Food security in the pandemic

Not long into the 2020 pandemic, Pete Ritchie from Nourish Scotland, wrote a blog [1] putting the case that once the initial panic has receded, the international food system would adapt, the empty shelves would be re-stocked and no one in this country ought to go hungry. Nourish, through their blogs, web sites and conferences are at pains to point out that no one should go hungry in the UK because of shortage of food. Should they be hungry or malnourished, it would be due to other factors, such as social inequality, not the amount of food available.

Nourish were correct, but they were not giving the thumbs up to the current state. The blog writes that the food system – “ … generates massive environmental damage, monumental food waste, exploitative work practices and a disastrous mismatch between what we need to eat for health and what we are being sold.”

Dysfunction and mismatch are not simply other people’s problems. The blog continues – “ …..it would be good if Scotland were to produce more of what it eats, and eat more of what it produces.”

The blog raises the greater issue of the choices that can be made – whether to create a more equitable food system or stay with the current dysfunctional mix of hunger and plenty. Analysis by the Food Foundation [2] shows the pandemic is driving more people into malnutrition and hunger: the food is there but many people are unable to afford it or get to it.

Yet on the continuity of supply during the pandemic, the food system has adapted. Would the same be true following any global emergency?

The food-feed system is resilient ….. but it could fail

The food system was able to recover because of particular features of this pandemic. Farming and food stocks in most parts of the world have been little affected so far. Only a few of the food supply chains have been seriously disrupted [3].  It is too soon to say whether more will be affected if lockdown and social distancing continue, but the chances are they will not be. However, other global crises could have far greater consequences.  

A diagram (Fig. 1) is used to illustrate how food and feed systems are sensitive to global events. The system is divided into four parts (Ag-economy, Ecosystem, Primary production and Food-origin) and each of these into two further parts. Of course food systems are much more complex than this: these particular sectors are shown to illustrate how vulnerable the system can be when things get out of balance.

The particular quality of this pandemic is that it has not had a severe effect on any of the parts in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1 Food production simplified for illustration into four sectors, each of two unequal parts.

The agricultural economy, shortened to Ag-economy is split into farms and related businesses that are viable in terms of making a profit and those that only exist with support, for example through subsidy, such as provided by the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy [4]. The viable fraction is smaller than the supported. (This is true for most of the UK and large parts of Europe.)

The Ecosystem provides for agriculture (nutrients, air, water, biological pest control) and needs agriculture to nurture it. Its essential parts, including soils, food webs, biodiversity, and the cycles of energy, carbon, nitrogen and water, can be described as in a state of either building or degrading. While some parts of the cropland ecosystem are at least holding steady if not building, most parts are degrading, in terms for example of declining soil quality, loss of biodiversity, soil erosion and inability to regulate water flows.

Primary production is the fixing of carbon dioxide from the air into plant matter by photosynthesis.  In Scotland, production land is divided into managed pasture for hay or grazing and another sector here named feedstocks, which refers to the dominant use of arable land to supply grain for alcohol and livestock feed, rather than staple food directly for humans [5]. The arable also produces oats, potato, fruit and vegetables, but the land area planted with these crops is small compared to the rest. Feedstock land covers less area than pasture. A large part of the products of agriculture go to export, for example as whisky and quality meat.

Food-origin is divided into that produced locally and that produced somewhere else and imported. Imports of food are essential for the UK and its constituent parts because much of farmland supports agricultural exports and livestock feed. Nourish Scotland’s Food Atlas shows around 60% of food consumed in Scotland is imported, but imports account for almost all of some types of food such as bread [6].

So there are four parts in the diagram, each given one quarter of the pie chart, and within each quarter, one of the parts is shown larger than the other. (Exactly how much larger does not matter for the illustration.) It is these imbalances make the food system vulnerable to external events.

Vulnerabilities

The tensions in and between Primary production and in Food-origin primarily determine whether a society can resist and adapt to global crises. Cereals and legumes have been the foundation of all settled societies. It is the balance between local and external sources of these, particularly the cereals, that most strongly determines vulnerability of a food system. 

In a subsistence agricultural economy, these staples are produced locally. Hunger and starvation may happen if agriculture is threatened by bad weather or an insect plague. As societies develop, they usually grow more products for export, which along with trade in mined and manufactured materials, raises wealth. That wealth allows them to import food and feed. A combination of local produce and imports then offers resilience to poor local harvests. If, however, the move to an export agriculture goes too far, then the society becomes reliant on imports for its staple food and therefore vulnerable to anything that affects imports. That is the state of the food system in Scotland and the UK as a whole.

The position is bleaker in reality because the four quarters of the diagram are connected. The international food system presently provides much of the staple diet, leaving Primary production free to concentrate on products for overseas markets. The intensity of agriculture in a competitive world is driving degradation of the Ecosystem, while an indifference of politics and society to the Ag-economy leads to low food prices and dependence on subsidy. 

Most major global cataclysms would be likely to cause serious disruption to the food supply in these circumstances. Blockade, for example: assume for whatever reason, imports stop suddenly due to the country being blockaded. Local production could not supply the needs of the people for food. The same would happen if natural phenomena damaged agriculture in those parts of the world that grow the food we rely on.

The right balance

The balance of imports and exports is crucial to food security, but lessons from the last 150 years show the complexity of it – there is no single solution.

The agricultural depression of the 1880s

The depression that began in the 1880s was a consequence of bad weather and cheap imports flooding the home market. The weather of 1879 was among the worst recorded. In Scotland livestock died on a massive scale, grain harvests were 20-40 days late in starting, wheat yields were 50-70% of the average and many cereal and tuber crops failed [7].  Shortage might have meant higher prices to keep farming solvent, but not this time. Grain produced elsewhere, was imported to fill the gap, and a downward spiral begun of poor home yields, more cheap imports and arable land converted to grass. Symon [7] compared wheat prices: 64s. 5d. a quarter in 1867, half that 20 years later, then down to 23 s. in the 1890s, the lowest for two centuries (s., shillings; d. pence).

Most parts of the UK were affected. Thirsk [8] writes: “A dramatic collapse of grain prices occurred in 1879, and continued in 1880, 1881 and 1882. Wet and cold seasons ruined one harvest after another, without bringing the usual compensation to farmers in higher prices. Instead, cheap grain flooded in from North America, and farmers were warned that if American supply fell short, then Australia could send much more.”

The main lesson of this time was that local yields were insufficient, but it was the unbridled agricultural imports drove home farming into deeper depression. A second lesson is that global events have a long reach. The areas of the main arable crops all declined from the 1880s and some kept declining until the 1930s, trends that affected the country’s ability to feed itself when imports were threatened.

Insufficiency in 1914 and again in 1939

The freedom to import food at the expense of local production continued after 1900. In 1914-1915 the government failed to appreciate the scale of the impending problem of food shortage due to restricted imports. Symon [7] writes that it was well into the war before defeat by starvation was considered possible and urgent action necessary to ensure food security. The author goes on to lament the lack of a plan, an unrealistic attitude and a ‘mood of complacency’ towards agriculture and food supply. Matters did improve, the State took control, and agricultural output increased. But self-sufficiency in food was never assured throughout this period.  Even after it, and contrary to pledges made, free trade in food returned and again drove down farming.

The response in 1939 was more immediate and effective than that 25 years earlier, but massive changes had to be made: the conversion of much grass to arable, restrictions on which crops could be given mineral fertiliser, rebalancing different types of livestock, adapting to a shortage of labour on farms and imposing food rationing [7]. The combined result of many such changes was positive in that total output and yield per unit area increased in most crops. Technology advanced also: farming became aware again of the need to apply lime to reduce acidity, to balance the main mineral fertilisers, to sow improved crop varieties and to rely less on the horse and more on tractors for cultivation. But even though writers like Symon felt the changes introduced in the early 1940s were positive for agriculture, the main technological advances in farming were yet to come.

The Agricultural Expansion programme and intensification

After the food insecurities of the 1940s, a post-war Agricultural Expansion Programme was initiated to raise production. The programme worked. It was aided by improvements in machinery, agronomy, and crop yield potential, but also a shift in areas sown to main cereals, oats being replaced by barley and wheat over much of the country [9].  Despite a rising population, the country was able in the 1960s to feed itself. Yet within a few decades, it was again dependent on food imports. Did it return to the 1880s – in one respect, yes, because the food system again took advantage of low-cost food imports, often of poor quality and nutritional value. In another respect, it was different: production was not lacking, as it was after 1878, but turned its attention away from food.

The choice

In an uncertain world, a country needs to keep its borders open for trade, both ways. But it also needs to ensure it can feed itself if it has to.

The balance needs to be redrawn: local production raised, more food than feedstocks, a shift to building rather than degrading the ecosystem and paying a fair rate for food to remove dependence on subsidy. All this is possible.

More about the topics raised here can be viewed online [10]. The Living Field web site also publishes related articles and notes [11].

Sources, references

[1] Nourish Scotland. 2020 Making the food supply chain work for everyone. By Pete Ritchie, 24 March 2020.

[2] The Food Foundation published some recent statistics on 22 May 2020: Food insecurity and debt are the new reality under lockdown https://foodfoundation.org.uk/vulnerable-groups/

[3] Seafood in Scotland is one sector that suffered severe disruption due to the pandemic. The disruption in this case was caused to a large extent by an imbalance between export and home consumption. Most of the catch (80%) was exported, so when international trade was reduced or closed, the only sectors open to it were UK catering and retail. Then the restaurants closed and major UK food retailers shut their fresh fish counters. More at Seafood Scotland on the Crisis Stricken Seafood Sector.

[4] The EU web site gives a summary of the EU Common Agricultural Policy. The James Hutton Institute produced major reports on CAP Greening measures, available for download at Land Systems Research Team. GS structured the main arguments of a Scottish Government CAP Greening Review in the form of a decision tree at Greening with decision trees.

[5] The areas of land used to grow pasture and arable or horticultural crops is detailed on the Scottish Government web site at Agricultural Statistics in Scotland. This (curvedflatlands) web site gives links to further data on food and agriculture at the Scottish Parliament Citizen’s Jury pages.

[6] Food Atlas http://www.nourishscotland.org/resources/food-atlas/

[7] Symon J A. 1959. Scottish Farming – past and present. Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh and London, UK.

[8] Thirsk J. 1997. Alternative agriculture – a history from the Black Death to the present day. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.

[9] A brief history of changing areas and yields of oats, barley and wheat over the past 150 years on this web site at Three grain resilience.

[10] To find out more about local food systems, try these organisations: Scottish Food Coalition and their Campaign for a Good Food Nation; the Food Foundation https://foodfoundation.org.uk/ and Scotland the Bread.

[11] Living Field articles: City University’s food systems diagram: Five spheres around the food chain, and a look at the 10 crops from across the world that go into a simple meal of Beans on Toast revisited.

Author/contact: geoff.squire@outlook.com

Arable trends – positive, negative and neutral

There was no question – following the privations of WW2 – that the arable production systems in Scotland, and indeed all of the UK, had to change. It took the Agricultural Expansion Programme a decade or more to reorganise, then from the 1960s yield per unit area (t/ha) and total output increased steadily by almost threefold due to developments in machinery, fertiliser and new crop varieties. By the 1980s, chemical pesticides  were increasingly used  to combat a rise in weeds, diseases and insect pests, which were themselves thriving on the high nitrogen and carbon contents of the improved crops. But by 1990, yield and total output of grain and other major products levelled and remained so for the next quarter-century. This rise and subsequent levelling occurred in many parts of the world. 

Change despite level output

Not all else has been stable over the last 25 years. Pesticide use has continued to rise and biodiversity to fall. Home production comes nowhere near feeding the people. Economics relies on exports and food security on imports. Yet the future will at some point have to rely again on home production – there is no getting away from it – and nearly all of that production will be in fields. What next then! depends on appreciating how things are now. 

Some of the main positive, neutral and negative trends over the past quarter-century and earlier are listed below in the following main categories: 

  • Agronomic inputs – the addition of fertiliser, pesticide, fuel and other external or imported inputs that drive current arable systems. 
  • Yield and economic outputs – the tonnage and quality of products that come off the field, their markets and profitability.
  • Environment – soil, food webs and biodiversity crucial to the functioning of fields; losses of soil, water and chemicals to the wider environment.
  • Food security – the contribution of arable cropping to the food consumed by the population, the capacity to deliver food security in time of global calamity and reliance on exports.

Not all agree what is positive and what negative. Here, positives support long-term food security, a healthy environment and a viable rural economy, all of which are interdependent. 

The summary below is of a work in progress, at this point concentrating on trends evident from research at scales of field and landscape [1] and official  government databases and web sites from which broad trends and current status can be estimated at regional scales [2]. 

Trends in some topics are not yet included – rural employment, plastic and plastic waste, arable-grass integration, gross margins, risk, education and further training among them. The growth of micro-production and ‘off the grid’ sectors in the form of cooperatives, collectives, urban farming, farmers’ markets, farm shops, etc., is hard to gauge but future food security may depend on the continued growth and influence of this sector. 

Main positive trends

The main positive trends over the past quarter century are in agronomic (fertiliser) inputs and diversification of both products and supply chains. Few if any positive trends occurred in environment, food security and yield.

Agronomic inputs
  • Phosphate fertiliser inputs have continued a major long term decline both in the area of crop treated and the amount per unit area, resulting in total applied phosphate being half in recent years what is was in the 1960s.  
  • Nitrogen (N) – the major rising input driving intensification – has declined to about 80% of its 1990 peak, mainly due to set aside, nitrates directives and price rise.
  • A major part of the N fertiliser decline occurred in winter cereals which had been over-supplied by the late 1980s – a corrective trend taking 25 years.
  • In consequence, nitrogen and phosphate wastage has been reduced as input came closer to offtake, but little scope remains for further savings in current grain crops as specific mass-N and mass-P ratios (stoichiometry) are needed for saleable products. 
  • As a result of the above trends, the nitrogen-phosphorus (N:P) ratio in fertiliser inputs (a useful broad-scale indicator of agro-ecosystem status) increased from its low of 2 in the 1960s and is now stabilising at around 6 which implies a reasonably balanced N:P input. 
  • Nutrient use-efficiency (yield per unit input) for phosphate increased more than three-fold from the 1960s and continued to increase over the past 25 years;  the corresponding metric for nitrogen increased slightly after the 1990s. 
  • GHG emissions in arable (depending largely on nitrogen fertiliser) were  initially cut after 1990 due to set-aside and EU nitrates directives but have been resistant to further reduction i the past decade; solutions to achieving committed targets would include a shift to low-input and N-fixing crops such as grain legumes in arable and grass-clover mixtures in grassland, but mandatory implementation may be necessary.
Diversification of crop products
  • Greater local production of a range of products is an increasing trend, e.g. (with livestock sectors included) cheese, beer, gin, rapeseed oil, botanicals, esculents, meats, landrace-food, soft fruit and vegetables. Yet most arable produce still goes to large-scale markets for livestock feed, alcohol and biofuel.
  • Rise in short food supply-chains – farmers markets, farm shops, cooperatives, but this sector is still a very small proportion of total production. The percentage of the population fed by short supply chains is uncertain.

MAIN NEUTRAL TRENDS

The main neutral trends are in crop yield and total output. The are no  neutral trends in agronomic inputs, environment or food security. (Here, neutral means absence of change in the last quarter-century in something that had changed previously.)

Yield and output
  • Arable and grass surface areas have fluctuated since records began in the mid-1850s, but areas sown to the main cereals have shown no major trend since the 1990s.
  • Yield per unit area over most of the arable sector levelled in the 1990s and has hardly increased since (possibly by 10% over 25 years); exceptions include a rise of yield in oats, which covers the smallest area of the cereals. 
  • Average yields remain well below the highest farm yield and predicted maxima, yet remain high compared to similar crops in other parts of the world (i.e. in the category short-season cereals, temperate, unirrigated), mainly due to the ‘long cool summer’ effect in the NE Atlantic zone.
  • Home production of grain legumes showed some rise from the low point of the 1930s but is still very small (approx 1% arable) compared to legume production in many parts of the world, and accordingly imports supply most of the plant protein eaten by people and livestock .
  • Diversity of crop types increased during intensification (1960-1990) as winter variants of the cereals appeared, and has not since been lost – arable cropping here, while dominated by barley, is still relatively diverse compared to global standards in terms of the number of different crops that can or could be grown.
  • Bad-weather years such as 2012 and 2018 caused a dip in output but not a catastrophic loss –  climatic variation as currently predicted is unlikely to have major negative effects here (provided agriculture remains diverse and reverses the negative trends listed below).  
MAIN NEGATIVE TRENDS

Main negative trends are in pesticide inputs, environment and food security. 

Agronomic inputs
  • Pesticide usage has doubled in most arable crops over the past 25 years despite level yield (pesticides assessed by ‘spray-area’ of formulations or active substances rather than mass) and so pesticide application per unit yield has increased; possible signs of levelling of fungicide application in spring barley.
  • Despite long-established EU strategies to reduce reliance on pesticide, Integrated Pest Management has not been widely taken up in mainstream production (and so is considered a negative rather than neutral trend); integrated (e.g. LEAF) and organic practices are still a small fraction of total cropped area and output; UK-wide IPM policy introduced belatedly and half-heartedly with little effect.
In soil and biodiversity
  • Soil quality (health) is declining in high-input areas due to a range of practices established during intensification (1960-1990) and maintained since; while soil carbon by weight (%C) is down to 1% in some fields, %C tends to be stabilised and not at immediate risk where grass leys occur in the crop sequence and extreme tillage is avoided, e.g. spring cereal-grass systems; but overall soil degradation and erosion risk remain high in arable regions. 
  • Crop-wildlife balance in terms of the sharing of energy and living matter in the ecosystem has moved increasingly to crop, causing further major loss of species, populations and habitat, a trend occurring both in fields and across the landscape; extreme field cleansing evident in many areas brings no benefit to crop yield; high-N plant material (essential for the food chain including beneficials ) is now rare in fields;
  • Impact of loss of beneficials as pest control agents (see note on IPM above) is uncertain while pesticide usage continues to rise.
  • Weed balance showing major long term shift to grasses and away from legumes and other broadleaves. 
Food supply chains
  • Local production of food is far from satisfying population needs for carbohydrate, plant protein or vegetables; home production more geared to alcohol and feed; this despite national policies following WW2 to raise yield for the aim of achieving food security. (The balance of local vs imported food will be examined in later articles.)
  • Since the 1960s (approx) the country has relied increasingly on imported carbohydrate and plant protein (animal feed protein also); the resulting long supply chains are inefficient in use of resources, increase GHG emissions and in many cases degrade external ecosystems.
  • Production is unprepared for – and will be unable to ensure survival through – imposed calamities, either from human folly or aggression (blockade, war) or natural cataclysm (volcanic eruption). (This could be interpreted as a 100-year neutral trend since the country was in a similar position at the start of WW1 and WW2, but is classed as negative because the stated aim in the late 1940s and 1950s was for self-sufficiency.)
  • Farming is in general financially squeezed and receiving nowhere near its fair share of the lauded successes of Scotland Food and Drink. The profitability of much of farming relies on subsidy.
  • The level of agricultural planning, e.g. targets for home production, subsidy to guarantee results-based environmental standards, mandatory reduction of inputs (e.g. in fertiliser and pesticide, emissions, etc.) has looks to have  diminished since the postwar expansion programmes. 
  • The Common Agriculture Policy has supported some major farming sectors, but in many areas of concern has been more counter-productive than helpful, a situation much the same in Scotland as in the UK and most NE Atlantic agro-ecosystems; CAP Greening has not resulted in much greening. 

Next? 

The corrections to the over-provision of mineral fertiliser in the 20th century show what can be done through a combination of EU directives, national strategy and local initiatives.  Can similar action be taken over negative trends in food security and environment? In principle it can. But it is unlikely to happen while cheap imports remain the general preference and wastage is tolerated. Subsidy has failed so far to give adequate support for local food production, environment, small producers and farming-food cooperatives. Mandatory measures may be necessary to curb emissions and pesticide. 

Yet the position is at this point reversible. Most damaged soils can be repaired, food chains shortened, local consumption raised, pesticide brought under control. Farmland habitat and biodiversity can still be restored without loss of yield. But support needs to be tied to results, in healthy food as well as environment. The future should not be left to the big players in arable farming, food and drink. 

[Options to be examined in later articles…]

Sources, references, links

[1] Information on in-field and landscape processes from which trends were defined comes from research by the author and colleagues in the arable-grass regions of Scotland funded by Scottish Government. Examples of recent research papers looking specifically at trends include: Squire, 2017. Defining sustainable limits during and after intensification in a maritime agricultural ecosystem. Ecosystem Health and Sustainability https://doi.org/10.1080/20964129.2017.1368873; Squire, Quesada, Begg, Iannetta, 2019. Transitions to a greater legume inclusion in cropland …. Food and Energy Security https://doi.org/10.1002/fes3.175 (both Open Access). 

[2] The Scottish and UK governments provide many sources of data online or available in hard copy, mostly at national and regional scales. Examples of the sources used to derive many of the trends summarised above are given on this web site at Citizen’s Jury at the Scottish Parliament/ 3 .

[Online 8 July 2019; minor edits 15 July 2018; page to be amended as necessary in light of new information; any major amendments will be noted.]

Author/contact: Disclaimer This article presents the views of the author, G.R.Squire, geoff.squire@outlook.com.

Funding  The author currently has honorary (unfunded) status at the James Hutton Institute. A background knowledge of trends in agricultural production and environment in Scotland was gained in past years through funding from the Scottish Government Strategic Research Programme.

Citizens’ Jury at the Scottish Parliament

A Citizens’ Jury was assembled to deliberate on a major topic of agriculture, land use and food security. They were to spend a weekend at the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh from 29-31 March 2019. My role was to advise the jurors on current issues, answer questions and draw attention where necessary to reliable data.

Latest …. report and short film prepared by Scottish Parliament now available …. wide selection of online data sources collated on page 3 … see bottom of page for links 

The event was a reassuring experience – a group of people previously unknown to each other coming together, learning individually and together, absorbing complex issues and debating constructively, being courteous to each other and giving due weight to all opinions.

The Friday evening began with an explanation of the event – the jurors did not know the exact topic until then, other than it was to do with  ‘environment’ – and some insight from a visiting speaker on the need to judge reliable information, rather than hearsay and false news, when reaching conclusions .

Perhaps the most important result of the Friday evening was for the jurors to agree a set of rules as to how the discussions would be conducted. Simple guidelines such as ‘there should be no interrupting or talking over another person’ would have at one time seemed natural for such as event, but given the manner in which public argument is so often carried out, the jurors as a whole wanted to make it clear that the views of all should count and be heard.

The second day began with a series of talks, including the opener by me (see link to page 2 below), and  another from Kirsty Blackstock of the James Hutton Institute, Aberdeen. At various times over the weekend, the jurors got the chance to discuss the main questions in three groups of 7 – 8  and also to raise points in general assembly. Each group had a facilitator whose role it was to guide the jurors without leading them down any one path. In an extended session on the Sunday, the jurors heard from and could question people who manage land (farmers, smallholders, etc.) or are responsible for governmental and private policy on land.

Those from the Scottish Parliament who ran the event had prepared well, notably in providing examples of the support given to agriculture and environment. Detailed case studies for Switzerland and Australian had been prepared as a base for comparison with the current (and the  future) position in Scotland.

The need for reliable information

It became clear over the weekend that a visiting specialist at an event like this needs to guard against personal opinion and bias. My view is that, despite irreversible change to land and vegetation since the retreat of the last ice, sustainable production is possible at the same time as restoring lost ecological function. ‘Sustainable’ here means continuing to produce food and other economic products from the land for a further few thousand years.

My (continued) view is that to achieve sustainable production needs major change, after which not all interests will be equally satisfied.  A more equal balance needs to be struck between the various outputs – drink and food, economic returns, soil and food webs, wider biodiversity and environment.

Agriculture has to return to producing most of the food eaten in the country, and this includes plant carbohydrate, protein and nutrients such as minerals and vitamins. Agriculture cannot do this alone – it needs buy-in from people, government policy and the supply chains that connect it with markets, retail and consumers. Food production has in the recent past come into competition with feedstock industries and has generally lost because cheap, plant-based food can be imported.  As a result, the country would last months maybe, probably weeks, in the face of any serious blockade or natural calamity that prevented food imports.

Summary of data sources with links

Any solution for the future needs to take account of many sorts of information – on crops and livestock, economics, markets and supply chains,  on soil and other essential natural systems and on impending change in weather, climate, international markets and food policy. To advise on all this needs not only active research into production ecology and economics, but also familiarity with a very wide range of background information.

The types of data that typically consulted and analyse are summarised on a separate page (3 below).  The data are held mainly on government web sites (Scotland, UK, EU, etc.) and are generally downloadable free of charge. One of the great benefits of the web is that such information is now accessible. When I started work on the Scottish scene 25 years ago, you had to be based near a good technical library or else buy or beg hard copy through the post.

Topics include: the general environment in Scotland; agriculture, land area and crop yield; land use and soil; economics, imports vs exports, EU subsidy and greening; inputs such as fertiliser and pesticide; greenhouse gas emissions, weather and climate; land ownership; natural environment and biodiversity.

Opinions given at the event were based on previous careful sifting and analysis of such information together with research on the historical trajectories of agriculture and land use (which are more difficult to quantify but are increasingly made available though online libraries).

What happened next?

The people running the event at the Scottish Parliament have prepared a report of the event, published on 11 July 2019 and viewable at this link:  Scottish Parliament Citizens’ Jury on land management and the natural environment.

A short film is available at this link: Citizens’ Jury on land management.

Contact: geoff.squire@hutton.ac.uk

Further pages

[2] Presentation by G R Squire at the Citizen’s Jury event 30 March 2019 (to be uploaded)

[3] Sources of information on agricultural census, land use, imports/exports, CAP and greenhouse gas emissions which outlines the range of data that should be examined before reaching conclusions of the current state of food security and environment.

[Article first online 4 July 2019, to be updated as new material becomes available; last update 5 February 2020 with new links at page 3]

web thoughts

From December 2016,  the curvedflatlands web site will offer facts, opinion and discussion on the topics of food security, sustainable agriculture and the environment.

Content will draw mainly on the activities and outputs of the Agroecology group in Dundee and its wide range of collaborations and contacts around the world.

‘Posts’ on this page will generally introduce a topic for discussion, which will then be extended, perhaps after some weeks, in the main Content pages, viewable from the top menu and from the right hand sidebar.

cf_vtr_sprmn_jd_750The site will promote the personal views and achievements of those who worked on these complex systems since the late 1990s, now at the James Hutton Institute, previously the Scottish Crop Research Institute. Further information can be found under ‘This site’ in the content pages.

Other parts of the site will highlight scientific results, the people involved and the major case study area of the Atlantic croplands.

The image is an etching by Jean Duncan title ‘supermoon’. For more on Jeans’s work, see her pages on the Living Field web site.