Michael Gove denied that British food production was neglected in the Agriculture Bill during a committee hearing in parliament.
Defra secretary Gove appeared at an Environmental, Food and Rural Affairsselect committee alongside farming minister George Eustice to face interrogation on the Bill, described by Angela Smith MP as the “biggest change in agricultural policy in 70 years”.
The Democratic Unionist Party MP David Simpson put to Gove and Eustice concerns from organisations such as the NFU that food production was underplayed in the latest bill.
Simpson said: “The UK produces 60 to 65 per cent of its food production and there’s no encouragement in the bill to increase, is there a reason the government is quite content to sit at 60 to 65 per cent?'
Eustice responded: “I don’t agree it hasn’t got enough about food production.
“Clause 1 is undoubtedly about agriculture payments for environmental goods but every other clause in every other section is about food production, improving transparency in the supply chain, powers to introduce mandatory contracts, intervention powers to stabilise markets. There’s a wide range about explicity supporting farmers.”
Responding to Simpson, Gove quipped: “I’m tempted to say Hamlet is all about Hamlet but he’s not there in the first scene.
“I completely understand. I think there are different ways you can measure the health of farming and food production. The degree to which we satisfy domestic demand is one, but also the degree to which we grow by meeting the opportunities new export markets provide is one.
“My view is that we want to have profitable farm businesses, but setting an abstract target about the domestic demand we ought to meet would be a mistake, but encouraging more profitability and productivity overall consistent with environmental outcomes is absolutely what we want to do.
“We are going to say more about a broader food strategy in the UK, with questions about food security and productivity and how the promise of technology can be addressed to provide farming with a healthy sector.”
Earlier in the hearing, Gove provided further hope to CRISPR and gene-editing proponents, saying he remained “open-minded” on the debate.
“One of the interesting questions I find on the ECJ gene-editing ruling is that it has been challenged by a number of scientific voices in this country. At the moment I have an open mind about what gene-editing might be able to provide in the future.”
Gove did assure however that he had “no intention of changing the rules that govern what we understand by existing GM methods”.
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