Paul Drew, of Drews of Worcester, says his energy costs have risen from 15p per kilowatt to 62p per kilowatt.

To speed up growth he has the option to artificially heat and light his crops, but fears the rising cost will make it unprofitable.

The tomato grower said: “You’d like to think you can plan for it, but I really don’t know how we will survive this year.”

Across the county, some farmers have told the BBC that they have switched off heating and lights earlier this winter – either delaying or cancelling planting.

At its conference in Birmingham last month, the National Farmers Union (NFU) revealed domestic production of salad crops will reach its lowest levels since records began this year.

Speaking on Politics Midlands, Ms Gideon said: “I know the NFU have asked for horticulture to be included in the energy intensive industries.

“We need to be producing more in this country in order to guarantee our own food supply, we need to be helping farmers to do that.”

While supermarket shelves in Worcestershire appear to be sparse, independent grocers remain plentiful with stocks of imported fruit and vegetables sold a higher price.

Jim Thompson, of Three Counties Produce, explained: “A box of tomatoes that we would normally pay £6 for, we are now paying £16.

“We’re paying a premium price but if the supermarkets decided to sell the product at the price it should be, then they would have them on the shelves.”

The rate at which infrastructure is built on prime farmland in England has risen a hundredfold in the past decade, a report has found, as it calls the country’s food security into question.

Farmland that could grow 250,000 tonnes of vegetables a year has been lost to development, with 300,000 homes built on prime land since 2010.

There was a huge rise in “best and most versatile” agricultural land set aside for housing and industry between 2010 and 2022, up from 60 hectares (148 acres) a year to more than 6,000.

Politicians have been looking at the way land is used in the country, as in order to tackle the climate emergency as well as feed people, farming must become lower-emission, more productive and increase biodiversity.

This means that low-grade farmland, which requires more irrigation and fertiliser, may have to be used for infrastructure instead of prime land, which is more efficient for growing food.

As well as being at risk from development, prime land is also more at risk of flooding, raising deeper questions about food security as Britain experiences more extreme weather events as a result of the climate crisis.

Sixty per cent of grade 1 agricultural land (more than 200,000 hectares) is within flood zone 3, the areas at highest risk of flooding.

CPRE, the countryside charity that published the report, is calling for the government to produce a comprehensive land use strategy, setting out what type of land should be used for which purpose and is asking for a “brownfield first” approach to housebuilding. It is also calling for a firm presumption against development on prime farmland.

Letting small family farms go to the wall will “break the backbone of Britain’s rural communities”, Prince Charles has said.

The focus on producing plentiful and cheap food threatens the survival of the country’s smaller farms, he says.

If they go it will “rip the heart out of the British countryside”, he warns.

The government says it wants to support all farmers and “the choices that they take on their own holdings”.

It comes ahead of the publication of the National Food Strategy, the first major review of Britain’s food system in more than 70 years.

The strategy was commissioned by the government and is headed by Henry Dimbleby, the founder of the Leon restaurant chain.

Thursday’s report will explore the links between food production and environmental degradation including climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution and the sustainable use of resources.

It will include recommendations for the government, which has promised to respond with a White Paper within six months.

The first part of the strategy was published in July last year and highlighted the connection between obesity, poverty and the UK’s high Covid-19 death toll.

The Prince of Wales has been concerned with food and the environment for most of his adult life.

His latest intervention comes in the form of an essay for Radio 4’s Today programme.

In it, he condemns the super-efficient intensive agricultural system that produces much of the food we eat as a “dead end”.

The new food strategy for England, commissioned by the government, lays out in stark detail the damage the current food and farming system wreaks on the environment, as well as our health. It is the biggest destroyer of nature and a major source of climate warming, it says.

The report takes aim at overconsumption of meat. “Our current appetite for meat is unsustainable,” it says. “85% of farmland is used to feed livestock [and] we need some of that land back.”

That 85% of land provides only 32% of the calories we eat, it says: “By contrast, the 15% of farmland that is used to grow plant crops for human consumption provides 68% of our calories.” The report also tackles the myth that grass-fed livestock are greener, saying: “The more intensively you rear some animals, the more carbon-efficient they tend to be.”

With Covid and Brexit forcing the UK to re-examine its food security, ‘farm cities’ and towns, from Tokyo to Todmorden, could provide a sustainable model for communities to feed themselves

Tokyo is a king of modern-day mega cities. Majestic skyscrapers, a sophisticated transport network, and almost 40 million residents dwell within its urban sprawl. A triumphal metropolis, most certainly. A bucolic paradise… perhaps not.

But look a little closer and a more nuanced picture emerges. Nestled in among the skyscrapers and concrete avenues lies a potential blueprint for a modern form of sustainable agriculture. Unlike many nations that divide themselves between city and country, or urban and rural, Japan mixes the two in a patchwork of organic farms dotted throughout its cities.

These aren’t just home gardens contributing the odd bunch of beans to the dinner table – these are core components of the nation’s food security. A quarter of all Japanese farmers live in cities, producing around one third of the nation’s entire agricultural output. In Tokyo alone, they produce enough vegetables to feed around 700,000 people.

Granted, Japan’s system is far from perfect. The country’s food security is one of the lowest in the developed world and its urban farms are under threat from evolving planning regulations. But as the UK considers its own levels of self-sufficiency and food security in the wake of Brexit and Covid-19, could it learn something from its model of food production?

NFU president Minette Batters has urged the government to pay “meaningful” attention to the issue of food security in a speech to the NFU conference.

Batters said the country must “never go back” to being complacent about food production and supply following the panic-buying seen during the initial phase of the Covid-19 crisis.

Ahead of the government’s first assessment of the UK’s food security – due to take place later this year after assessments every three years were enshrined into the Agriculture Act – the NFU president spoke of the perilousness of the situation.

“There is a real risk, a genuine risk that, without care, without attention, we let Britain’s food production slowly erode,” she said. “Which is why it is critical that government monitors our own food security – put simply, the amount of food we produce on our own farms.

“This reporting must be a meaningful document that accurately assesses where we are now and how we are going to make improvements in the future. Let us not forget that before the 1947 Agriculture Act, Britain was just 30% self-sufficient, many in Europe were starving and in the UK food was rationed.”

Batters said the government should also “stop thinking” it could achieve its aims of greening up Britain while simultaneously signing trade deals “which export degradation” to other parts of the globe.

Some very interesting stats, which provide some food security insights here. This article tells us:

Food security, put simply, is the state of having reliable access to enough affordable, nutritious food. While the UK benefits from a successful agricultural industry, many domestic and international factors affect food production and prices for consumers. This became evident during the world food price spike of 2008.

A successful agricultural industry gives the perception that food security isn’t at risk in the UK. But the country is only around 58% self-sufficient and is reliant on imports from countries all over the world. This has caused with a trade deficit of £24 billion in food.

This fact is magnified by Brexit. The recent pandemic has also made it harder to import foods from global locations, and food that is shipped over is taking longer in transit.

Lockdown restrictions have also left farming and food production in a situation where it needs to bounce back from the crisis of the pandemic.

The current climate

Around 84% of fruit and 46% of vegetables consumed in the country are imported. While Brexit and COVID-19 threaten a steady supply to urban areas, problems created by climate change also risk disrupting imports of food from abroad.

Climate change can reduce global food access and affect its quality. An increase in temperature, change in precipitation patterns, extreme weather events, and reductions in water availability can result in reduced agricultural productivity.

For those living in a rural location, the opportunity to grow fruit and vegetables in allotments, gardens and other accessible land is one that not only gives people a fresh supply of food when they need it but a chance to be part of something bigger — helping increase food security.

An independent review of UK food policy is calling for “a gold standard level of scrutiny” to ensure new trade deals do not undermine the environment.

Verification schemes should address concerns such as imports of beef reared on land recently cleared of rainforest.

And the government should press on with plans to pay English farmers to improve the countryside.

The report aims to ensure a food system that is healthy, affordable, sustainable, resilient, and productive.

It was commissioned by the government in 2019.

Author of the first report of the National Food Strategy, food entrepreneur Henry Dimbleby, said the UK had a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to decide what kind of trading nation it wanted to be when the transition period ends.

“We should use that freedom to decide that we want to uphold standards,” he said.

“And the government should be confident of scrutiny on the trade deals that it is doing.”

Trade deals should not only increase wealth but restore the environment and protect animal welfare, he added.

A disorderly break with the European Union at the end of the year poses a bigger threat to Britain’s food supplies than the coronavirus pandemic that saw supermarket shelves emptied, a Parliamentary committee warned.

In a report published on Thursday, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee called on Boris Johnson’s government to complete an urgent review of the food industry’s resilience to shocks like Brexit and climate change. The panel singled out the importation of produce from overseas on a just-in-time basis as a particular concern.

“The government cannot afford to be complacent,” the report said. “It should provide reassurances that food supply disruptions have been factored into contingency planning for the end of the transition period.”

About a fifth of the fresh food the UK imports comes from areas threatened with climate chaos, putting people’s health and diets at risk, MPs have found.

The environmental audit committee called on ministers to set out a clear plan for how the UK’s food supplies could be protected from the climate emergency and to publish information on how food may be affected by Brexit.

Currently, 40% of the UK’s food is imported, according to the report published on Tuesday. In the very near future, people would be at risk from sudden lurches in food prices if a no-deal Brexit resulted in trouble with imports, including higher costs, delays and shortages.

Mary Creagh, the chair of the committee, said: “We are facing a food security crisis, exacerbated by uncertainty over the UK’s future trading position with the EU and the rest of the world. Ministers must now publish all the information they hold from Operation Yellowhammer on food security and likely costs in the event of a no-deal Brexit.”

Beyond the immediate effects of Brexit, the climate emergency and changing trade relationships may put the British diet in jeopardy. The MPs called for a national food council that would cover food production, nutrition and public health issues, and for stringent annual targets to reduce the UK’s high levels of food waste.

Water consumption across the UK should be set at 100 litres (22 gallons) per person per day, the MPs found. This would require changes to water availability and potentially to metering. Sustainable cities should also be made more resilient to the effects of the climate crisis, and town planners should be more involved in improving the design of cities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, for instance through more efficient transport networks.