. They went, for example, to selling 8 of their free range chicken to orders of over 30 per month.
- Hodmedods are brilliant. And of course their pulses are still alive. You can sprout them and grow them on, produce your own mushy peas and full beans.
- The other part of my answer is about going back to those six food action areas of the collaborative Going for Gold initiative. Procurement could make a big difference - buying good food produced from healthy soils; food waste designed out of the system (as Phil just mentioned) and a much more innovative circular economy (including high quality composts); diverse high streets with readily available and affordable nutrition-dense foods; edible urban landscapes that support biodiversity; decent livelihoods within the farming sector; inspirational training opportunities and a green economy; green transportation and lots more possibility to use outdoor markets and walk to shops etc