Food Security By James Paice, MP Food


The UK’s food and drink industry is its largest manufacturing sector. It directly employs almost 440,000 people to provide us with an enviable degree of food security, quality and safety.


Through our trade links we enjoy a wide variety of food from around the world. Despite recent price rises, commodity prices are historically low and the vast majority of the UK’s households have access to affordable and nutritious food.


But despite this rosy picture, this is not a time for complacency.


Waste is an issue: UK households create over eight million tonnes of food waste each year. That’s £12 billion of food thrown away.


Environmental damage is an issue: our food and drink industry emits around 22 percent of UK’s greenhouse gases.


And then there’s the issue of our growing needs. The UN estimates that, by 2030, the world will need 30 percent more fresh water and 50 percent more energy; and that by 2050 demand for food will increase by 70 percent.


We’ll be trying to ensure these increased needs are met while managing and adapting to climate change.


As our business plan states, Defra is encouraging sustainable food production to enhance the competitiveness and resilience of the whole food chain. This is part of our wider aim of building a new green economy.


We need to help food producers to find ways of using less energy, carbon and water intensive processes. We also need to encourage competitiveness, trade and, very


|34| ENVIRONMENT INDUSTRY MAGAZINE


importantly, resilience – the ability to cope with, say, disrupted trade or the increasing population.


We need to consider the impact of the way food is grown in the environment.


We need to encourage precision agriculture, ensuring that just the right amount of fertiliser is delivered as close to the crop as possible to minimise the surplus leaching into the water system.


We also need to find ways to minimise the use of resources such as water and energy, which are likely to become increasingly scarce.


Farmers and the fishing industry need help to acquire the skills and technology to make the most efficient use of the resources available.


Later this year, our Natural Environment White Paper will set out our strategy to value, protect and enhance the natural resources on which our economy relies.


We will also be working in Europe to ensure that the Common Agricultural Policy is aligned to the demands of the coming decades.


While some Member States argue


that the CAP helps bolster food security, I believe it does little to increase the underlying competitiveness of the industry - despite costing more than 40 percent of the EU budget.


We need a CAP framework within which a productive, competitive and sustainable agriculture sector can thrive. Farmers must be free to farm in ways that respond to the market and changing consumer demands, and rewarded for delivering benefits the market cannot provide, such as environmental ones – which is where the CAP can add value.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136  |  Page 137  |  Page 138  |  Page 139  |  Page 140  |  Page 141  |  Page 142  |  Page 143  |  Page 144  |  Page 145  |  Page 146  |  Page 147  |  Page 148  |  Page 149  |  Page 150  |  Page 151  |  Page 152