Britain’s grocery store cabinets have by no means been so reliant on imports from abroad, it has been revealed. Official figures from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs present the quantity of meals consumed in Britain that’s grown within the nation fell to 62% in 2023, the newest yr for which there’s information.
This compares with a peak of 78% again in 1984, exhibiting an eroded British self-sufficiency that specialists worry is making the nation’s meals provide more and more precarious.
A report revealed this yr by the National Preparedness Commission discovered that “civil food resilience”, an idea that means the general public’s consciousness of the dangers to meals provides, potential to cut back pointless dangers and preparedness to behave to make sure society is nicely fed in a disaster, was “not currently adequately seriously by the UK”.
It known as for a “new coherent UK food policy”, which might enhance home manufacturing, and for meals to be outlined as “Critical National Infrastructure” by nationwide authorities.
Tim Lang, the report’s writer and professor emeritus of meals coverage at City, University of London instructed The Times: “The public is in a complete fantasy world of just thinking Tesco will always deliver.”
He added: “We’re not even self-sufficient in potatoes. We’re importing them from Egypt, for God’s sake, which is drought-stressed. Look at where we get so much of our veg: Murcia, in southeast Spain. It is water-stressed. It is bonkers.”
Lang’s feedback got here as Marks & Spencer bought potatoes final month from Israel and Egypt as a brief measure whereas it waited for brand new British harvests to reach.
Tesco sells spring onions from Egypt and Senegal alongside rooster and sweetcorn sandwiches that comprise international rooster.
To add to the present state of affairs, the US-UK commerce deal introduced this month will enable America to export 13,000 tonnes of beef into Britain every year, a rise from the present 1,000 tonne quantity.
Lang argued Britain doesn’t have a meals coverage which inspires farmers to develop crops for grocery store cabinets.
“The fundamental problem we’ve got in Britain with agriculture and food production is we don’t incentivise farmers to grow food. They’re growing for commodities,” he instructed The Times.
He fears for the subsequent time a worldwide commerce disaster hits, or a blockage halts site visitors within the Suez canal.
The National Farmers’ Union (NFU) has been warning Brits concerning the dangers of the nation’s meals standing for a while, with the physique’s president saying final yr that the nation stays on the mercy of worldwide provide chains.
The NFU claimed that if Britain solely ate meals produced by the “national larder” from the start of 2024, provides would have run empty on August 14.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/2056899/uk-supermarkets-crisis-britain-food