The Scientific Advisor joins Dennis Avery of the Hudson Institute whose analysis of world food supply has been widely reported (Practical Farm Ideas - Winter 2005-6). Avery has forecast supply problems due to the increasing demand for a better diet from huge populations in China and Asia , a lack of additional cropping land, the growth in industrial crops, and a plateaux in production. He told the Oxford Conference in 2006 that one extra beer each week for the 500m adult men in China equals 3.25bn gallons, or 1 million extra tons of grain. Their need for the extra beer is not far away.

Prof Beddington talks the same walk and maps out a critical role for agriculture and therefore, farmers.  Yet he needs to start by looking at the recent history of the industry. We've been decimated.

Dealing with a grim decade

Some of the facts:

1. the last decade in farming has seen producers destroyed by aggressive markets. They have gone out of livestock and into habitat, moved from mixed cropping to combinable crops crops only. They've given up and let the land to contractors, built theme parks, opened shops... anything to get away from the regular market. Cereals, meat, milk, vegetables... they all have been produced without farmers making a profit.

2. the industry has lost a generation of farmers - young people have disappeared to be postmen, truck drivers, policemen, taking jobs with limited pay but these have been riches in comparison to the rewards from farming.

3. farming has lost much of its educational facilities. With so few people interested in working in the industry its hardly surprising that agric engineering courses have changed to motor racing, and livestock courses involving cattle and sheep have changed to equine. Just a handful study agriculture at university. Compare these numbers with medical students, journalists, web site designers. Everyone needs food.

Farming has struggled on since the 1980s, reliant on the the lack of mobility of older farmers who have no chance of moving to other jobs and, in any event, are wedded to their businesses whatever the economic situation. Farmers have relied on the Single Payment for survival. Their average age is over 60.

This needs to be the start of our reply. Peter Kendall from the NFU, on the radio at lunch time, stressed the role and capability of farmers in providing both food and industrial crops. When asked whether this meant farming would be increasingly intensive, he provided an excellent reply about farm technology, but failed to make the point that this was only relevant to an industry which was financially viable. It certainly appeared as if the Professor and the NFU president were sharing the same hymn sheet.

If the Professor believes food and farming to be critical to society in the next 20 years, he will need to understand the recent past. It's been a time of growth for regulations, and the number of inspectors and administrators involved with them, but not for income or investment. A time when supply contracts have been written and rewritten to favour the buyer over the producer - contracts which provide the buyer with all the cards.

The need for more than a review

Peter Kendall of the NFU needs to remind him, and the public, that farming has been left in a very weakened state. The industry needs some confidence, long term commitment, and, before it embraces initiatives to invest more. We don't need a review, inquiry or commission, though this is what will happen. We need some positive practical action, on contracts, red tape and restrictions. We also need to understand that progress is more than a new tractor or 4x4. There is a huge gap between the efficient and the less efficient, and there's a vast amount of untapped practical knowledge on farms up and down the country. Methods that make savings, ideas that save time, add to farm safety, ways of reducing capital expenditure.

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Best wishes, Mike Donovan, editor