SUSTAINABLE FOOD SECURITY, WHATEVER THE WEATHER
Across Scotland, the UK and beyond, we are coming out of one of the hottest summers on record with record-breaking heatwaves and nationwide droughts. British farmers and the wider agricultural sector will look to put the challenges of this year’s summer months behind them as they work to recover from the devastating eects of climate change.
For the farming and agriculture industries, this barrage of extreme weather has had a drastic effect on output, yield and reliability. And these events are looking set to become more and more common. Extreme weather is no longer a once in a generation occurrence, rather these events are becoming almost predictable annual occasions.
The damage caused to crops and soil health could very well have a lasting impact and so alternative options will need to be utilised in the years to come to ensure food insecurity is managed and ultimately mitigated. If food supplies are to meet the levels that our ever-growing population requires, innovation is essential to ensure water usage is minimised and output is maximised. This is where vertical farming can support.
Many of the current issues posing a challenge to food security have come about as a result of an overreliance on imports of certain grains, fruit and vegetables that have been impacted by the Ukraine conflict and supply chain issues. Combined with the predicted increase in incidents of extreme weather over the coming years, we can no longer rely on traditional farming as our only means of food production.
When IGS was invited to present at Downing Street as part of the ‘Spring Showcase’ earlier this year, we spoke passionately to UK Government ministers about the benefits of vertical farming, taking the opportunity to call for crucial policy changes that could help counteract the impacts of extreme weather. These are also asks made as part of our submission to the Scottish Government’s Local Food Strategy consultation. We would like to see government, both here in Holyrood and in Westminster, encouraging greater investment in the indoor growing industry, support for growers struggling with energy bills, evolving outdated planning processes to speed up green agritech implementation and development, and finally urging the government to take full advantage of brownfield and vacant land to house vertical farming infrastructure.
Whilst vertical farming is certainly not a direct replacement for traditional farming, when used in tandem, the two growing methods complement one another with vertical farming able to reduce reliance on imported produce and also provide growers with a year-round reliable and weatherproof local source for seedlings. The precision-controlled environment of a vertical farm also means they can be deployed in both rural and urban settings too, cutting down food miles and minimising waste.
The discussion of food insecurity grows more important by the day, not just in Scotland but across the world. Global leaders must work in partnership with the agriculture industry to look at alternative technologies and impactful policy change that can provide the stability that the planet’s population requires whilst future-proofing it from the very real threat of climate change.
“The Scottish Government has a number of concerns about the UK Government’s Precision Breeding Bill and how this will impact devolved matters. The regulation of genetic modification is a devolved area of responsibility and the views of stakeholders in Scotland must be central to how those regulations apply to new genetic technologies such as gene editing,” the spokesperson added.
However, the government’s own former chief scientist does not think introducing gene-edited crops would lower environmental standards. Professor Glover, who was also chief acientific adviser to the President of the European Commission, told Holyrood: “I understood the Scottish Government want to see that agriculture is sustainable, and that we reduce as much as possible the impact on the environment of the use of chemicals and fossil fuel-based fertilisers. The more you can do that the better, and gene-editing offers the possibility to do that.”
Contrary to the government’s stance, she sees the introduction of gene-editing “as increasing environmental standards” by eliminating current practices that harm the environment.
Climate change is being already felt by Scottish farmers. This year, field scale vegetables were badly affected by the lack of rain. This led to SEPA suspending water abstraction licenses for the first time in Scotland. Policy manager at the National Farmers Union Scotland (NFUS), David Michie said: “We have been impacted in terms of vegetables. Farmers are just getting their heads around the kind of things that they need to put in place to mitigate this.
“New varieties of gene-edited crops are not going to solve this issue on its own, there need to be sweeping measures around water management infrastructure, a landscape scale approach to land management to retain water with trees and peatland.”
The Scottish Government’s position is very clear: they will remain as closely aligned to the EU on this matter and will move to bring in legislation if and when the EU does. Michie is concerned “that it is a political decision rather than a scientific decision”.
Glover agrees that it was a political decision, offering her perspective on the decision: “It is important in my mind to accept that it is valid for the Scottish Government to say they do not wish to have gene-editing because they are aligning with EU regulations. As part of the long game, they wish to become members of the EU again, and the easiest way to facilitate that is to keep all the regulations that are in their power consistent in the EU.”
However, Michie believes that Scotland’s lack of appetite to introduce legislation allowing gene-editing for breeding purposes would harm farmers in the long term. He said: “Realistically we need to get going now. Gene-editing is a transformative technology that speeds up plant breeding, and plant breeding takes a long time, depending on what you are trying to do.
“With the different challenges that we are facing and the different breeding objectives that scientists have got, it is important to get this in now, in order to shorten that time frame.
“Another massive potential disadvantage will be buying feed and selling things from south of the border. If plant breeders within the UK use the technology, and they don’t continue with the old technology, you could have a situation where the old varieties are only bred using gene-editing technology. The other varieties just won’t be available to farmers. There could be a two-track system for breeding crops.”
The UK Government believes that geneediting could “revolutionise farming”. A spokesperson points to the work being done in Scotland: “Some of the most important and exciting research here comes from Scotland and world centres of excellence like the James Hutton Institute in Aberdeen and the Roslin Institute at Edinburgh University.”
And there is concern that holding off on geneediting legislation could lead to the Scottish institutes losing out to larger global companies. Michie says: “We have world-leading research and capability on gene-editing with the James Hutton Institute. Big companies like Bayer or Monsanto sell the seed and the chemicals to grow it. An institute like the James Hutton Institute does not have that business model. It is just about breeding the best varieties that are available to Scotland, and the wider world,
“THE SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT WANT TO SEE THAT AGRICULTURE IS SUSTAINABLE, AND THAT WE REDUCE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE THE IMPACT ON THE ENVIRONMENT OF THE USE OF CHEMICALS AND FOSSIL FUEL-BASED FERTILISERS. THE MORE YOU CAN DO THAT THE BETTER, AND GENE-EDITING OFFERS THAT” THE POSSIBILITY TO DO - ANNE GLOVER
I think that would be a huge loss if they lose out on this.”
Glover adds: “I think it offers a tremendous opportunity not just in the developed world, but particularly in the developing world, where people do use agrochemicals in the production of crops, to prevent pests and disease because they cannot afford the protective clothing that we use in developed economies.
“With gene-editing technology they could safely grow crops, with higher yields and potentially better nutritional value with less input of chemicals, and possibly irrigation.
“If I were still chief scientific adviser to the President of the European Commission, I would be working as hard as possible to try to make the evidence as widely available as possible, to try and highlight the advantages, particularly around climate change issues and safety of agriculture, for government to consider gene-editing as a possibility.” •