UK assesses future food security
August 10, 2009
The government is consulting on how it can ensure that the UK's food supply remains secure in the future.
While the current situation in the UK is good, ministers warn that factors such as climate change and population growth could have an adverse effect.
Producers, supermarkets and consumers are being encouraged to submit their ideas on how a secure food system in the UK should look in 2030.
Some of the findings are expected to be published in the autumn.
As well as launching the consultation process, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has published a scorecard-style assessment of the current state of the UK's food supply.
"It is to stimulate a debate within the UK on what a food policy should be, and how do we define and look at food security more broadly," said Defra's chief scientific adviser Professor Robert Watson.
"Food is absolutely essential, and over the past few years we did see a food price increase - not only in the UK, but across the globe," he told BBC News.
"We think it is time to have a debate with consumers, farmers, the private sector... on what the food policy should be for the UK.
"We are clearly food secure in the UK today," he observed. "We produce about 60-65% of our own food [and] import about 20% from Europe.
"So the [test] for us will be, as the Earth's climate changes, what will be the challenges not only in the UK but throughout the world?"
Food for the future
Defra's food security assessment focused on six areas, including global availability, UK food chain resilience and household food security.
It assessed the current situation in each area, and the likely situation in 5-10 years time.
One sector that was identified as "very unfavourable" and showed no signs of improving was global fish stocks.
Yet other areas, such as the diversity of the UK's suppliers of fresh fruit and vegetables was deemed "favourable" and set to improve even more.
In July, the Sustainable Development Commission - the government's environmental watchdog - warned that the current food system was failing.
In its report, the commission warned that the current approach was a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, and paid little attention to soil quality and water use.
The report's author, Professor Tim Lang - a member of the UK government's Food Council, said the system had to radically change.
"We are going to have to get used to less choice, and we are going to have to eat differently," he told BBC News.
"For climate change; for water; for energy; for all sorts of reasons our diet is going to change. Consumers are not going to like it, although it is probably going to be healthier and definitely more sustainable.
"So this is a problem for government, it is a problem for food companies, but above all it is a problem for consumers."
Responding to the Defra publications, the British Retail Consortium said that any strategy had to be centred around consumers.
"Without their buy-in, no plan will work," said food policy director Andrew Opie.
"We do need a sustainable supply chain, but retailers do not need government statements to wake them up to these issues, they are already taking action.
"What we need is joined-up policy with government agreeing what it wants from food across all its departments and agencies."
Global problem
The future security of food supplies has been the subject of debate on the international stage.
The G8 summit, held in Italy in July, saw the leaders of the world's richest nations pledge $20bn over three years to boost agriculture in developing nations.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) director-general Jacques Diouf has invited world leaders to attend a food security summit in Rome in November.
Accompanying the invite, Mr Diouf also sent a document to the world's foreign ministers that called for world hunger to be eradicated by 2025, and for "secure, sufficient, safe and nutritious food supplies" to feed a population that is projected to reach 9.2 billion in 2050.
In light of the uncertainties facing future food supply systems, scientists are researching and developing ways to boost food production on increasingly limited arable land.
"The remit of what we are trying to do is to try to get more from the land, making agriculture and horticulture much more efficient," said Dr Chris Atkinson, head of science at East Malling Research, Kent.
"Growing things in a much more engineered way allows research to develop, improving the way that we can produce crops.
The institute's projects include growing strawberries that require only a quarter of the water needed by conventional crops.
Dr Atkinson said these sort of developments could then be adapted and applied to other food crops, boosting productivity.
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