Headlines abound: Will coronavirus spark a wave of food nationalism?; Millions to need food aid in days as virus exposes UK supply; Coronavirus measures could cause global food shortage, UN warns; Coronavirus food rationing in the UK is inevitable; etc, etc.
The coronavirus crisis has raised huge doubts over food security – in the UK and many other countries. As this article points out:
Not since the Second World War has attention been so firmly focused on food. Before coronavirus we took a steady availability for granted. Now after coronavirus we’re wondering just how secure our food chain really is.
Clearly, as the article also makes clear, "We need our farmers... They are the people who will feed us." We will, as the FT says, need to produce more of our own food:
Food security: the lie of the land https://t.co/AwmWLd7w0P— The Lex Column (@FTLex) March 20, 2020
But will the UK get serious about growing its own food and protecting its own farmland – in the same way it did during wartime? Many hope so:
“We we must turn this potential catastrophe into an opportunity manifesting as a renaissance in the production, distribution and consumption of healthy, seasonal and local food.” Must-read @SusFoodTrust https://t.co/tTJlXFKgHN— Joanna Blythman (@JoannaBlythman) March 24, 2020
The last major food security emergency was, of course, during the Second World War; this resulted in the government-led ‘dig for victory’ campaign which combined growing your own fruit and vegetables with a nationwide mobilisation of farmers supported by the so-called ‘Land Girls’ to maintain secure and sustainable food supplies to the British people when the U-boats were sinking the North Atlantic convoys.
More than half of the UK's food is sourced from abroad. More than two-thirds of the land needed to produce the UK’s food and feed is based abroad. By the mid 2040s, the UK is predicted to have 77 million mouths to feed.
That's something to think about – not only in the face of climate change, but at a time when our country is struggling to feed itself due to a global pandemic. But it’s hardly surprising, given how much of our best and most versatile agricultural land – land like that at Straitgate Farm – has been lost to development over the years. More than 15,000 hectares of BMV land was estimated to have been lost to new development in England between 1998 and 2008 alone. Why?
interviews with local authority planners also highlight that the preservation of BMV land is generally ranked among the bottom two of a range of planning issues
That was 2010. Matters won't have improved since. The government claims there are policies that "aim to protect the best and most versatile (BMV) agricultural land and soils in England from significant, inappropriate or unsustainable development proposals" – which should of course protect Straitgate from the inappropriate, unsustainable development proposed by Aggregate Industries. But the revised NPPF only talks about recognising, not protecting, not safeguarding:
170. Planning policies and decisions should contribute to and enhance the natural and local environment by: ... b) recognising the intrinsic character and beauty of the countryside, and the wider benefits from natural capital and ecosystem services – including the economic and other benefits of the best and most versatile agricultural land, and of trees and woodland;
Back in 2012, we posted Why is DCC not allocating Straitgate Farm as a “Preferred Site” for food production? – rather than for sand and gravel extraction. We wrote:
They had their priorities right in 1968, and the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food (MAFF) was one of the more vociferous objectors to the Straitgate development, saying "The Minister is anxious to safeguard such valuable agricultural land so far as possible and I am directed to advise that in his opinion there is the strongest possible objection to the proposed development on agricultural grounds.”
Things have changed since the 1950s and 60s. We have lost sight of where our food comes from, we have forgotten about food security, we are – according to a renowned professor of food policy – ‘in serious trouble’:
“...that 50% self-sufficiency should be nearer 80%. Not out of nationalism, but so we are in a position to contribute globally. We have a default position of assuming someone else will feed us.”
‘We are in serious trouble’: The other crisis – our food supply https://t.co/wZJ0J2hh4L— The Guardian (@guardian) March 22, 2020
Perhaps the coronavirus crisis will be a wake-up call. Perhaps we will again realise the value of food production and the value of our best agricultural land. Perhaps the planning system will protect such land, assign it a more appropriate weighting in 'the planning balance'. Perhaps we will stop covering our food-producing land with concrete. Perhaps sustainable food production will – unlike today – become more valued than unsustainable mineral extraction.
