Farmers call for proper plan on food security

Farmers are calling on the next government for and proper horticulture strategy as UK fruit and vegetable production continues to drop due to extreme weather, state recent reports.

According to data from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, year-on-year vegetable yields decreased by 4.9 per cent to 2.2m tonnes in 2023, and the production volumes of fruit decreased by 12 per cent to 585,000 tonnes.

The country suffered the wettest 18 months since records began across the 2023-24 growing year, leaving soil waterlogged and some farms totally underwater. The impact on harvests has been disastrous.

Farmers said they were not able to plant due to the wet weather. The growing area of vegetables was down, falling by 6.5 per cent to 101,000 hectares, The Guardian reports. The planted area of brassicas decreased by 3.1 per cent to 23,000 hectares, leading to a 0.4 per cent fall in broccoli yields and a 9.2 per cent year-on-year fall in cauliflower volumes. Onions fared similarly, with volumes down by 13 per cent and a fall in production area of 3.6 per cent. Carrots’ yields fell by 7.2 per cent.

Farmers said the next government needed a proper plan for food security as the UK’s climate becomes less predictable, with more extreme weather hitting farms.

The chair of the National Farmers’ Union horticulture and potatoes board, Martin Emmett, said, “These stark statistics are sadly not a surprise. Recent shortages of some of the nation’s favourite fruit and vegetables shows we cannot afford to let our production decline and that we must value our food security.

“The UK horticulture sector has the ambition to produce more and is an area ripe for growth, but it needs investment from the next government to match our ambition by backing our horticulture strategy.”

Food security is also mentioned in the manifestos for this week’s general election. The Conservatives pledged a UK where the “national, border, energy and food security are put first” and said they would introduce a legally binding target to enhance the UK’s food security.

Meanwhile, Labour has stated that “food security is national security” and that the party would “champion British farming whilst protecting the environment”. The Liberal Democrats have promised to put an extra £1 billion a year into the farming payments schemes and pledged to introduce a “holistic and comprehensive national food strategy to ensure food security”.