Your case for the accumulation of public food reserves in the UK, to ensure that we can feed the nation in the event of war, trade disagreements or world shortages, is well made (Editorial, 20 January). We are rapidly moving into times where the risks of such scenarios are high. Without food for its population, the UK would face economic and political breakdown and anarchy.
You mention the urgent need to accumulate national stocks of food supplies, probably mostly imported, but say nothing about the UK’s own capacity to produce its own food supply from the agricultural and horticultural industries. In a lengthy period of worldwide food shortage, this would be the only way of avoiding food shortages.
Following the food shortages of the second world war, we did reach a level of 78% self-sufficiency in 1984, but this has gradually fallen to 62%. This level of home production is about to decline rapidly as the demand for land from a range of other more lucrative uses continues to grow. House- and road-building, the use of agricultural land for woodland and other carbon-saving purposes, solar farms, the creation of new wildlife habitats, recreational use and the general unprofitability of farming will see our self-sufficiency fall again over the next decade. The government’s own land use framework predicts a 10% reduction in farmland by 2050, but this is likely far short of reality.
These alternative uses of land are all beneficial and desirable, but are they ultimately more important than feeding the population? Most other countries do not think so.
Richard Harvey
Owston, Leicestershire
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