Urgent action needed to ensure UK food security, report warns | Environment

Urgent action is needed to secure the UK’s food supply in the face of climate change-induced extreme weather, the imposition of tariffs and global insecurity, a report has warned.

Days after the US president, Donald Trump, warned Europe would be next for tariffs on trade after he imposed tax levies on Canada, China and Mexico, the report said the UK’s post-second world war food system was no longer fit for purpose, and the country’s food security was in a precarious state.

Eight years after the UK’s Brexit vote, the country still had no coherent food policy, despite the fact that nearly a third of our food still comes from the EU.

The report’s author, Tim Lang, emeritus professor of food policy at City St George’s, University of London, called for new legislation to ensure the state was obliged to feed the public in a time of crisis.

Increased domestic production is needed, as well as changes to food distribution systems, the introduction of town-to-town food resilience education exchanges, and research into current thinking around stockpiling and rationing in order to better prepare the country for food shocks, according to the report by the National Preparedness Commission.

“To safeguard our future, we must prioritise resilience at every level – from local communities to national frameworks,” said Lang.

“There is a gap between the official risk and resilience framework which presents a picture that all is OK, and the realities that people in senior and frontline roles read differently.

“There is too much complacency about UK food security and civil food resilience barely features at all in forward planning.”

Acute shocks to food supplies were coming to the fore, according to the report’s authors, such as the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a major global exporter of wheat, corn and sunflower oil, the economic disruption from Covid-19, unexpected trade route disruptions, such as the Black Sea being mined or Houthis attacking ships in the Red Sea, and extreme weather which made domestic home harvests last year the second worst since 1983.

More than 70 people from the food industry, the government, academia and community groups were interviewed about the risks, fragilities, options and recommendations for how to improve food system resilience.

In particular they provided advice on how to help communities prepare for and withstand food shortages and other crises in supply.

The report highlighted the potential of copying grassroots initiatives, which are often working ahead of central government to ensure communities are resilient to shocks to food supplies.

Lord Toby Harris, chair of the National Preparedness Commission, said: “Food security is a cornerstone of national resilience.

“This report highlights the urgent need for a coordinated, whole-society approach to ensure that no one in the UK is left vulnerable in the face of future crises.”

Harris said the risks to our food systems were more pronounced than ever before. “From floods in key farming regions to disruptions in global trade, we are facing a confluence of threats that could undermine our ability to feed ourselves,” he said.

The report came as a group of food organisations including the National Farmers’ Union, several of the largest supermarket chains and food producers sent a letter to the Treasury urging it to rethink changes to inheritance tax announced in the budget, saying that removing agricultural property relief and business property relief will threaten the long-term stability of the nation’s food resilience.