Farming for food security in a time of food shocks

It has been fashionable among some economists and business gurus to celebrate shocks and disruptions. They believe it introduces new ‘players’ and allows new ways of ‘doing’. In the case of food, systems need stability.

My Just in Case report for the National Preparedness Commission examines the UK food system. Food is designated by the UK government as a Critical National Infrastructure, one of 14, yet there are no targets and few incentives to produce more food. That is left to markets, yet these are increasingly disrupted by new and old shocks. 

Is the UK food system, and the public in particular, prepared for shocks? Not really is the short answer. The UK produces just over half the food consumed domestically.

There are fine principles in the Government Resilience Framework but these are not applied to food in any meaningful way.  British complacency has ruled, the ‘someone else can feed us’ mentality. 

But events are starting to change the government’s mindset and for good reason.

Climate change is having an impact, geopolitics and Brexit have weakened UK buying power, 
and food is being ‘weaponised’. Just-in-Time logistics have created almost perfect opportunities for disruption. There is little slack or storage. Disinformation and ransomware can create uncertainty.  

The highly concentrated nature of the UK food system doesn’t help. The capacity to bounce back from shocks is helped if a food system is sustainable in the first place. Food diversity and variety matter. My report illustrates how the giant retailers’ supplies come through relatively few distribution centres, not good in an era of drone warfare. Some questioned if I was being alarmist in such analysis, but they got the point when the Co-op and M&S were hit by cyber-attacks.

We live in a world where events cascade, unpredictability is now predictable, and shocks can quickly escalate.

In this context, it’s wrong to demonise environmentalists or to pitch environment versus food production. The future requires smart and more diverse farming, and short chains, not solely long ones.

Farming should be about feeding people. Too much farming is actually commodity production, not feeding people directly. This is not the fault of farmers, more what happens beyond the farm gate.

We must ask ourselves what would land use look like if it was about feeding people well while building in sustainability and ecosystems.

My report concludes that food and farming need a reset, and a new Food Security & Resilience Act. Preparing for shocks requires nothing less.

By Tim Lang
Professor Emeritus of Food Policy
City St George’s, University of London