The annual Forum for the Future of Agriculture has become one of the biggest agricultural conferences in the world. Last week it held its 13th gathering in Brussels.

Organised by the European Friends of the Countryside and the European Landowners Organisation, it has developed a range of associated organisations including its original main sponsor, the agri chemical company Syngenta, but more recently Microsoft, John Deere, Cargill, and the World Wildlife Fund among others.

It has always had a strong environmental emphasis, with overtones recently of an anti-meat agenda and a suspicion of science driven productive farming.

This reached a new hysteria this year with the Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans, the figure in charge of the Green Deal / Farm to Fork strategy making the extraordinary statement that “humanity is just another species“ and that the planet would be fine without it. So, at a stroke, the entire Judeo/Christian tradition that forms the basis for European civilisation was ditched.

Mr Timmermans went on to decry the present food system, the payment of 80% of CAP payments to 20% of farmers, the use of synthetic fertilisers and the growing of imported cereals for animal feed.

Other speakers

Other contributions varied from the German head of the UN’s World Food Programme acknowledging that there was nothing wrong with grass fed beef, but how beef is produced is important.

In a thoughtful analysis, the French head of strategy and policy analysis in the agricultural directorate of the European Commission acknowledged that food security had been delivered but had, over the last few years, disimproved and that there had to be incentives to restore soils and water.

At the end of a packed day, it was clear that there were basic differences in approach. There were those who were willing to be guided by science and the need to safeguard both food security and the environment.

And there were those who had a doomsday view of where humanity was headed and wanted the clock of what most people would regard as progress turned right back. One figure which amazed me was the assertion by the EU commissioner for the environment Virginijus Sinkevicius that 25% of the total greenhouse gases produced by agriculture came from the 3% of the land area that was made up of drained peatlands.