Our food industry has lost its resilience

MOST people in this country would have assumed there was a clear connection between farming and the frozen peas they regularly enjoy as part of a meal.

They may not have realised, however, that there is another, slightly more complex one, in that the dry ice used in home deliveries of frozen foods comes from the CO2 which is a by-product of farm fertiliser manufacture.

Not until the last few days, that is. But in the space of a week a lot of consumers have come to understand that inter-relationship and probably, as a result, have become rather nervous about future food supplies.

Despite the fact that I hold a pretty low opinion of this third-rate Government I have to applaud it for stepping in to apply a quick financial fix to restart fertiliser production – and secure in the process vital supplies of CO2.

As late as last weekend there were Conservative backbenchers arguing that the Government should and would do no such thing: that it had no role to prop up loss-making industries. But it soon became apparent that unless money was pumped into CF Industries to help it cope with the huge surge in gas prices, then several key economic sectors would be in very deep trouble indeed and the long-term costs would be incalculable.

Yet again, however, we are looking at another consequence of the centralisation and rationalisation which have been relentlessly driven by the supermarkets. The lack of CO2 was, we were told, threatening to curtail both pork and poultry slaughterings in the relative handful of industrialscale slaughtering units which now dominate the landscape. It is not routinely used in small-scale units. But they have been wiped out in their dozens in the last few years under the burden of ruthlessly – and overzealously – applied regulations which has destroyed once-profitable businesses. Despite airy Government promises about protecting the remaining smaller units in the interests of maintaining diversity of supply, I see nothing being committed to paper yet. And in the current climate I cannot imagine anyone being brave enough to build a small or medium-sized abattoir because the chances of being able to recoup the investment would be ludicrously remote.

We have now been forced into a ridiculous situation. Where we used to have a network of small and medium-sized dairies, we have a clutch of monster processing centres. Where we once had scores of facilities for processing livestock into meat, we now have a relatively tiny number.

And in moving to that situation the food industry has lost its resilience.

When one element in a network of small operations encounters difficulties it’s a simple matter to increase output from its neighbours: if you want an analogy think of a network of power stations feeding into the national grid. But the way our industry is structured at the moment, one problem affecting one unit or one activity can throw the entire sector off balance with – as we have just seen – truly alarming consequences.

It’s akin to getting all our electricity from just three power stations. And the longer politicians continue ignoring the vulnerable position in which they have acquiesced in placing us, the more I am convinced that the threat to our food security is not a problem for future generations, it’s already with us.

I cannot imagine anyone being brave enough to build a small or medium-sized abattoir