UK must prioritise food security, Minette Batters tells NFU conference
Some hard hitting comments from Minette Batters which usefully put the important role of rural England as the food basket of UK into perspective. This article tells us:
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.