Nicholas Drake

09 May 2000

Farming has its roots within every single developed and undeveloped country in the world. Whether we take a European industrialised country that now enjoys an 80-90% employment within the tertiary and quaternary sector, through past experience and reviewing it’s history we would uncover a past centered on farming and agriculture. This dependency on the physical environment for agriculture has of course changed over the past 50 years and in this essay I hope to examine the effects that this has had on both the physical and human environment.

Subsistence farming has it’s origins within Britain with farmers providing for their family and no-one else, however since 1945 and up to 1980 however farming within Britain became capital intensive. This in laymen's terms translates to farmers yielding more from their land than before. This was achieved through the introduction of pesticides, animal feeds, hormones and fertilisers to maximise crop yields from relatively small areas. More recently however through biomedical research a farmer is no able to plant genetically modified crop strains to his fields which are specifically coded to yield greatly without the worry of intervention from pests, drought or other disruptive means.

Whereas in the past farmers would be dependent on mother mature bringing suitable weather for farming and the process of generations of cows and pigs replacing each other, now we can adapt the crops to suit varying weather conditions and artificially breed cattle if numbers are short. By computer controlling breeding and feeding environments with controls of heating, lighting, and feeding regimes, output can be maximised.

This does of course carry ethical questions of human behaviour, for example should we breed cattle inside in an artificial environment with no contact to natural light? Should we be able to modify what crops we grow with no regard for nature and her control? Is it right to assume the role of god in adapting the environment to make money?

Many may say that breeding a few cattle under artificial light or making crops more ‘efficient’ through science can do no harm or could not possibly affect our livelihood. What right do we have as members of a diverse food chain to alter and influence the physical environment for other species?

How can we know what affects these hybrid genetic crops will have on our lives in the long term? Recently, Mad Cow Disease which shows itself within humans as CJD or Croitsvelt Jakov Disease was only discovered three years ago but this was after feeding cattle up to a period of over twenty years ago. The affects may be scientifically proven to have no harmful effects upon humans in the short term but the effects however in the long term could be catastrophic if any symptoms arise. Already over 85% of our supermarket goods contain GM (Genetically Modified) foods which within Britain alone would mean an epidemic that could affect over 55 million people.

Agricultural intensification was made possible with advances in technology and specifically advances within robotics and machinery. This mechanisation known as the Green Revolution within agriculture saw the replacement of manual labour by machines.

See below.

This increase in machinery made it far easier to distribute pesticides and fertilisers quickly and efficiently over large areas. This also made it quick, easy and most importantly more cost efficient to plant, spray and harvest huge monocultures.

Harvesting machinery tended to be specialised to one crop and consequently after investing huge sums into specialised machinery, farmers tended to specialise in one crop.

This subsequent specialisation encouraged farm amalgamation to take place as farmers only harvested one crop and their machinery was getting bigger, better and more efficient and so farm sizes increased rapidly.

Farms within England specifically exploded in size, see below:

• Farms below 20 Hectares = -66%
• Farms between 20 and 100 Hectares = -41%
• Farms above 100 Hectares = 113%

This meant that small farms were being bought by larger farmers in a process known as amalgamation and subsequently this diminishing number of farmers were operating on increasing plots of land.

Computers and machinery replaced men and consequently, the number of people employed in agriculture fell by 74% in half a century.

Declining agricultural employment contributed to rural depopulation, especially of young people who had no skills other than farm labour. This has a knock-on effect within rural communities as thousands suffered from economic collapse and moved elsewhere. Mechanisation also lead to the destruction of hedgerows, walls and ditches:

Large, expensive machinery could only be cost efficient when it was doing the job is was bought for and therefore turning corners to avoid the aforementioned items was slowing production and so huge farms were created with no concern for the environment.

This resulted in:

• Less habitats for insects, birds, small mammals and plants.
• Increases in soil erosion as average wind speed increased and root binding of hedge plants decreases.
• A reduction in the aesthetic quality of the landscape.

Heavy machinery may also lead to soil compaction, reduced infiltration and a further increase in soil erosion.

Intensification has meant that a huge increase in the use of artificial fertilisers such as nitrogen and phosphorus.

This increase in use of chemicals within agriculture has lead to increasing nitrate concentrations in groundwater supplies. The maximum allowable by the EU within the UK of 50mg/litre has been exceeded. This would then pose a great ecological effect to the ecosystem affected within this water cycle, and also could flow into water supplies and cause blue baby syndrome or, if they are converted to nitrates, stomach cancer. Both nitrates and phosphates contribute to the increasing problem of eutrophication, the excess nutrient enrichment of water. Eutrophication is characterised by algal blooms which, although providing some oxygen by photosynthesis, effectively block light to lower depths hence reducing the number of macrophytes. When both macrophytes and algal blooms die they are broken down by aerobic bacteria which use up the oxygen which is why there is such a high BOD (Biological Oxygen Demand)

The 1947 Agriculture Act which aimed to increase self-sufficiency in basic foods. To do this, two main measures were introduced:

1. Guaranteed Prices. Farmers were offered a guaranteed price for their produce such as beef, milk, and cereals. Sold to the consumers at varying prices, the government would then make up the difference. This would encourage specialisation and intensification.
2. Grants and subsidies. Grants were used to purchase new machinery for use in specialisation farming. Grants on for example nitrate fertilisers encouraged intensification. Britain joined the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973 and immediately began to benefit from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The main aim of the CAP was to protect member countries from cheap imports from other countries. Surpluses of foods developed however and in 1992 there was a very serious problem with overproduction and increasing subsidies that were paid to farmers. This is shown below:

These surpluses were then stored, exported or even destroyed. We had until 1992 a situation within the EU of overproduction and then subsequent destruction of these surpluses even when over 70% of the world is desperate for more food. Once again a question of human ethics, however this time we are not presiding over humans influence on animals but how we treat our foreign neighbours.

By 1990, 48% on average of each farmer’s income came from the EU. In extreme cases where land was designated Less Favourable Areas the farmers could expect up to 87% of their income to come from the EU.

The CAP accelerated the emergence of agri-business, where ever-increasing production meant ever-increasing profit and this both penalised the small farmer through amalgamation and the business ownership of farms. Family farms who were personally concerned for the environment and it’s indigenous wildlife were been bought up by huge farm businesses whose only concern was the increasing size of his farm and the reduction of costs, namely through reducing hedgerows, reducing woodland, the use of GM crops, pesticides etc.

This expansion in farm size and the greedy need for increasing profit margins lead to the cruel destruction of habitats as shown below:

By the mid 1980’s it had become very apparent that 40 years of intensive farming had caused serious harm to the rural landscape, to rural employment and to a wide range of indigenous wildlife.

The CAP was reformed in 1992 and within this ‘new’ CAP there was much more focus upon the aesthetic needs of the physical environment. All member countries had to implement some of the following reforms designed to encourage environmentally sensitive farming:

Farmers would be paid a set amount to keep a plot of land set-aside in an effort to encourage nutrient regeneration. Although not superbly effective in the short-term, with the introduction of flexible set-aside came the expected improved habitat provision on farmland.

Within the EU there are 22 designated ESA where farmers are compensated for using traditional practices which help to maintain the traditional landscape. Walls, ditches, hedgerows and barns must be maintained. Fertilisers and pesticides are strictly limited as well as limiting animal movements.

Farms in areas overlying aquifers are compensated for using less nitrate and for restricted ploughing of the farmlands. The EU limits for nitrates in drinking water are regularly exceeded in East Anglia

This is run by the Countryside Commission, and aims to conserve but increase public access to particular habitats such as limestone grasslands

Farmers would be offered grants if they were prepared to convert to organic farming and who therefore do not use any fertilisers or pesticides

Farmers outside any ESA schemes would be offered to reduce for example sheep stocking thus allowing the restoration and conservation of moorland

Farmers would be offered payments for the restoration of habitat restoration schemes, e.g. Hedgerow restoration.

Changes in the nature of the farming have taken us in a full circle. For example within the UK we have gone from a small farm conserving the needs and respecting the environment to mass production, over production and now back again to conservation and respecting the environment.

Farm diversification in an effort to take pressure off the land for intensive farming seems to be heavily concentrated on tourism which would bring a variety of both benefits and problems for the rural population, something that will further add to the problems of farming in Britain today.