The Big Picture

What use is the greenbelt?

Tony Stace is joining The Big Picture's bloggers. He works at Nottingham University and lives in the Gamston area of Rushcliffe.

As part of the ‘Big Picture' debate we are being asked to comment on whether or not the greenbelt that occupies a significant part of Rushcliffe should be used in any future expansion in housing or for the location of a new football stadium. It is perhaps useful therefore, to enquire if the greenbelt has function other than providing a nice green space for wildlife and walks between the towns and villages that form Rushcliffe. Using my own back yard as an example, anyone crossing the A52 from Gamston and walking down either the Grantham canal towpath or Bassingfield Lane, will see almost immediately that much of the land is in continual use for growing crops - wheat and oilseed rape in the spring and summer, and winter greens from the autumn onwards. In the recent past sheep have grazed on some of the land and a new attraction has been cattle. Little of the land in this area lies fallow for significant periods of time.

As a result of these observations (and similar evidence of farming activity can be found across much of Rushcliffe), we might want to ask the slightly more relevant question ‘should we build a stadium and houses on land that is used to grow food'? To see the significance of this statement, we have to make a slight deviation and look at the ‘even bigger picture' that is part of the food supply chain. A number of recent debates in government and environmental circles have been concerned with ‘food security' - how can the UK guarantee the future supply of staple foods? As an example of our dependence on other countries for basic food - we were until recently self-sufficient in milk, but now have to import 1 million litres per day to meet demand, and it is predicted that by 2011 there could be milk shortages. As an example of what can go wrong, recent heavy rain in Brazil has disrupted the production of sugar, and there is a distinct possibility that the USA will actually ‘run out' because there is insufficient sugar available on the world market for it to import. Problems with sugar supplies in India have not helped the situation. As a consequence of all these events the cost of sugar has doubled, which means not just more expensive chocolate bars, sugar is used in most of the tinned and convenience foods we buy; hence their cost is also bound to increase. Given just these two observations, it is not difficult to imagine a situation where the bit-by-bit removal of farm land across the UK begins to work against the need to achieve self-sufficiency in basic foods. A government initiative ‘Land Use Future' is currently examining these issues.

As ever, there are alternatives to the above state of affairs. We can hope that Genetic Modifications will produce significant improvements in crop yield, meaning that we can manage with less land. Likewise, we can increase the use of fertilisers, herbicides, and pesticides in order to extract more from the land we have. However, GM is an on-going and quite separate debate and, apart from problems of contamination, diminishing oil supplies will lead to substantial increases in the cost of fertilisers, herbicides etc. Therefore, it is inevitable that if we gradually chip away at those parts of the greenbelt that are actively involved in food production then the cost of food will increase. Rushcliffe might seem a million miles away from the sugar cane fields of Brazil, but I can't help thinking that, given recent events, one or two farmers in the region might be giving sugar beet a second glance. Every council has a responsibility to look beyond its immediate boundary and to consider all the needs of future generations, and Rushcliffe cannot be an exception.

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