One of the most important debates in agriculture is about how well matched the numbers of people entering the industry are with the opportunities for good careers – and how the situation can be improved.
This is what led me to New Scientist Live, a huge showcase of the best science, technology, engineering and mathematics jobs on offer to young and old alike, held last weekend at ExCeL London.
Farming was at the heart of it, with the Farmers Weekly team out in force alongside a host of agricultural organisations to deliver the Future of Food & Agriculture exhibit.
See also: Editor’s view: Waiting for farm policy stability is a mug’s game
It was great to see our sector going toe-to-toe with other brilliant career paths such as medicine, aeronautics and energy.
We have a great story to tell about needing the best minds in agriculture to help keep the world fed while tackling climate change.
Sustaining future food production relies on many things, including a deeper understanding of the complexity of our soils and breakthroughs to further reduce the industry’s effect on the planet.
And we need more machines to fill the labour gap in sectors as varied as fruit picking and meat processing.
Proponents argue technology will replace today’s hard-to-fill manual labour jobs with tomorrow’s more lucrative and attractive engineering jobs.
If true, it is unfortunate that these solutions have not been fully realised, as home secretary Suella Braverman’s recent pronouncement that she would like migration to return to the “tens of thousands” makes an expansion of the Seasonal Worker scheme less likely.
This will be of little comfort to those who are seeing crops wasted for want of hands to pick them.
Productivity
What it boils down to is the amount of food each worker can produce that will end up on a shelf.
And there is tension about who benefits from improving that figure.
Is it a coincidence that the sectors that have done the most to chase productivity – horticulture, pigs and poultry – are now those struggling the most?
Businesses in these sectors have done magnificent work in past decades that has allowed one person to raise more and more crops or livestock, alongside other breakthroughs that have seen yields and output grow too.
This has been pivotal to holding down food prices, delivering choice and prosperity for the wider population.
There needs to be greater harmony between what is right for the consumer and what is right for the producer
At times farmers have made good money doing it, but they have also exposed themselves to price movements in more areas beyond their control – whether imported labour, imported feedstuffs or the interest rate on increasingly large borrowings.
Meanwhile, beef and sheep – often derided as the sectors that haven’t made much productivity progress and have seen lower profitability – are now looking stronger.
They are generally less dependent on external labour or lorry loads of inputs, and are often less heavily borrowed, with a weak pound making them export-competitive.
Yet, for all that, their market share among consumers has dropped, as their output is more expensive than white meat.
All segments of farming must thrive to keep Britain fed, and for agriculture to be a desirable workplace in the future, there needs to be greater harmony between what is right for the consumer and what is right for the producer.
