Welcome address given by the BCPC President, Hugh R Oliver-Bellasis FRAgS, at the BCPC Conference – Pests & Diseases 2002.

19 November 2002

May I welcome you all on behalf of BCPC to this the 36th BCPC Pests & Diseases Conference here in Brighton. It is a great privilege for me to have been invited to be your President at such an important and challenging time for agriculture.

When the two separate organisations dealing with ‘Weeds’ and ‘Pests & Diseases’ were formed, Europe was still re-building after World War II. Food shortage, rationing and possible famine were vivid memories and real threats. The UK still had ships, steel and coal. The suggestion of no seasons for a galaxy of fresh, cheap temperate and tropical produce being able to come from the other side of the world in 24 hours would have been dismissed as fantasy.

Europe’s aim, then, for agriculture and horticulture, was to secure and maximise food production towards self-sufficiency in Europe – hence the CAP instituted by the governments of the day. Science achieved this by providing powerful tools – pesticides and synthetic fertilisers. The foundations of modern agriculture were laid – food production dominated by skills of research chemists.

Today agriculture, or food production, is facing dire consequences, as national governments and their consumers take differing views about their industry, or more particularly food. Some recognise the importance of having an agricultural industry – some feel it is irrelevant and that food, or the raw material, can be imported. Some have overlooked the consequences of shortage and others have dismissed the value of downstream employment from agriculture. Most have dismissed the industry’s contribution to managing the countryside and its ecosystems.

BCPC has no national or international borders in its appeal or relevance – as the attendance here bears ample witness. Why is that? As the most newly arrived, it would be cheeky of me to be judge, but equally, for a moment, might I be allowed to speculate, as I may not yet be indoctrinated? I believe it is simple. BCPC brings together the best in the world to debate and discuss important matters of fact relating to agricultural production from a science base. Papers given at this Conference are held in high esteem and subsequently widely quoted from the printed proceedings.

Whether we like it or not, science has become discredited and the public, our consumer customers, do not trust the person or the findings. The public does not understand the need for plant protection in any shape or form and is persuaded by our critics, that those products are all bad, and more particularly, can be discarded and that sufficient food can produced without their use.

What does this mean?
It means that we now have to illustrate and explain better than ever before. Why? I see in this a central role for BCPC. It is independent and can enable and report the debate – as it has done in the past. It must state the facts simply and more clearly. The debate must be more inclusive, but no less informed. The suggestion that BCPC has been the ‘agrochemical industry at prayer’ must be met head on. But more importantly, our ‘member organisations’ must be prepared to team up with BCPC, so maximising our independence – an independence member organisations may lack, because they are perceived as lobby groups or commercially skewed, and thus in some way not trustworthy. The current debate over crop production using plant health products needs quality technical advice in layman’s language to inform and to parry the anecdotal assertions from single-issue organisations. The buzz words must be abandoned – for example 'sustainability'. That word is fashionable rubbish. There is s Scottish proverb, which is interesting “only dead fish swim with the tide.” If one means profitable say so – since profitability depends on unpredictable costs and prices – the future (which is what sustainability is all about) cannot be predicted. If one means not depleting natural resources, say so.

So why must BCPC change?
The industry is changing dramatically. BCPC established itself as the body that provided a forum for all organisations, and indeed individuals, with a professional interest in the science and practice of crop protection leading to better crop production and, most importantly, their consequences. It is important to remember that by ‘consequences,’ we mean not only environmental, but total impact – yes even perceived! That means consumers’ view about our production methods. In 1954, or indeed in 1967, when BCPC was born under the leadership of Sir Frederick Bawden that was relatively easy. But, today we cannot separate the science of crop protection neatly from the totality of crop production. In this ‘transparent decade’, there are a myriad of organisations, which all have views on agricultural production and its impact on the countryside. Some form their view from a position that boasts not necessarily having any experience of the industry. Our role is to inform that debate from a position of knowledge and experience.

Today we are experiencing a total lack of realistic policies for agriculture. These policies fail to achieve any consensus or popular support, emerging from the industry, trade associations or the administration either in the UK, or in Europe. This is in part due to the inconvenient, but inescapable, fact that there is no such thing as a typical region, typical farmer or a typical farm – or even a typical field. Many believe that care of the countryside and its ecological vault is simple. It is not. The interdependence of that ecological vault on the way in which we produce crops has only become clear in the last 30 years, largely as a result of ground breaking work by the Game Conservancy Trust (GCT), whose classic Sussex Study has demonstrated some of the perils of the indirect effects of herbicides and insecticides. These effects could never have been anticipated and no registration system could have predicted tests that would have avoided the damage.

The challenge BCPC faces
So, there are three major themes that BCPC must keep under continual review if we are to succeed:

1. The changing environment in which agriculture operates;
2. The huge advances in the complex volume of scientific knowledge and its availability;
3. The increasing concerns of the general public coupled with a greater desire for participation in policy formulation and its implementation – usually described as interference.

Our challenge is to use BCPC as a forum to demonstrate to the general public the value of agricultural production, including the use of crop protection. This does mean that BCPC will operate differently. It will mean that BCPC will have a wider remit and will work in partnership with others, using the views of its working groups to spawn informed public debate about contentious issues.

It means that BCPC must not be afraid to articulate the facts in simple ways so that they are understood. The science is vital, but confidence must be restored in the scientist. This demands the scientist taking responsibility for the explanation of his work. No longer is it good enough to think that someone else will explain your work to a doubting audience. We must take public opinion seriously, even when we think the opinion is ill-informed or deliberately misleading. We must be seen to be totally open.

That is the challenge for BCPC for the next three years. We have the expertise, the knowledge and the people. We must have the courage to drive change.

Hugh R Oliver-Bellasis FRAgS
BCPC President