The labour government has never been sympathetic to the farming industry and has always taken the attitude that if food can be imported cheaper than grown at home, then that should be what happens even if that means that our food production capability is reduced.
In the past it was normal for ministers responsible for food and farming to have a farming background or at least represent a constituency in a farming area. But unbelievably, Hilary Benn has only one farm in his constituency and Jane Kennedy, Food and Farming Minister has none at all in Liverpool’s Wavertree constituency.
However attitudes seem to be changing. Hopefully after reading our book, ”Famine in the West”, Hilary Benn has started saying that food security is important and that sustainable home grown food production should be encouraged.
The Government’s top scientific adviser, Professor John Beddington could have been almost reading straight from the book when he told an audience of eminent scientists in London recently that world agricultural output must increase by 50% by 2030 to feed a rapidly growing population.
He said the major challenge would be to produce more food with less available water, less available energy resources, fewer pesticides, increasing competition for land, while emitting fewer greenhouse gasses. However, world policy-makers had ignored the imminent threat until now.