Warehouse Becoming Vertical Farms — And They’re Feeding New Jersey

Image from: New Jersey 101.5

New Jersey's vertical farms are transforming agriculture by helping farmers meet growing food demand.

New Jersey Agriculture Secretary Doug Fisher said that while conventional farming in outdoor fields remains critical, vertical farming has its advantages because of its efficiency and resistance to pests and thus less need for chemicals.

Vertical farming is the process of growing food vertically in stacked layers indoors under artificial light and temperature, mainly in buildings. These plants receive the same nutrients and all the elements needed to grow plants for food.

Vertical farms are also versatile. Plants may be growing in containers, in old warehouses, in shipping containers, in abandoned buildings.

"That's one of the great advantages — that we can put agriculture in the midst of many landscapes that have lost their vitality," said Fisher.

ResearchandMarkets.com says the U.S. vertical farming market is projected to reach values of around $3 billion by the year 2024.

The one drawback is that its operational and labor costs make it expensive to get up and running.

Image from: AeroFarms

In the past decade, however, vertical farming has become more popular, creating significant crop yields all over the state.

AeroFarms in Newark is the world's largest indoor vertical farm. The farm converted a 75-year-old 70,000-square-foot steel mill into a vertical farming operation. AeroFarms' key products include Dream Greens, its retail brand of baby and micro-greens, available year-round in several ShopRite supermarkets.

Kula Urban Farm in Asbury Park opened in 2014. Vacant lots are transformed into urban farms and there's a hydroponic greenhouse on site. That produce is sold to local restaurants.

Beyond Organic Growers in Freehold uses no pesticides and all seeds and nutrients are organic. There's a minimum of 12,000 plants growing on 144 vertical towers. On its website, it says the greenhouse utilizes a new growing technique called aeroponics, which involves vertical towers where the plant roots hang in the air while a nutrient solution is delivered with a fine mist. It also boasts that by using this method, plants can grow with less land and water while yielding up to 30% more three times faster than traditional soil farming.

Vertical farms in New Jersey help feed local communities. Many are in urban areas and are a form of urban farming.

Fisher predicts that vertical farms will be operational in stores and supermarkets around the state.

"It's continued to expand. There's going to be many, many ways and almost any area in the state has the opportunity to have a vertical farm," Fisher said.

Feeding Leeds: A Fair and Self-Sustaining Food System for the City

Image from: University of Leeds

A bold vision for feeding the population of Leeds would transform the city into a far more food secure, fair and sustainable place to live.

Analysts from the University of Leeds’ Global Food and Environment Institute studied the city’s food system to assess its resilience in the face of supply chain and delivery disruptions caused by severe weather, climate change and events such as the COVID-19 pandemic and Brexit.

The urban food system includes all the activities involved in the production, distribution and consumption of food within a city. 

They mapped and analysed publicly available data relating to agricultural production and human health in the metropolitan district and discovered that 48.4% of the city’s total calorific demand can be met by current commercial food production activities. 

This is relatively high for such an urbanised space, but there is little diversity in what is being produced. Three cereal crops (wheat, barley, oats) dominate the Leeds production system, reflecting a post-war food system that focused on energy supply. This means that most of the fruits and vegetables consumed in the city are transported in from elsewhere. 

The researchers’ findings also show that the most deprived areas of the district, which have higher rates of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease, are also likely to be the first to be impacted by supply disruptions. The resulting food shortages can increase prices, and people on low incomes may not have the option to travel to larger supermarkets or afford to bulk buy. 

The researchers say there are no quick and easy options for significantly increasing the security, fairness, or sustainability of the food system supplying Leeds. 

But they say the metropolitan district’s sizeable number of farmers, manufacturers, suppliers, and food services could all contribute to improving its food resilience by creating a system which provides easy access to healthy foods, shares energy, reuses water and nutrients and repurposes local infrastructure and resources. 

Caroline Orfila, who led the study, published today in the journal Food Security, is Professor of Plant Biochemistry and Nutrition in the School of Food Science and Nutrition. She said: “Our work demonstrates the inequalities in food production and dietary health. 

“The local food production system can only provide around 50% of the calories needed by the population, highlighting that ‘eating local’ is not currently possible for everyone. In particular, the local food system would not provide sufficient protein or fats. The lack of food diversity suggests current food production is also unlikely to meet vitamin and mineral requirements. 

“Any disruptions to food production, distribution or retail, from flooding, longer term climate change, COVID-19 or Brexit, is likely to impact those in deprived areas the most. 

“Disruptions tend to cause shortages in some food categories, which then increase food prices. People on low incomes spend more of their income on food; any increases in food prices will limit what they can afford to buy. 

“People in deprived areas have limited choice of where to buy foods, they may not have private transport to access larger supermarkets or access to online shopping. They may also not have the cash flow or storage space to buy items in bulk, relying on what is available. 

“Interventions are needed to level up those areas.” 

Researchers identified more than 1,000km2 of warehousing, derelict land, and unused floor space in abandoned buildings, with direct or possible connections to renewable energy and water. 

Half of this land lay near food banks, community centres and numerous food processors and outlets. 

The land could potentially be used for no waste innovative farming techniques, including vertical food farms, where crops are grown in vertically stacked layers; green walls, where plants grow on vertical surfaces, and rooftop agriculture, where fresh produce is grown on top of buildings. 

The study found that within the metropolitan district of Leeds there is substantial food activity with more than 5,500 businesses and charities supplying fresh and prepared food, including fast food providers, restaurants, and supermarkets. Some 23 food banks are located within the inner-city area. 

There are almost 100 hectares of allotment controlled by Leeds City Council, and approximately 39 hectares of private allotment and community growing areas in the Leeds Metropolitan District. 

Lead author Dr Paul Jensen, also from Leeds' School of Food Science and Nutrition at the University of Leeds, said: “We found there are numerous underutilised city assets that could be incorporated into a resource efficient urban food ecosystem, which could include a mix of vertical farming, hydroponics, or more conventional growing methods. 

“Most notably, many of these areas are within those suffering most from food poverty, diet related health issues and a limited intake of fruit and vegetables - those who are usually the first to suffer during a crisis situation.” 

The research identified locations for ‘food hubs’ that connect producers to consumers and discuss the need for a coordinated approach between producers, government, charitable groups and consumers in creating a more sustainable food system. 

The research was carried out with FoodWise Leeds, a not-for-profit campaign by Leeds City Council, the University of Leeds, businesses and charities to address food health and sustainability issues. 

FoodWise Leeds co-ordinator Sonja Woodcock, said: “This past year has highlighted how vulnerable the local food system is. Taking a coordinated approach and implementing available policy levers, such as including local food within public procurement contracts, increasing access to land for both commercial and community food growing, as well as investing in cooking and food skills will help to create a more resilient and fair local food system.” 

Professor Orfila added: “These findings are significant because it shows the vulnerability and inequality of UK cities and urban food systems. The situation in Leeds mirrors the situation in many other cities worldwide.” 

Professor Steve Banwart, Global Food and Environment Institute Director said: “The results of this study provide essential evidence to guide access to nutrition for the entire population. The project dramatically changes our view of what is a city and what is a farm and catalyses our partnerships to build a more resilient community.”

Further Information

‘Mapping the Production-Consumption Gap of an Urban Food System: An Empirical Case Study of Food Security and Resilience’ and is published on 8 February in the journal Food Security. It is available online here:https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12571-021-01142-2. 

For media enquiries, contact University of Leeds press office via pressoffice@leeds.ac.uk.

Could Vertical Farming Help Avoid Brexit Supply Issues?

Hydroponic Farming Uses Water Rather

Than Soil To Grow Plants

11 Dec 2020

By Fran McNulty

Agriculture & Consumer Affairs Correspondent

Ireland's network of disused mushroom houses could be the ideal infrastructure to develop a hydroponic farm system which could in turn reduce our dependence on imports of herbs, salads and small greens.

It uses much less water than conventional growing, a tiny amount of space and is immune from adverse weather conditions because it is indoors.

One farm in Tipperary has started the transition. Near Ballyporeen, one of eight mushroom tunnels is now converted into a vertical farm.

Brian O’Reilly had been growing mushrooms for almost two decades, but tight margins and an anxiety over the potential impact of Brexit made him change course.

"The risks were too high so we decided to step back. Tighter margins were number one and Brexit was the number two reason, and labour was a problem too," he said.

Now, he has turned to basil. His first crop will be harvested in the coming days and will be sold into the catering industry.

Mr O'Reilly said the process of growing herbs and small greens is similar to mushrooms. There is a cycle and within 32 days from planting a seed, the basil is finished.

It is grown in tiny pods on shelves with the roots stretching down to nutrient-rich water. Bright LED lights encourage the growth, as does hot air blowing into the tunnel.

A wind turbine nearby generates the electricity and a hot humid house means the plant thrive. But the lights are also powered down for hours in order to let the plants sleep.

It looks a million miles from any conventional farm. The tunnel is filled with rows of white plastic shelves, with tiny holes through which the plants appear. Water is circulating under the shelves and overhead there are strips of lighting; white, red and blue.

It is bright and humid with the constant hum of air being pumped in and there is a gentle trickle of water flowing through the system.

Farmony, an Irish technology company, has developed the technology being used in Ballyporeen.

It has built farms in several countries and said the system could make Ireland self-sufficient in herbs and small greens within a few years.

Farmony's John Paul Prior said the range of plants that can be grown is vast and goes way beyond herbs.

He said: "In Ireland, we grow between May and September/October. Imagine if you could recreate that perfect summer's day all-year round.

"That is what we are doing with controlled environment farming, so we could come close to self-sufficient with all your leafy greens, all your microgreens and all your herbs."

Ireland imports the vast bulk of those products and the development offers a huge opportunity to expand the horticulture sector in Ireland.

It is environmentally positive too. If mushrooms houses are used, it is utilising something that has limited suitability for anything else. Farmony claims that the system uses 90% less water than conventional farming methods and is pesticide free too.

The tunnel in Ballyporeen is part funded by the Department of Agriculture as a pilot project and Mr O'Reilly is already testing crops other than basil.

"We are growing microgreens, peashoots and coriander at the moment. We are experimenting with them, we can change our model at any time and grow to what the customer wants," he said.

"When you think of it, this basil which we are growing would normally be imported, sometimes from thousands of miles away, from Morocco, Kenya, Israel, Spain or the UK. We are replacing that. The food miles are being dramatically reduced and we can do it without worrying about the weather outside."

Abandoned mushroom farms are dotted all over the country. There were more than 400 growers at one point, now there are just a few dozen. It is a tight margin business, which is dominated by a few companies and is almost entirely export dependent.

Last year, Ireland exported €102m worth of mushrooms. Up to September this year, we exported more than €82m worth of mushrooms.

Any delays at ports after Brexit could have a huge impact on delivering fresh product to supermarkets in the UK. The possible imposition of tariffs is also an issue.

The Government wants to expand Ireland's horticultural offering. It is lower emitting than sectors such as beef and dairy and there is huge scope for expansion.

Often, our climate is an issue. We have a shorter growing season than other countries and they can also offer scale and a cheaper cost base.

There are some areas of Ireland which grow high quality vegetables, but it is a sector in decline over recent years.

The dominance of the big multiples as the primary buyers has tightened margins and many growers complain that the sector is controlled by too few buyers. Up to September this year, Ireland imported €146m worth of vegetables alone.

Its dependence on UK imports of potatoes and other vegetables could be a problem after Brexit, but it is something which the sector is aware of.

Farmony hopes that developing a network of vertical farms could dramatically reduce our food miles, reduce a reliance on imports and also create jobs and revitalise a declining sector.

View fullsize

UNITED KINGDOM: Bring On The Post-Brexit Vertical Farming Revolution

22 October 2020

View fullsize

Chris Davies

Chris Davies chief executive of Harvest London

As the UK and the EU stretch out yet another week of “will they or won’t they?” over a trade deal, like a painfully unromantic episode of Neighbours (no jokes about Australian models, please), businesses are not only trying to plan for what happens in January but also questioning how much we should rely on goods moving seamlessly in and out of the country. 

In relatively recent times, it was common to say that the internet and highly developed international supply chains had abolished distance. This was always an oversimplification — and at a time when the global business community is worried about trade wars and tariffs, it seems hopelessly idealistic. Borders are back and with them the possibility of big delays. 

Waiting an extra few days for your electronics or new shoes to arrive from China may not seem like too much of an imposition, but not all sectors are affected equally. One area where time and distance matter more than most is food — as I have discovered since starting a vertical farming company in East London two years ago.

Vertical Farming, where you grow indoors and control the environment — the temperature, light, CO2 — has been expanding rapidly in recent years. This has been driven in large part by environmentally conscious consumers attracted by the fact that it uses much less water than traditional agriculture, and no pesticides. These are very good points, but another factor is becoming ever more important: proximity to your customer.  

You’re probably aware that the UK imports a lot of the food it consumes. According to official statistics, just over half of the food we eat comes from our own farming and fishing industries, but this figure is much lower if you account for ingredients that are grown elsewhere and then processed in the UK. Should we care? After all, extensive consumer choice all year round is very popular.

UK supermarkets offer green beans from Kenya, cherry tomatoes from Spain, and pineapples from Costa Rica to customers because there is plenty of demand. Eating more seasonal British food is gaining popularity, but it seems unlikely our cosmopolitan tastes will vanish altogether.

That’s where vertical farming comes in. We like the variety of cuisines we can enjoy in London, particularly the little luxuries that have come to mean so much more as we’ve spent the last few months cooped up in our homes. The green curry takeaway that you look forward to all week wouldn’t taste as good without Thai basil, your Vietnamese Pho would lack something without fresh coriander.I mention herbs that originate from warmer climates in particular because, even though farmers do grow them in the UK, we tend to import them.

They are delicate, carry a lot of flavor in a small volume, and don’t grow very high. That makes them ideal for vertical farming — in our case in a converted industrial unit in East London, built with hardware from Yorkshire. Being able to put vertical farms close to city centers, near customers (which for us are restaurants), means the reduction in food miles can be massive: lower carbon footprint, and no customs forms to fill in or tariffs to pay. 

Vertical farming doesn’t compete with traditional farming, which will continue to produce the overwhelming bulk of food grown in the UK. Just as new technology, and new ideas, greatly increased agricultural production starting in the eighteenth century, so vertical farming can use technology to expand how and where we can grow the food we want, more sustainably.

Given the UK’s changing place in international supply chains, and the government’s desire to encourage British companies to lead in developing technologies, vertical farming is just the sort of industry we need.

Lead photo: Vertical farming can use technology to expand how and where we can grow the food we want, more sustainably (via Getty Images)

­US Farming Is Tasteless, Toxic And Cruel

View fullsize

By SHEILA DILLON FOR THE DAILY MAIL

19 September 2020 

And its monstrous practices have no place here: Radio 4’s veteran food presenter Sheila Dillon decries ministers’ dangerous plans

British farming and food production are a remarkable success story. In recent years, this sector has been at the forefront of a revolution that’s transformed the quality of our food — and acted as a guardian of our countryside.

Through the vision and dedication of our farmers, Britain is increasingly a global leader in animal welfare, environmental protection, and high standards of produce. Now all these achievements are at mortal risk. As we prepare to leave the European Union at the end of this year, our impressive agricultural system could soon be wrecked by ruthless competition and a flood of cheap imports.

The most serious threat comes from the U.S., whose vast and unwieldy farming industry is far less regulated than ours.

In the name of efficiency, it has built a highly mechanised, intensive, and shockingly cruel approach which keeps animals in conditions so appalling it’s hard for us in the UK to grasp. Meanwhile, an arsenal of chemicals that are banned here are also deployed on these poor creatures.

It is not the sort of produce that should be allowed to swamp our own. When Brexit supporters spoke of ‘taking back control’, they did not envisage the destruction of British farming caused by mass-produced goods soaked in chlorine and cruelty.

In an attempt to prevent this grim eventuality, a last-ditch battle is under way at Westminster aiming to establish essential safeguards in post-Brexit Britain.

As the Agriculture Bill — which sets out a new domestic, post-Brexit alternative to the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy — makes its way through Parliament, MPs in the Commons and peers in the Lords have tried to impose amendments to keep Britain’s high standards of animal husbandry and environmental care. So far the Government has rejected all such proposals. Desperate to reach a trade deal, ministers seem unwilling to block the hugely influential U.S. food and agriculture lobby from gaining access to our market.

Their argument is that, in the brave new world of deregulation, consumers will enjoy more choice and, crucially, will have access to ‘cheap’ food. But cheapness will come at a huge cost to our health, our countryside, our rural economy, and our animals.

The reality is that choice will be restricted — because British farmers and producers will find it impossible to compete. From the supermarkets to takeaways, this ugly juggernaut of American food will sweep all before it.

The Agriculture Bill is about to go to the final stage of its passage through Parliament. There is one last chance for legislators to stop a free-for-all from which our agriculture would emerge the loser.

As someone who has covered the food industry for 20 years presenting The Food Programme on BBC Radio 4, I am deeply alarmed at the prospect of the advances British food has made in recent decades going into reverse.

Before COVID, British food was flourishing as never before. I think of the surge in high-quality bakeries, of our farmhouse cheeses beating rivals across the world — we produce more than France.

Even McDonald’s UK now uses free-range eggs and organic milk and recently won an RSPCA award for its animal welfare standards. I need hardly say it’s not how McDonald’s operates in the U.S.

It’s all part of Britain’s deep and enduring compassion for animals. We have 25 million free-range hens here, more than any other country — and more free-range pigs than anywhere in Europe.

In frequent talks with farmers, I have been struck by how they see themselves, not just as producers, but as custodians of the land, a vital role they fill with imaginativeness in an age of mounting concern about climate change.

The U.S. farming model is completely different. Its aim is not to work with nature but to dominate it. Industrialised and chemicalised, the entire system is a monument to the denial of biology.

I am not in any way anti-American — I’ve lived across that wonderful country in Indiana, California, Massachusetts, and New York. I’m married to an American: my son and his family live in Pennsylvania.

It’s precisely because I visit regularly, and have seen at first hand the harshness of U.S. food production, that I feel so strongly.

The ‘chlorinated chicken’ has rightly become a symbol of U.S. farming at its worst, but few ask why poultry has to be washed in chlorine before it can be sold. It is because the birds are kept in such over-crowded squalor and so pumped with chemicals during their brief, unfortunate lives.

The same applies throughout American industry. Even the British Government’s farming Secretary George Eustice has admitted U.S. animal welfare law is ‘woefully deficient’. Pigs are reared in grotesquely inhumane battery farms. More than 60 million are treated with the antibiotic Carbadox, which promotes growth and is rightly banned in the UK.

Similarly, U.S. cattle are fed steroid hormones to speed growth by 20 percent — the use of such chemicals has been illegal in Britain and the EU since 1989. And as the cattle are kept in vast confined feeding pens, they need regular antibiotics.

Incredibly, some staff processing carcasses at huge meatpacking plants wear nappies because they are not allowed time off to go to the lavatory. In arable production, pesticides are used on a scale far beyond anything in Britain. In recent decades, the U.S. has banned or controlled just 11 chemicals in food, cosmetics, and cleaning products — the EU has banned 1,300.

View fullsize

Polar opposites: Cows in a British field, and in beef pens in Texas

In U.S. farming there’s almost no effort to mitigate climate change yet here the National Farmers’ Union is committed to achieving zero carbon production by 2040. What will happen to that commitment if cheap U.S. food floods in?

The U.S. genetically modified crops to be resistant to Roundup weedkiller — but after weeds grew resistant to Roundup and flourished, one U.S. farmer told me proudly crops were now engineered to be resistant to the infamous Agent Orange, a defoliant used by the U.S. military to kill vegetation in the Vietnam War.

Environmental devastation and health problems — including disabilities to as many as a million people — were caused in Vietnam by Agent Orange. Is this a road we want to go down in Britain?

The so-called cheapness of American produce is a delusion. These farming methods carry a heavy price in quality and health. A battery chicken is tasteless compared to an organic one, just as factory-farmed salmon has nothing of the flavour of wild.

Cheap, low-quality foods have brought with them disturbing health problems including obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.

The coronavirus crisis proved the need for resilient supply lines. But that cannot be achieved if we ruin our own domestic agricultural system and become reliant on imported food.

In World War II, when the survival of the nation was imperilled, the Government attached huge importance to domestic food output, reflected in the propaganda campaign ‘Dig for Victory’ and the Women’s Land Army. We need that collective spirit today.

It would be stupidity beyond measure to obliterate our farming industry for a short-term, unbalanced trade deal with the U.S.

A trade deal without agricultural safeguards would be a calamity for British farming and our prosperity. One in eight jobs in Britain is in food supply, while food exports brought in £9.6 billion to the economy. All that will be lost if cut-throat competition prevails.

And a vital part of our heritage will also be lost. From the robust imagery of John Bull as a yeoman squire to William Blake’s Jerusalem, with its evocation of our ‘green and pleasant land’, the countryside has always held a central place in our national soul. It must not be sacrificed on the altar of illusory cheapness or trans-Atlantic subservience.

Lead photo: It’s all part of Britain’s deep and enduring compassion for animals. We have 25 million free-range hens here, more than any other country — and more free-range pigs than anywhere in Europe

Sheila Dillon presents BBC Radio 4’s The Food Programme.

­US Farming Is Tasteless, Toxic And Cruel

View fullsize

By SHEILA DILLON FOR THE DAILY MAIL

19 September 2020 

And its monstrous practices have no place here: Radio 4’s veteran food presenter Sheila Dillon decries ministers’ dangerous plans

British farming and food production are a remarkable success story. In recent years, this sector has been at the forefront of a revolution that’s transformed the quality of our food — and acted as a guardian of our countryside.

Through the vision and dedication of our farmers, Britain is increasingly a global leader in animal welfare, environmental protection, and high standards of produce. Now all these achievements are at mortal risk. As we prepare to leave the European Union at the end of this year, our impressive agricultural system could soon be wrecked by ruthless competition and a flood of cheap imports.

The most serious threat comes from the U.S., whose vast and unwieldy farming industry is far less regulated than ours.

In the name of efficiency, it has built a highly mechanised, intensive, and shockingly cruel approach which keeps animals in conditions so appalling it’s hard for us in the UK to grasp. Meanwhile, an arsenal of chemicals that are banned here are also deployed on these poor creatures.

It is not the sort of produce that should be allowed to swamp our own. When Brexit supporters spoke of ‘taking back control’, they did not envisage the destruction of British farming caused by mass-produced goods soaked in chlorine and cruelty.

In an attempt to prevent this grim eventuality, a last-ditch battle is under way at Westminster aiming to establish essential safeguards in post-Brexit Britain.

As the Agriculture Bill — which sets out a new domestic, post-Brexit alternative to the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy — makes its way through Parliament, MPs in the Commons and peers in the Lords have tried to impose amendments to keep Britain’s high standards of animal husbandry and environmental care. So far the Government has rejected all such proposals. Desperate to reach a trade deal, ministers seem unwilling to block the hugely influential U.S. food and agriculture lobby from gaining access to our market.

Their argument is that, in the brave new world of deregulation, consumers will enjoy more choice and, crucially, will have access to ‘cheap’ food. But cheapness will come at a huge cost to our health, our countryside, our rural economy, and our animals.

The reality is that choice will be restricted — because British farmers and producers will find it impossible to compete. From the supermarkets to takeaways, this ugly juggernaut of American food will sweep all before it.

The Agriculture Bill is about to go to the final stage of its passage through Parliament. There is one last chance for legislators to stop a free-for-all from which our agriculture would emerge the loser.

As someone who has covered the food industry for 20 years presenting The Food Programme on BBC Radio 4, I am deeply alarmed at the prospect of the advances British food has made in recent decades going into reverse.

Before COVID, British food was flourishing as never before. I think of the surge in high-quality bakeries, of our farmhouse cheeses beating rivals across the world — we produce more than France.

Even McDonald’s UK now uses free-range eggs and organic milk and recently won an RSPCA award for its animal welfare standards. I need hardly say it’s not how McDonald’s operates in the U.S.

It’s all part of Britain’s deep and enduring compassion for animals. We have 25 million free-range hens here, more than any other country — and more free-range pigs than anywhere in Europe.

In frequent talks with farmers, I have been struck by how they see themselves, not just as producers, but as custodians of the land, a vital role they fill with imaginativeness in an age of mounting concern about climate change.

The U.S. farming model is completely different. Its aim is not to work with nature but to dominate it. Industrialised and chemicalised, the entire system is a monument to the denial of biology.

I am not in any way anti-American — I’ve lived across that wonderful country in Indiana, California, Massachusetts, and New York. I’m married to an American: my son and his family live in Pennsylvania.

It’s precisely because I visit regularly, and have seen at first hand the harshness of U.S. food production, that I feel so strongly.

The ‘chlorinated chicken’ has rightly become a symbol of U.S. farming at its worst, but few ask why poultry has to be washed in chlorine before it can be sold. It is because the birds are kept in such over-crowded squalor and so pumped with chemicals during their brief, unfortunate lives.

The same applies throughout American industry. Even the British Government’s farming Secretary George Eustice has admitted U.S. animal welfare law is ‘woefully deficient’. Pigs are reared in grotesquely inhumane battery farms. More than 60 million are treated with the antibiotic Carbadox, which promotes growth and is rightly banned in the UK.

Similarly, U.S. cattle are fed steroid hormones to speed growth by 20 percent — the use of such chemicals has been illegal in Britain and the EU since 1989. And as the cattle are kept in vast confined feeding pens, they need regular antibiotics.

Incredibly, some staff processing carcasses at huge meatpacking plants wear nappies because they are not allowed time off to go to the lavatory. In arable production, pesticides are used on a scale far beyond anything in Britain. In recent decades, the U.S. has banned or controlled just 11 chemicals in food, cosmetics, and cleaning products — the EU has banned 1,300.

View fullsize

Polar opposites: Cows in a British field, and in beef pens in Texas

In U.S. farming there’s almost no effort to mitigate climate change yet here the National Farmers’ Union is committed to achieving zero carbon production by 2040. What will happen to that commitment if cheap U.S. food floods in?

The U.S. genetically modified crops to be resistant to Roundup weedkiller — but after weeds grew resistant to Roundup and flourished, one U.S. farmer told me proudly crops were now engineered to be resistant to the infamous Agent Orange, a defoliant used by the U.S. military to kill vegetation in the Vietnam War.

Environmental devastation and health problems — including disabilities to as many as a million people — were caused in Vietnam by Agent Orange. Is this a road we want to go down in Britain?

The so-called cheapness of American produce is a delusion. These farming methods carry a heavy price in quality and health. A battery chicken is tasteless compared to an organic one, just as factory-farmed salmon has nothing of the flavour of wild.

Cheap, low-quality foods have brought with them disturbing health problems including obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.

The coronavirus crisis proved the need for resilient supply lines. But that cannot be achieved if we ruin our own domestic agricultural system and become reliant on imported food.

In World War II, when the survival of the nation was imperilled, the Government attached huge importance to domestic food output, reflected in the propaganda campaign ‘Dig for Victory’ and the Women’s Land Army. We need that collective spirit today.

It would be stupidity beyond measure to obliterate our farming industry for a short-term, unbalanced trade deal with the U.S.

A trade deal without agricultural safeguards would be a calamity for British farming and our prosperity. One in eight jobs in Britain is in food supply, while food exports brought in £9.6 billion to the economy. All that will be lost if cut-throat competition prevails.

And a vital part of our heritage will also be lost. From the robust imagery of John Bull as a yeoman squire to William Blake’s Jerusalem, with its evocation of our ‘green and pleasant land’, the countryside has always held a central place in our national soul. It must not be sacrificed on the altar of illusory cheapness or trans-Atlantic subservience.

Lead photo: It’s all part of Britain’s deep and enduring compassion for animals. We have 25 million free-range hens here, more than any other country — and more free-range pigs than anywhere in Europe

Sheila Dillon presents BBC Radio 4’s The Food Programme.