The government’s change in attitude to national food production over the last two years has been criticised by Peter Kendall, president of the National Farmers’ Union, who claims that there has been a switch from wanting farmers and growers to reduce acreage and become “park keepers”, to wanting them to increase production to maintain cheap consumer prices.
Professor Robert Watson, the government’s chief scientific adviser, believes that crop choice and planting times would need a radical rethink if western Europe was called upon to produce more food. This, he admits, poses the problem that small-scale farms might be at risk from large-scale plantations.
But the NFU has serious doubts as to whether this will be possible at all, because of rising costs, shortage of labour and a possible land shortage if demand for biofuels increases.
“Who are we kidding if we double production,” said Kendall. “Currently the food debate has moved away from one of science to one of emotion.”
In the long term, he believes that cheaper food is “short-sighted madness”, if the UK ultimately becomes a source for the rest of the world.
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