Food for Thought

I had to check that it wasn't dated 1 April, when I first spotted this story.

It seems that two farmers from West Yorkshire plan to travel 30,000 miles across the Bering Strait in a converted Land Rover.

Ian Ashbridge hears from this year's Sentry Farming Conference

The key factor in demand for raw agricultural commodities worldwide will be how quickly the most deprived people in the world are lifted from poverty.

Nearly 1bn people in the world today suffer hunger or malnutrition, and yet the world's population is expected to reach 9bn by 2050, when most people will no longer live outside urban areas.

Professor Robert Thompson of the University of Illinois, believes that raising people's spending on food above $2/day will see huge demand for agricultural commodities.

He estimates that when populations gain enough wealth to spend between $2-$10 a day, they upgrade their diets to demand more meat, fish and dairy products.

Speaking by live video link from Chicago, he told farmers and rural business advisers at this year's Sentry conference that the next great leap in demand for food will come come by 2050.

More from Ian Ashbridge at this year's Sentry conference

What is it about the RSPB that raises such passions among farmers? No sooner had Mark Avery, director of conservation at the RSPB, finished addressing this year’s Sentry conference, than he faced a personal attack from one of his organisation’s own members.

Every time I come to America I’m amazed by how big everything is.

I’ve just arrived in Los Angeles to attend the 41st annual World Ag Expo next week, and it seems as though in California, size really does matter.

From the six-lane highways jam-packed with 4x4s, to the huge portions of food and the whopping-waisted locals I spotted from the taxi on the way to my hotel, everything seems to come in one size only – super size.

But the thing that surprised me the most was when I was in the aeroplane heading towards LA.

We had been flying over ice and snow for hours when the barren landscape suddenly became an enormous patchwork of ploughed land.

I’ve seen photos of up to a dozen tractors working a field at once, But I’d never realised how vast farmland in America can be compared to the UK - villages looked like specks next to fields which stretched over hundreds of acres.

California is key to the United State's agricultural industry. Farmers here produce more than half of the country’s fruit, vegetables and nuts on 100m acres of farmland, and about 25% of the state’s income comes from livestock.

Next week I’m hoping to meet some of the state’s 77,000 farmers. I’ll be visiting dairy units, looking at America’s biofuels industry and talking to farmers about the things affecting their farm businesses.

I’ll let you know what I get up to and who I meet on this blog, but in the meantime if there are things you’d like me to ask the people I meet, leave a comment below or email me.

Caroline Stocks - Business reporter

One occupation hazard in journalism is seeing old research figures being used by campaigning bodies to prove a point. But it seems to be getting out of hand.

First we had the Soil Association publishing a press release at the end of January claiming that new DEFRA-funded research revealed that salmonella levels are over five times higher in intensive eggs than those from organic flocks.

But on closer inspection, the claims were based on a paper published in Vet Record back in October 2007 from a survey carried out in 2004-2005.

A lot has happened since 2005 practically making the findings void. One notable change is that the egg sector is actively testing and monitoring flocks for the presence of salmonella under new zoonoses rules that came into effect on Feb 1. If found, producers face having to heat treat eggs before they can enter the food chain, resulting in intensive producers going to even greater lengths to eliminate salmonella.

And then BBC was at it on 6 February on its "BBC Ten O'Clock News" programme. The second item focused on “new” research findings that show that more than one-quarter of broiler chickens have difficulty walking as result of their high growth rates.

I’ve spent to the day having a sneak preview of the World Ag Expo before the gates are opened to visitors tomorrow.

The conference is spread over about 60 acres (24ha) of land, and with 100,000 visitors expected, its going to get busy.

Today though the exhibitors were busy setting up their stalls and cleaning their machinery, using so much polish that the smell of it hung across the showground.

I’ve attempted to take some photos of some of the machinery, which you can see in my expo gallery – apologies in advance if they don’t meet the usual FW standard, I’m the first to admit I’m no machinery expert!

I managed to chat to some of the exhibitors and had a look at some quite interesting new technology, including robotic calf feeders and a system that automatically cleans and monitors dairy units.

But while I was trying to learn about the technology and machinery on show, the exhibitors had their own questions.

These invariably rang along the lines of: “Are you from Australia? Oh you’re a journalist from England? I knew an Englishman once – Simon Jones. You heard’a him?”

The World Ag Expo opened today under a blanket of dense fog.

The expo ground is in the heart of California's San Joaquin Valley, and the surrounding mountains trap so much moisture that some days during winter the fog's so thick that it’s impossible to drive anywhere – something that would clearly be a disaster to this machinery-loving town.

It was quite sinister to wander around the showground and see enormous tractors loom out of the fog less than a few feet in front of you. And this seemed to happen every few steps.

As one farmer said to me, it may billed as a farming expo, but in reality it’s an enormous showcase of machinery stretching from one side of the 60 acre ground to the other.

While I recognised most of the names and machines on show, there were quite a few things that I had never seen before because they’re not used in the UK.

Cotton strippers, grape pickers, almond harvesters and tomato pickers were lined up, looking as alien as a row of Transformers.

Yesterday I finally got the chance to see some real Californian farmers in action.

I drove about 40 miles into the Tulare Valley to a place called Kerman to visit Organic Pastures dairy.

The dairy is one of Tulare’s 59 organic farms, and is home to about 10% of the county’s 4200 organic dairy herd - a pretty unsubstantial figure when there are 400,00 cows here.

The Jersey-Holstein cross cattle at Organic Pastures are grazed purely on open pasture, and are milked up to four times a day on a 15 point portable milking parlour.

I’ll be writing more about the farm for the Livestock section of Farmers Weekly in the next few weeks so I won’t share too much here, but I thought it was interesting that the milk from Organic Pastures is sent not only to local supermarkets, but to customers across the country.

And the reason people are willing to pay to have their milk sent across an entire continent? It’s unpasteurised.

I’ve written about America’s growing love for unpasteurised milk before, and the fact that in many states drinking the stuff is actually illegal.

According to the lady who showed me around the farm yesterday, the way Organic Pastures overcomes the issue of selling unpasteurised milk is to label it as pet food.

“Once it’s in a customer’s home, it’s up to them what they do with it,” she said with a wink.

This is all very well, but Organic Pastures doesn’t just sell plain unpasteurised milk.

In the farm’s shop there is also unpasteurised chocolate milk, strawberry milk and cheese.

I may be wrong, but I can’t imagine there are many people out there who can claim their dogs and cats require a regular delivery of that stuff.

Last night I managed to acquire a ticket for an event described by its promoters as “and all-American sport” and described by my hotel porter as “a buncha hollerin’ red-necks an’ their machines”.

The West Coast Tractor Pull Finals had been advertised at the World Ag Expo here in California all week, and having seen some of the monster tractors at the show, I felt I had to go along to the finals to see them in action.

Heat. Dust. Noise. Fatigue. I’ve only been in Africa for 24 hours and I’m getting to know all four a bit better.

Temperatures of more than thirty degrees centigrade met a man who’d left Gatwick on one of February’s meanest mornings, and a light breeze soon gave way to a blistering midday sun.

I’m writing this from The Gambia, a tiny wedge-shaped country in West Africa. It’s half the size of Wales and surrounded on three sides by Senegal and by the mighty Atlantic on its fourth.

I’m here with a charity called Concern Universal, to look at how they’re helping farmers here develop better access to markets and avoid the effects of cheap imports.

They certainly need it. This is one of the poorest countries on earth, placed at 155 in the UN’s poverty index, which only goes as far as 172. Half the people live on less than 50p/day. Life expectancy is 57.

My hometown of Marlborough, in Wiltshire has links to the Gunjur region of the Gambia. So it was a real treat to come and meet people here.

With me is Mr Sandan Bojang, the area leader to rural development agency TARUD. We’re at a 2.5ha market garden at Sanyang village, run collectively by women – men only tend bigger field crops like groundnuts and rice.

This is one of the many womens’ gardens to benefit from the work of Gambia is Good, a marketing organisation set up in partnership with international charity Concern Universal. It helps small farmers and growers find a route to market for their produce and avoid the cheaper imports by directing its efforts at Gambia’s tourist hotels, bypassing middlemen and passing returns directly back to producers. This allows the women to save money through local credit unions.

There have been rumours about Prime Minister Gordon Brown making an appearance at the NFU Centenary Conference for a couple of weeks - but as ever when a PM is involved, getting a definitive answer is impossible because of security reasons.

But having just arrived at the event it is looking like it will happen. It says so in today's Guardian (so it must be true!) Perhaps more tellingly, the notes for tonight's black tie dinner make it clear that you won't be allowed entry without a 'dinner ticket'.

When Mr Brown does arrive, the big question is how he will be received. Remember the Women's Institute?

When I found out I was going to visit a 2000-cow dairy, the last thing I expected I’d compare it to was my local branch of the Body Shop.

The final day of the World Ag Expo in California, I headed about 40 miles in the opposite direction from the farm I visited the previous day, towards the slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

My route saw me take in more of the region’s farmland – fields of neatly aligned peach trees, walnut and almond trees stretching for acres, and thousands of orange trees.

When I arrived at Fletcher Dairy, it quickly became obvious that farm owner Ed Fletcher, like many of the valley’s other dairy farmers, uses this local produce on his farm.

As well as silage cut from hay and alfalfa, feed also includes almond husks, orange liquor and orange peel, giving off a sweet, fruity flavour across the farm that smells more like bubble bath than cattle feed.

The nut husks come from local nut-shelling factories, while farmers take orange pith and liqour from local citrus pressers.

“These ingredients would only be thrown away by the processors, so in reality we are doing them a favour,” Ed explains. “Plus it adds moisture to the feed, which is much needed in this region because it gets so hot during the summer that it’s easy for the cows to become dehydrated.”

But perhaps one important factor Ed was overlooking was the scent.

A five hour coach journey from the World Ag Expo in Tulare, and I’m back in Los Angeles, with just enough time to look around before my plane back to the UK leaves.

LA pretty much fits every stereotype I’d ever held about it – from the primped and preened inhabitants (my hotel is sandwiched between a beauty spa and a plastic surgeon’s consulting room) to the enormous homes of the rich and famous (in case anyone’s interested, Phil Collins lives in a mock medieval castle surrounded by palm trees – proof that money doesn’t necessarily buy taste).

I spent the day following my guide book to see all the touristy things, but there were two things it suggested which surprised me – the West Hollywood and Santa Monica farmer’s markets.

Opening speeches at conferences can be pretty lacklustre - little more than a plea for you to turn off your mobile and run if the fire alarm sounds.

But Peter Kendall's opening speech at the NFU Centenary Conference was wide-ranging and certainly seemed to go down well with his audience.

Here it is if you want it in full:

The issue of bovine TB is always top of the agenda at the NFU Conference and this year is no exception.

But what is new is the level of frustration at what farmers see as a lack of action by government.

DEFRA secretary Hilary Benn was heckled by an audience member as he tried to answer questions about the government's strategy on TB. There were also some low-level jeers as he explained that he had to consider the "public acceptability" of sanctioning a badger cull.

It would seem that farmers are no longer prepared to hold back when it comes to explaining the problems they are facing because of bovine TB.

There's one question that the audience at the NFU Centenary Conference is struggling to answer.

Is it good or bad news that Tesco boss Sir Terry Leahy has taken a tumble on the ski slopes and so won't be able to address conference later today?

NFU president Peter Kendall joked: "I wonder if during a bit of apres ski he ran into a group of disgruntled poultry producers who managed to do more damage to his ribs than any skiing accident..."

Here it is.

The Tory leader's speech in full:

“I’m delighted to be here on the one hundredth anniversary of the National Farmers’ Union.