The New Year is approaching and with it thoughts about the coming year. One of the challenges that I set over the Christmas break is to rummage through the piles of trade magazines that have come throughout the previous year. The number of these journals is staggering and I have to admit that some remain in their plastic wrapping. So this is an opportunity to review what I have missed and what might help in planning the future.
The common theme through 2015 has been doom and gloom for agriculture. Economic doldrums are not uncommon with farming but there has been a perfect storm of global issues – low commodity prices, uncertain weather, unstable currency to which are added withdrawal of chemicals, increasing bureaucratic interference and the many issues within the EU.
I would then add climate change to the pot. Of any this is becoming a risk factor that is truly focusing the mind. Degradation of soils; new pests; flooding; extreme weather events – soil management is a key aspect within the EU common agricultural policy reforms. Low returns for commodity crops have to be balanced with lowering costs, both fixed and variable. Technology is seen as a holy grail. Ever larger machinery capable of achieving greater work rates works on some soils, but not on all. Drones to film the worst spots for weeds across a field provide graphic evidence – but knowledge that possibly the farmer already knew from years of working the land. Deep ploughing is an expensive operation being replaced by minimum tillage and no tillage options. Given good soil and good weather these new systems work – but not all soils are the same, and the weather is certainly not a constant. So it is no wonder that these are becoming uncertain times if you are a farmer.
For Christmas I was given a little book written in the Ist century AD by a Roman – Columella. One of a series on farming it is still relevant today. His opening passage on soil reflects that “soil, wearied and exhausted by age-long wasting away and by cultivation over a long period of time, has become barren”. The need to feed hungry populations was as important then as it is now. Columella goes on to advocate the use of the deep plough pulled by larger more expensive cattle – contrary to other writers of the time advising small plough shears with smaller oxen. Even the Romans were reviewing their technology with reference to expense over productivity. Reviewing it against even more ancient Grecian muses that ” to die of hunger is the bitterest of fates”.
But is this historical reference relevant? It is because the one context which we have to solve is long term sustainability. Sustainability was recognised 2000 years ago as being essential to maintaining agricultural productivity. In the 21st century sustainability means limiting pollution and gaseous emissions driving climate change. Sustainability to reduce our demand on resources. I was shocked to read in the October 2015 edition of the Energy in Building and Industry magazine that the UK electricity system wastes £9.5 billion of energy before it reaches homes and businesses. Sustainability also then means responsibility. It makes short term economic sense because it can reduce costs – but it makes long term essential necessity because without it the future looks bleak.
Enough doom and gloom – its New year and a time to move forward. But if this is a time for optimism it needs to be tempered with reassessing what I am doing and designing my plans for the future with sustainability as a king pin in decision making. Not all plans are possible, but as long as there is progress and the progress has sustainability built into its thinking, then is should be good progress.
