The CLA has criticised DEFRA’s new policy papers on food security saying it adds little new to the debate. But Bidwells welcomes it for taking the debate forward

CLA president Henry Aubrey-Fletcher says: “The CLA has been highlighting the rapidly growing problem of food security for two years now. DEFRA has been slow to weigh in on the issue and while it has been consulting on food security for the past 12 months, these papers offer little new - this is a phoney debate.

“The biggest deception is that, while talking sympathetically about the need for more UK-produced food, they hold fast to their core strategy which will do the opposite. The Government knows their own indicator of farm income –Total Income From Farming - shows that without the direct support payments of the Common Agricultural Policy, farm incomes, in real terms, were negative in seven of the last eleven years.

Aubrey-Fletcher points out that DEFRA’s policy, encouraged by The Treasury, is to eliminate, as far as possible, direct payments under the CAP between now and 2020. “They decline to mention these facts and do not mention the impacts that could be expected of this policy on farming incomes, the number of farms which would survive, the effects on production, imports and food security, or to the rural environment,” he says. “We need to have an open and honest debate about the desirability of this.

“The CLA will continue to press its argument that the core policy for EU food and farming, the CAP, must further evolve to be a policy for Food and Environmental Security with the resources appropriate to the task.”

However, commenting on the food security strategy and sustainability consultation announced by Hilary Benn, Carl Atkin, head of research at Bidwells Agribusiness says: “At last, with the publication of this consultation on indicators for a sustainable food system, the sustainability debate has moved beyond a one-dimensional discussion about greenhouse gas emissions and carbon footprints. With nine billion mouths to feed by 2050 and an increasing proportion of people wanting to eat diets richer in animal protein, food security is likely to become one the most important issues for the future. And with that, calorie production per hectare of land and litre of water will probably be the single most useful measure of sustainable agriculture in the decades to come. Indeed, water is not only the new carbon, it it is the new oil. There has been increasing discussion globally about the land use challenge but, in reality, for countries such as China and India it is shortage of water and not shortage of land which will constrain significant increases in their domestic agricultural production.

“Similarly, we should not use the food security argument as a reason for ‘propping up’ unviable sectors of UK and EU agriculture such as some livestock systems which have historically been heavily dependent on headage payments. A return to the protectionist mentalities of the CAP in the 1960s and 1970s could increase food costs without necessarily improving farmers' incomes and cause sectors to stagnate if they were artificially insulated from market forces. So, clearly, food security should not mean self-sufficiency. Strong and well-developed agricultural markets and robust international food systems which are not distorted by protectionism and artifical barriers are the solution to the global food security issue. The UK has a leading role to produce those products in which it is world competitive - notably most combinable commodities, fruits and vegetables and liquid milk. It is important that excessive regulation does not export overseas challenges such as ruminant methane emissions or nitrate pollution.

“The fact that the Government now recognises the need to take more seriously the issue of food security is a welcome step in the right direction and we look forward to the outcome of the consultation and subsequent new strategy.”