The Three Counties Agricultural Society recently broke new ground by organising its first annual conference, entitled Farming's Future - Food or Fuel. It attracted a large audience to hear two high-profile speakers, Sir Ben Gill and Lord Rooker, Defra's Minister of State in the Lords, speak on what has now become a very contentious issue.

Sir Ben began by expressing his concerns about the effect lifestyle was having on the planet. He explained that, currently, the world was using the resources equivalent to one and a half planets.

"One planet living should be the objective," he said. But he pointed out that vision was pitted against an increasing demand for energy and food products, exacerbated by population growth and the increasing wealth of developing nations such as China and India.

Turning to climate change, Sir Ben spoke of the deleterious effect of greenhouse gases and their effect on weather patterns. He explained climatic changes were not uniform across the globe and thought Europe would not be as exposed to the extremes, which would affect many countries. He said the changes were already compromising food production around the world, with water availability becoming the limiting factor, citing the Australian drought as an example.

Sir Ben said international grain stocks were now at their lowest for 30 years, due the combination of crop failures and the increasing demand.

This double whammy had led food price inflation on an unprecedented scale. The main reason was the doubling of wheat prices over the last year, with maize up by 50% and rice, the world's staple food, up by 20%. In China, food prices had risen by 18%, 13% in Pakistan and Indonesia and 10% in Latin America, Russia and India. Sir Ben said food shortages and rapid price increases could lead to political unrest.

Part of the rise in grain prices had been due to land being switched from food production to grow energy crops, especially in Brazil and the USA. When all the new bioethanol plants now being built in the US come on stream, it will reduce their maize exports to almost nil. That will have a further knock-on effect on world grain supplies and the price spiral. Sir Ben produced some comparative energy values between domestic burning oil and wheat.

They showed that at the time he spoke, with heating oil at 34p per litre, the equivalent price for wheat was £115 per tonne. But at that time, wheat was trading at around £170 per tonne and although it is predicted grain prices will come back from those highs, they will not go back to levels seen over the last decade. The likelihood of high grain prices persisting into the future had put several planned UK bioethanol production facilities on hold.

So what were Sir Ben Gill's solutions? He said the pressures for change were without parallel, we would need to learn how to adapt and take more responsibility for our own actions in dealing with waste and energy efficiency. We will have to embrace new technologies.

Sir Ben was highly critical at the lack of joined-up thinking by the government and criticised the lack of progress in the use of combined heat and power generation plants. He said: "We waste enough heat in our power stations to heat the whole country for free."

He was adamant we would have to utilise waste' for energy production, pointing out: "We only re-claim about a quarter of waste timber, the rest going to landfillwe have failed to recognise the enormous energy resource in waste materials and have failed to recognise the options for renewable heat."

In his concluding remarks, Sir Ben Gill said there would be tension between food and fuel and the big question was how the two options would interplay. He said: "There is no black and white and our leaders should start thinking about the situation."

Lord Rooker talked of the Climate Change Bill and the necessary policy changes that will follow in its wake if we are to take climate change seriously. In future he said land would become more important than just for food production.

It would play a much wider role, including the environment and its use for recreation, but to retain its features it needs to be farmed and sheep are an essential part of the hills.

When asked a question about waste, he agreed with Sir Ben Gill that we must make better use of it.