The spread of the so-called essential eight technologies â such as AI, blockchain, drones, and the Internet of Things (IoT) â to agriculture is leading to increased yields, lower costs, and reduced environmental impact. During the second agricultural revolution which was prompted by the industrial revolution; crop yields went up, fertilizers and pesticides started being used, and farm sizes increased. A new acronym was provided â Precision Livestock Farming (PLF) and the importance of ensuring that diets are absolutely specified for the farmed animals. It isn’t perfect – but we should never make the perfect the enemy of the good. Crops ⦠Similarly, farmers who have chosen to go organic can secure a premium in the market for their produce but their contribution to improving the level of organic matter in our soil also leads to more carbon sequestration and broader environmental resilience. The fourth agricultural revolution, much like the fourth industrial revolution, refers to the anticipated changes from new technologies, particularly the use of AI to make smarter planning decisions and power autonomous robots. But both the Chancellor and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury are committed to using that review to support growth, encourage technological innovation, demonstrate British leadership in areas of business excellence as well as spreading prosperity more equitably across the country. So just what does a fourth agricultural revolution entail? Improved habitats with more diverse wildlife – which are likely to attract tourist income to less favoured areas – are also a public good we could recognise. The growth in obesity, the acceleration in numbers of patients with Type 2 Diabetes, the spiralling in cases of diet-related heart disease and cancers, all require us to look at the impact of what we eat on how we live, and die. As a result of leaving the EU and its strict policies controlling the use of genetically modified crops and animals, the UK could open up to opportunities in gene editing, Gove suggested. But while Project Fear proved to be fiction, when we look at what a no-deal Brexit could involve we do need to be clear about the costs and facts. For some, the adjustment will be undoubtedly challenging. There are, of course, other key economic questions the food strategy must address. In both cases about 90% of that export trade goes to the EU. In our Agriculture Bill we make provision for payments to improve productivity specifically, to support collaboration and to help rural businesses cope with change. Embracing change, supporting reform is the key to unlocking the Treasury’s special box. So food security in the future should mean for example, returning soils to robust health, and improving their organic content. Ensuring that this fourth agricultural revolution is responsible is important. While consumers have enjoyed the benefits of increased efficiency in British farming why have farmers not reaped anything like the same benefits? We are also likely to see more and more of our need for protein met by aquaculture and cellular agriculture. ‘Never before has our industry been offered the World of Opportunity that presents itself here, before us, today.’. Data analytics, allied to sensors which monitor the health of livestock, will also allow us to develop the optimal environment for animals, helping us to get their nutrition right, safeguard their welfare and improve both dairy and meat production. It should also mean keeping pollinator numbers healthy and improving animal welfare and husbandry to minimise health problems and disease risk. Now of course with respect to future trade, we know that there will always be food, and materials required for food production, which we will have to source from abroad. What does the Fourth Agricultural Revolution Entail? In the middle decades of the last century, pioneering work by visionary scientists such as Norman Borlaug, whose granddaughter is with us here today, transformed the scale of food production worldwide. I want our Food Strategy to be ambitious, to ask big questions, to challenge lazy orthodoxies. And critically what do we think is required to make food production in this country truly sustainable? That in turn requires us to think about the role of Government in supporting all those who work and live in the countryside. Her report, which is a brilliant analysis of how to make inspection more proportionate, focused and effective, makes clear that outside the EU and the CAP we can have less onerous inspection, simpler regulation and greater confidence in the maintenance of high standards. But I want us to go further. The British Agricultural Revolution, or Second Agricultural Revolution, was the unprecedented increase in agricultural production in Britain due to increases in labour and land productivity between the mid-17th and late 19th centuries.Agricultural output grew faster than the population over the century to 1770, and thereafter productivity remained among the highest in the world. Now, we are on the verge of another revolution in how we produce our food. It not only gives us a 21-month transition period in which current access is completely unaffected, it also allows us to maintain continuous tariff-free and quota-free access to EU markets for our exporters after that, allows us to diverge from EU regulation in many areas after the transition; means that we will leave the Common Agricultural Policy and it also ends all mandatory payments to the EU. And if markets aren’t working because some players are operating unfairly or anti-competitively, then government should intervene. The Fourth agricultural revolution is a marriage between data, technological innovation with farming that will further transform the industry and help us to achieve a new level of productivity, quality, diversity, efficiency and environmental sustainability. And because we recognise that farming is a long-term business we believe these public goods should be paid for through multi-annual contracts. CRISPR-Cas editing technology has received significant attention in the agricultural sector, for its ability to help scientists make cuts at specific locations in a plant genome that introduce precise changes to facilitate crop breeding. While the EU have pledged to accelerate the process whereby the UK is recognised as a third country and we can continue to export food to their markets freely, all products of animal origin will have to go through border inspection posts and, at the moment, the EU have said 100% of products will face sanitary and phytosanitary checks. So today I hope to outline how Defra sees its role in the midst of this fourth revolution – with respect to all the areas for which the department is responsible – food, the rural economy, and our environment. Because the truth is as this conference designed to underline. As I said earlier, it would hit those who are our smaller farmers and smaller food businesses. British citizens have a wider choice of high-quality food than ever before and the cost of food for the consumer has fallen significantly in recent decades. A crude attempt to label certain foods, meat and dairy, as somehow inherently unhealthy does not do justice to the scale and complexity of the problem and neither does crude calorie labelling. Currently the world entering, or can I say has already entered, its fourth agricultural revolution which is driven by robotics. The fourth agricultural revolution supports the use of technology in order to promote sustainable farming. Agriculture â an undoubted pillar of the global economy, and the lifeblood of a country such as India (which ranks second in the world for total agricultural output) â is rapidly becoming one of the primary fields benefitting directly from advancements in technology. But the turbulence which would be generated by our departure without a deal would be considerable. We have already pledged to spend the same level on farm support in cash terms after we leave the European Union right up to the end of this Parliament. It is time to discuss the scary aspects with the same vigour as the exciting part. That is why we have secured a seven-year agricultural transition, beyond the 21-month transition period set out in the EU Withdrawal Agreement, to enable farm businesses to plan ahead. Leaving the EU also means we can end support for inefficient area-based payments which as we know reward the already wealthy and hold back innovation, and we can move to support genuine productivity enhancement – and also support public goods like clean air or climate change mitigation which stem from the improvement of soil health, the improvement of water quality and or the improvement of pollinator habitats. ‘We stand on the threshold of new horizons,’ Tom argued. There is a world of opportunity for British agriculture if we are prepared to embrace the opportunities that our policy reforms and the wider technological revolution can bring. The more information we have – and especially the more information an increasingly discerning public have when they make consumer choices – the better markets work. Farmers plan, invest and produce for the long-term. The fourth agricultural revolution, much like the fourth industrial revolution, refers to the anticipated changes from new technologies, particularly the use of AI to make smarter planning decisions and power autonomous robots. As John Varley of Clinton Estates observes: ‘These statistics would make most investors that are not looking for tax breaks steer well clear.’, If, however, we embrace the potential of the fourth revolution we can guarantee the future of the United Kingdom as a major global food producer; we can play our part in alleviating poverty and scarcity; we can replenish our store of natural capital, secure investment for the innovations in tackling waste, pollution and emissions which the world will increasingly need – and hand on both a healthier economy and an enriched environment to the next generation. These all generate public goods by adding to our carbon storage, boosting air quality, tackling global warming, and also improving water quality. 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