Boosting food production is good for Britain and for the world

BRITAIN is a food-producing nation. With a mild climate, a well-watered landscape and farming expertise going back millennia, tilling the soil and rearing livestock is in our blood.

We can’t grow everything we might like to eat or drink. And a long history of travel combined with a once all-encompassing empire has given us a taste for exotic food from around the world. But Britons have a wide choice of top-quality home produce, and nowhere more so than what’s grown and reared here in the South West.

So it is a matter of concern that UK self-sufficiency has fallen to 60% from closer to 80% less than three decades ago. And there must be special worries that it has happened during a time of ever greater global instability and when pressure to reduce damaging emissions to control climate change has never been more important.

That’s why today’s call from the National Farmers’ Union for a commitment from government not to let that self-sufficiency number to slip below 60% is so timely and why there is a real need for a comprehensive report on UK food security later this year, covering the country’s production of key foods and its contribution to global food security.

We have grown complacent about always having enough to eat in recent years, mainly thanks to vastly improved agricultural processes here at home and easy access to imported food from around the world. But, as the pandemic showed us, there is a real risk that unexpected global crises can quickly empty the world’s larder while manpower shortages, such as we have seen with a dearth of delivery drivers in recent weeks, can affect food transportation.

Britain, with its advanced agricultural sector and generally benign climate, is well-placed to continue to feed people here at home and overseas, too – and British farmers have proved they can do so while meeting ever more exacting environmental and animal welfare standards – and at an affordable price.

As Minette Batters, president of the NFU, says: “Delivering a comprehensive report into food security and taking appropriate action in response would show the Government is serious and ambitious about boosting sustainable food production in Britain. This would not only help reduce the UK’s reliance on imports, which often fall below our own high standards of production, but also enable farmers to build the British brand overseas through trade.”

The UK has shown itself to be a world leader in the development and administering of vaccines to reduce the risk from the coronavirus pandemic and is doubling down as winter approaches. It also has a proven track record in producing food to high standards, with a hard-earned reputation for quality and sustainability.

It is high time the UK Government gave greater attention to the farming sector, helped to build on that reputation, and recognised that British food production could – and should – expand to provide more homegrown produce and more wealth-earning exports, too.