The UK is not prepared for major sudden shocks to its food supply chains, warn leading academics in a damning new report.
Urgent action is needed from government to strengthen Britain’s food security amid increased concerns over the impact climate change and geopolitics can have on people’s access to food in times of crisis, according to a new report by the National Preparedness Commission.
The report’s author, emeritus professor of food policy at the University of London Tim Lang, has called for government to urgently devise a national food policy and set up a Resilience Council to better prepare the country for food shocks and oblige the state to feed the public in a time of crisis.
“I don’t think Britain is prepared for major shocks,” Lang said. “It’s certainly not prepared for multiple shocks,” he added, as evidenced by the food shortages experienced at the height of the pandemic, and worsened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Brexit challenges.
“There is a gap between the official risk and resilience framework, which presents a picture that all is OK, and the realities that people in senior and frontline roles read differently,” Lang said.
“There is too much complacency about UK food security and civil food resilience barely features at all in forward planning. Food resilience is not just about surviving a crisis but thriving despite it.”
The commission warned against relying on food banks and said the UK government needed a “proactive” rather than “reactive” approach to keeping the nation fed in both ordinary and extraordinary times.
With the UK importing a huge proportion of its food – nearly half of fruit & veg still comes from the European Union – Brits are also sensitive to any disruptions to global supply chains.
Britain should therefore increase domestic production, improve current thinking around stockpiling and rationing, and bolster food resilience efforts at town and community level, experts argued.
“One of my big recommendations is we could create a system of local civil food resilience committees,” Lang said, involving “directors of public health, directors of environmental health, local food businesses, civil society, Red Cross, the ambulance and the emergency services, the churches, the food banks… could be in a committee where they start learning who they are, who’s got what, so that they’ve got an intelligent system and a system of trust” for times of crisis.
“In most countries they will call that civil defence and I’ve called it civil Food Defence Committee.”
These were among some of the recommendations in the report by the National Preparedness Commission, a body established in 2020 to bring together senior figures from public life, business, academia and civil society to help ready the UK for a major crisis or incident.
The research highlights threats to the UK’s food security, ranging from geopolitical turmoil to extreme weather events.
Serving as a rallying cry for policymakers, the report draws on lessons from 10 countries to stress the urgency of embedding food resilience into national policy, proposing a strategic reset from “just-in-time” to “just-in-case” logistics.
Lord Toby Harris, chair of the National Preparedness Commission, said: “This report highlights the urgent need for a co-ordinated, whole-society approach to ensure that no one in the UK is left vulnerable in the face of future crises.0
“The risks to our food systems are more pronounced than ever before – from floods in key farming regions to disruptions in global trade, we are facing a confluence of threats that could undermine our ability to feed ourselves.
“The recommendations provide a clear path forward, and it is vital that these are considered urgently.”
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