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The government is currently consulting on the Land Use Framework, a policy which will underpin a new strategic approach to boosting food security and delivering on its environmental objectives, while helping government reach their house building targets.
A land use strategy is needed and there’s some welcome wording around boosting food security and keeping food production at the heart of farming.
Access to potato growing land is such a critical and fundamental issue for our sector that a strategic approach to safeguard this should be welcomed.
Areas of concern
When you look into the detail, however, some areas of concern start to emerge.
For example, the strategy sets out that 9% of land is to be taken out of food production by 2050, which immediately seems at odds with increasing food security.
An increase of productivity is proposed as the means to mitigate this, but while this might make sense on paper, it certainly doesn’t in practice.
“Land availability is an existential threat for our sector and I would therefore urge you to respond to the consultation, either directly yourself or via the NFU.”
NFU Potato Policy Group chair and Horticulture & Potatoes Board vice chair Tim Rooke
The reality is that yields for our sector have been plateaued for some time now, and it’s difficult to see how these could be significantly increased even if you put aside the current challenges of obtaining seed, chemicals, and water.
Relaxing specifications might be a move in the right direction, but that would ultimately need to be driven by retailers and consumers.
Challenges go beyond policy
Over recent years there has been a lot of noise from government about growing the horticulture and potatoes sector, but we have seen little of their words translated into actions, and it’s not clear if a new framework will change this.
Some of the challenges for the sector though are less about policy and more practical.
PCN (potato cyst nematodes), for example, are a major constraint on what land we can grow potatoes on, and with the products needed to deal with it being consistently lost from our toolboxes, we’re heading in the wrong direction.
Wireworm appears to be an increasing issue as well and it’s not entirely clear what’s driving this, although some suspicion is falling on regen agricultural practices.
The role of SFI will be critical to this conversation, as well as the unintended consequences of multifunctional land use.
Access to water is a necessity for any farmer and we are increasingly competing with industry and residential properties for access to it.
A national Land Use Framework is worthless without a national water framework to go alongside it. This would need to support greater investment in infrastructure to collect, store, and distribute water both on farms and within and between regions.
Impact of IHT changes
We also can’t overlook the impact that changes to IHT (inheritance tax) may have.
Landowners will have no option but to take opportunities to bring in whatever income they can to pay the tax bill. Whether this is solar, biomass crops or building developments, it’ll ultimately mean less land availability and less food being grown.
Land availability and usage is key
What is clear is that this consultation cannot be looked at in isolation. Nearly every single regulatory and practical challenge we have is linked into land availability and usage one way or another.
Land availability is an existential threat for our sector and I would therefore urge you to respond to the consultation, either directly yourself or via the NFU.
Visit our Land Use Framework consultation page to have your say.
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