Written by Agriland Team
A report from the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) suggests that Britain would “run out of food by the end of the week” if it was to be reliant on just British food alone.
According to The New European, Britain now imports 93% of its fruit and 47% of its vegetables; with the amount of home-grown produce consumed in the UK dropping from 80% to 64% between 1980 and 2020.
The publication stated that Britain would have run out of food by August 21 if it was solely reliant on British food as of today, August 17.
Prof. Tim Lang said:
“A country that has low self-sufficiency puts itself at risk of any geopolitics and we are in exactly that sort of uncertainty now.
Minette Batters, president of the NFU, added:
“Covid-19 has stretched everything to the limit and we have to take a different line on food security and the amount of food that is produced [in Britian].
“It’s the perfect storm of events.”
UK dairy sector can ‘go further’
In other UK-related news, Mark Roach, the managing director of Grosvenor Farms near Chester in England, has said that the UK dairy sector could “go further” and match Ireland’s doubling of its dairy output, while stressing that it needs to avoid a “supply chain only” expansion that could see a price crash.
Also Read: The UK can ‘match Ireland’s doubling of its dairy output’
Roach made the comments as part of a recent webinar for the Oxford Farming Conference (OFC) held on Thursday, August 6.
Roach detailed how the business, which produces 90,000L of fresh milk daily and grows 6,000ac of crops, expanded to the size and scale that it is currently, with more than 2,500 cows.
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