Over the weekend, NFU President Meurig Raymond appealed to the government and policy makers to grasp Brexit as an opportunity to enhance the nation’s ability to produce more homegrown food.

The farm union president’s appeal, issued on Sunday 6th August, was timed to mark the notional date on which the British larder would run bare if the nation only had access to food grown here from 1st January. Although subject to debate - with some putting the self-sufficiency figure lower - it is estimated that Britain produces 60% of its own food; this rate is in long-term decline.

NFU President Meurig Raymond said, “Food self-sufficiency statistics have always been an important measure of the nation’s ability to feed itself.  But since the UK voted to leave the EU, and with trade negotiations now starting, the supply of British food is now seen in a very different light. Government recognition of farming’s enormous contribution to this country will be vital in the coming weeks and months. 

“Farmers deliver for our economy, providing jobs and driving growth in rural communities. We provide the raw materials for a domestic food industry that employs 3.8m people, generates £109bn in value for the UK economy and 13% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product.

The NFU President added, “We’re not advocating a fully self-sufficient nation - we recognise the need for importing food which can only be produced in different climates. But what we should be doing is maximising on the food production we are good at, and looking at the potential for this. If we buy in foods that we are capable of producing ourselves then we risk exporting all the environmental, economic and social benefits that farming delivers here in Britain.”

Dieter Helm, an Oxford economist whose Natural Capital Committee is advising the government, has been critical of the NFU’s appeals for self-sufficiency in the past. In a report on post-Brexit options for agriculture published last year, Helm highlighted that the NFU doesn’t advocate policies that would facilitate greater self-sufficiency, like diverting exports to domestic markets, diverting land use away from biofuel and energy crop production and game shooting to food production, or efforts to reduce consumption of animal products and promote vegetarian diets, which would, in Helm’s words, “Achieve a higher level of self sufficiency for a given area of land.”

In September’s report, he said, “It is interesting that the NFU does not advocate any of these policies, and instead goes for increasing production generally through subsidies.”
 

Meanwhile, food policy experts in the UK have criticised the government for failing to produce an overarching food policy, not just for farming and rural development - the areas covered by the EU Common Agriculture Policy - but for food as a whole. Whilst they agree that Brexit could be seen as an opportunity to reshape the food system into one where healthy food is guaranteed for more people and produced sustainably, they argue that the public hasn't been made aware of the huge impacts the UK’s withdrawal is set to have for food prices and safety, health and the environment. Although recommendations have tended to focus on the opportunities Brexit presents for farming or much-needed environmental restoration, with Defra suffering under withering budget cuts, farmers already struggling to find adequate numbers of workers, and food bank use at record highs in the UK, Brexit is set to present a huge challenge to anyone who wants to improve the country’s food system. 

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