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The writer is an emeritus professor at City, University of London’s Centre for Food Policy
When it comes to food, Britain cannot decide what it wants. It thus waits for crises to hit before doing much at all. This is the legacy of the 1846 repeal of the Corn Laws, when the country decided that food needed to be cheap, in order to keep wages down and affordability up. Two world wars punctured that simplistic free trade recipe.
Other countries such as France and the Netherlands take their farmers and growers seriously for cultural as well as economic reasons. They tend not to see farms as investments for the rich but, rather, as vital economic infrastructure for food security. And safeguarding food interests is not necessarily viewed as a protectionist approach.
Earlier this month, last year’s hastily assembled No 10 Downing Street “Farm to Fork Summit” was reconvened. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced two policy statements to show he’s listening to concerns from farmers.
First, a “blueprint” for horticulture looks to raise subsidies to £80mn, with support for automation. Horticulture has been hit with a farm labour shortage since Brexit, and by cost inflation in essential gas, fertilisers and equipment. The plan promises to maintain the limited seasonal agricultural workers scheme and to tear up “red tape” to enable growers to put up new greenhouses — ignoring the fact they are not planting in existing structures.
It said nothing about the continuing arguments about the effects of tight retailer-supplier contracts still accused by some of squeezing primary producers. Or what to do about a British food market where, according to the Food Foundation, even if poorer families were to buy the lowest-priced fruit and veg available, it would cost between 34 and 52 per cent of one person’s weekly food budget to afford a week’s worth of five-a-day.
On the other extreme, Sunak’s second announcement of a Food Security Index created a set of nine new indicators, most of which were given “broadly stable” or “some reduction in risks” assessments.
These ignored internationally agreed definitions and indices of food security. Since 1996, the term has been taken to mean availability (it’s there), access (you can get it and afford it), utilisation (it’s not wasted) and stability (confidence it’s there). To these have been added sustainability (ecosystems will keep going) and agency (consumers don’t feel powerless).
Applying these indicators, things are not so encouraging in Britain. Brexit border delays are creating regular hiccups in supply from Europe, whence a quarter of British food comes. Food inflation may be down, but food prices are still 25 per cent higher than a few years ago. Waste is a scandal. So is farm and food pollution. And consumers are nervous.
Fear not, thought Whitehall: the new indicators can suggest a rosier picture. The first indicator, which tracks global food supply, is ticked off as “broadly stable”. But this doesn’t mean that UK consumers are food secure — last month’s Food Standards Agency survey classified 25 per cent of them as food insecure. Nor does the index recognise the collapse of farmer confidence to plant or access waterlogged land. And it insufficiently unpacks the impact of climate change, geopolitics and poor diets on healthcare costs.
Shaken by the 2007-2008 oil price crisis’ impact on food, the last Labour government eventually got a grip on food security strategy by 2010, only to fall at the election. No administration since has taken a serious interest in the subject, despite independent reviewers urging it to do so.
So we shouldn’t be surprised that today the UK is again in denial about threats to the food system. As I’m finding in a review of civil food resilience, Whitehall tends not to even think about consumers, only supply. Must we wait for another world war before its approach to food security becomes more holistic and government gets a grip?
