A recent government report downplayed any vulnerability in the UK’s food supply chain, preferring to place confidence in international trade and globalisation, and denying any potential adverse impact from climate change; ‘Climate change particularly is likely to bring new challenges for the food security, not of rich countries like the UK, but of less developed, tropical, regions.’
Given a number of deeply worrying emerging trends, it’s surely time to question that approach. Food prices globally have increased by 83% in little over three years; the world’s breadbaskets are almost without exception shrinking; water shortages affect more than 100 countries; and with the global rush to biofuels, we are seeing more and more agricultural land (not to mention forests) given over to growing fuel.
All this combined with ever rising oil price and uncertainty over the world’s true oil reserves, means food security ought to be high on the political agenda. The issue won’t go away. But there are things we can do now to alleviate it, while we begin the process of sorting out our own rural crisis, and shifting away from the kind of agriculture that is undermining the very basis of food production; soil and water.
The key today is to establish a clear set of standards for biofuels.
The issue has been discussed at length in the media, and is reasonably well understood. So why did a majority of MPs allow the passage of a piece of legislation two weeks ago that requires 2.5% of fuel sold on garage forecourts to come from biofuels, rising to 5% after two years?
Only the Conservatives voted against the measure, pointing out that in the absence of clear standards, the policy will exacerbate the problems associated with biofuels. The tragedy is that in the same week that the so-called Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation came into force, both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor called for international action on the impact of biofuels on global food prices.
If ever there was a case for joined up thinking…
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