Food Supply Security in the UK

The British government is consulting on how it can ensure that the UK's food supply remains secure in the future.

10 Aug 2009 The British government is consulting on how it can ensure that the UK's food supply remains secure in the future.

"It is to stimulate a debate within the UK on what a food policy should be, and how do we define and look at food security more broadly," said Defra's chief scientific adviser Professor Robert Watson. "Food is absolutely essential, and over the past few years we did see a food price increase - not only in the UK, but across the globe," he told BBC News. "So the [test] for us will be, as the Earth's climate changes, what will be the challenges not only in the UK but throughout the world?"

In July, the Sustainable Development Commission - the government's environmental watchdog - warned that the current food system was failing. The report's author, Professor Tim Lang - a member of the UK government's Food Council, said the system had to radically change. "We are going to have to get used to less choice, and we are going to have to eat differently," he told BBC News. "For climate change; for water; for energy; for all sorts of reasons our diet is going to change. Consumers are not going to like it, although it is probably going to be healthier and definitely more sustainable.