FARMERS can save the environment without swapping their herbicides for hoes, says one of Britain’s most prominent conservation bodies. Scottish Natural Heritage says that salvation for the countryside lies not in organic farming, but in new technologies that enable farmers to use less pesticide and fertiliser.
Joyce Tait, the architect of SNH’s new technology-intensive strategy for making Scottish agriculture sustainable, estimates that 60 per cent of Scotland’s farmers will never switch to organic farming. The only way to make them “greener”, she says, is to persuade them to adopt technologies that save money and protect the environment at the same time.
“We are trying to say that you need not make your farm less profitable to save the environment,” says Tait. “We are saying you can be equally intensive, with yields per hectare that are just as high as before, but do less damage to the environment.”
The new policy is called “Targeted inputs for a better rural environment”, or Tibre. The idea is for farmers to adopt technologies such as sensors on spraying equipment that detect weed-free areas where herbicide is not needed. Farmers might also use data from satellites to pinpoint which parts of their fields need fertiliser.
Tait asked some of Scotland’s largest and most successful intensive farmers whether they would consider going “green” by adopting new technologies. “In general there was strong support for the aims of Tibre,” she says.
Some of the farmers had reservations about using biotechnology to make their operations greener. They could choose, for instance, to plant crops that are genetically engineered to obtain nitrogen from the air, which reduces the need for fertilisers, or make plants resistant to pests and diseases, which reduces the need for chemical pesticides. They said that they did not object to biotechnology in principle, but were worried that using such methods would alienate public opinion, says Tait.
SNH hopes that if larger farmers can be persuaded to adopt new technologies, others will follow. This would stimulate the development of new technologies that help farmers protect the environment. SNH hopes to convince other agriculture strategists, including ministers and officials, that Tibre can work. The first phase of the project has focused on arable farming. A second phase will cover animal husbandry and grassland production.
The Soil Association, which represents Britain’s organic farmers, says that the strategy is a “green con”, and claims that SNH should continue to encourage farmers to go organic. “It’s a shameful compromise,” says Robin Maynard, the association’s campaigns director. “They seem to be saying to the farmers – could you just turn your sprayers off a bit?”
Tait acknowledges that technology alone cannot make agriculture greener. “But you can improve the technology you’ve got, and you can’t do that by turning the clocks back,” she says. Also, she fears that a massive switch to organic farming would leave the country vulnerable to food shortages.
“It’s a vulnerable strategy to go all-organic, given that we may have to go back to intensification to reduce unforeseen food shortages,” says Tait. “If we had to do that with existing technologies it would be extremely damaging.