By Charles Bourns, Gloucestershire broiler grower
I have just been to the NFU AGM, my first outing since the operation, and as usual it was great to see so many old friends and to hear speakers that challenge what we are doing.
The speaker that really stood out was called Jack Bobo, an American who is now at Nottingham University. He was very optimistic about the future and gave us some very interesting facts. For instance our carbon footprint per person today is 5.5 tonnes per annum and that is as low as it was 150 years ago and in the UK it is still falling.
Obviously, the population of the country is greater, but it is a good news story, and who is telling us? No one. Modern agriculture has saved the need for one billion hectares of land to be put into agriculture because of improved performance. Again, it is good news.
What was however questioned was the approach of what the industry is doing today in the name of welfare. It is something I feel a few of us have been questioning. The introduction of the lower stocking density of 30kg could mean that chicken could end up being imported from, say, Brazil, meaning more of the rainforest will be destroyed to grow them as a consequence. So, whilst it looks good here from a global perspective it will achieve nothing. In fact, it could be worse environmentally.
We know as farmers that the welfare of our animals is not down to the system but down to the stockman looking after them. The new welfare demands are for marketing reasons and NGO pressure.
It adds costs, worsens our carbon footprint, increases the cost to the consumer and probably draws in cheap imports, thus making us less self-sufficient. But as I am not King Canute and as our industry’s success is based on giving the customer what they require we will plough on with the 30kg stocking density but not the slow growing chicken. After all, the poultrymeat industry is only following the egg industry which has gone to barn and free-range production.
The consequence to the other sectors of agriculture could be enormous, although I am told that the minimum till system tends to lower costs of growing cereals but also lowers yield and that with the loss of land to urbanisation, it will probably mean our ability to grow cereals will decrease. So if the poultry industry requires less, will it matter? Probably not.
In the USA they have lost 30 million hectares to urbanisation and questions are being asked about the future ability to produce enough cereals.
So all in all, it was a very thought stimulating AGM. We will square the circle as an industry. We have always done so. But perhaps we need to adjust it a bit before we go down a cul de sac.