Producing more food won't solve food security

Food security has never been higher on the agenda of politicians, business leaders and farmers in the UK. Food shortages are being driven by extreme weather events affecting harvests in food producing regions like Morocco and Spain, as well as rising energy and fertiliser prices and supply chain dynamics. This has led to calls to produce more food.

But the causes of food insecuity can't simply be solved by producing more food, and they will only get worse if we fail to tackle the climate and nature crises.

We produce more food now than at any point in history, and we have the cheapest food in Europe, yet hunger and obesity are rising. Over?64 per cent of the UK's adult population is overweight or obese, while one in 10 face hunger.?The poorest fifth of households would have to spend 47 per cent?of their disposal income to meet the government's recommended diet. This compares to just 11 per cent for the richest fifth.

Food businesses and fertiliser companies have recently announced record profits. Like major fossil fuel companies, they are benefiting from price rises, but farmers are barely surviving on ever slimmer profit margins. Farmers are hard hit by global price shocks and rising interest rates - fertiliser costs have risen by 400 per cent, and waste is costing them around ï¿¡400m each year.?What's more, 6.9 billion meals' worth of food is wasted on farms, at serious cost to farmers and the environment. If this food was collected and redistributed instead of left to rot, it could feed 6.5 million people three meals a day for a year.

Our food system is working against nature rather than with it. Food is the largest driver of nature loss at home and abroad, one of the leading causes of climate change, and is affecting soils and polluting water. Agriculture is the source of 12 per cent of terrestrial GHG emissions, and because 70 per cent of UK land is farmland it has been the biggest driver of biodiversity loss in recent decades. Our impact extends overseas too. We import over 40 per cent of our food, without any environmental protections, driving global deforestation and emissions beyond our shores. Imports of feed and fertiliser add a further 40 per cent to UK farming emissions, missed by UK climate accounts that focus on domestic production only.

Support for a regenerative transition should focus on rewarding farmers properly to deliver positive outcomes for climate and nature as part of the solution to food and nutrition security.?That is starting to happen, but farmers need three things to deliver for both nature and food security: proper financial support, a fair reward for their produce and a level playing field. That means raising the ambition and budget for the Environmental Land Management Schemes (ELMS), matching it with private investment and supply chain reforms, and bringing in minimum legal standards for the food we import.

We currently use 40 per cent of our most productive land to grow crops to feed livestock, with half of our annual wheat harvest going to livestock feed. This is food that should be eaten by people, not livestock, especially at a time when many are struggling to feed themselves and cope with rising food prices. We need to look again at what type of food we're producing on our land. Vast tracts of our land are dedicated to the production of non-food crops. A third of our peatland is used to grow crops that don't feed us but are burnt for fuel. livestock feeds such as grass, food waste and insects will relieve pressure on land and improve food security.

There is no direct correlation between the amount of land farmed and what is produced - for example, approximately 60 per cent of agricultural output comes from 30 per cent of land. Current patterns of land use mean in the next two decades a third more land would be needed to meet all our demands for energy, housing, and food. To ensure there is enough land available for our needs requires a review of the amount we dedicate to livestock feed and biofuels and the narrow range of foods we need less of in our diets anyway. The government's forthcoming Land Use Framework gives us an immediate chance to show how we can create enough space to grow the food that people actually need, given other demands on our limited and nature-deprived landscapes.

Recent suggestions to ‘eat local' will do little to deliver for the planet and food security. The impact of transporting food products is nothing compared to the impact of production, and the scale of consumption. It's what we eat and how we produce it that matters.

Food security is about maximising the nutrition we can deliver from our land and ensuring everyone has access to the food they need to live healthy lives. To achieve this, we need to produce and import the right balance of foods to provide healthy diets, and ensure these foods are available and accessible to everyone,?regardless of their ethnicity, how much they earn, or where they live. And yet policies and efforts that aim to improve food security are often focused on quantity rather than quality.

We need a stable, resilient food system that provides a balanced nutritious diet.?Reforming our current system will require a holistic approach. One that looks across the food chain from production to consumption, enabling us to produce and import enough healthy, sustainable food, ensuring everyone can access and afford it, and minimise waste. This is what the public want. They see it as the UK government's responsibility to?set policies and regulations that make it easier to eat healthily and sustainably, and that maintain high food standards.

Nutritious, sustainably produced foods need to be the most affordable, available, and accessible foods in the UK to enable adoption of a healthy, sustainable diet and deliver national nutrition security. That is what food security means, and that is what all political parties should be committing to ahead of the next General Election.

This article was originally published in Business Green: https://www.businessgreen.com/opinion/4087251/producing-food-wont-solve-food-security