Farmers criticise government plan to counter threats to UK food security | Environment

The climate crisis will lead to food price shocks and famine, the government has warned in its new plan for British agriculture.

But farmers criticized planThis document outlines for the first time the government’s vision for the long-term direction of farming as the UK fails to secure adequate funding to address this threat to food security.

In the plan published on Wednesday, the government warns that geopolitical instability, the climate crisis, environmental degradation and supply chain disruptions are affecting the UK’s food security.

It warns that this could increase the risk of “severe food price shocks” and in some “extreme cases lead to reduced availability of certain foods”. The climate crisis is already affecting food prices; for example potato prices rose In the UK, it increased by 22% in January and February 2024 following last year’s heavy rain.

The plan says the key solution to this is to move away from fertilizers and pesticides to more sustainable agricultural systems.

“Nature-friendly farming systems can maintain or increase production while strengthening resilience and reducing input dependency. Often, the debate around farming and the environment is framed as a trade-off between food production on the one hand and saving nature on the other. But the most resilient farms are profitable precisely because they work with the environment rather than against it,” the report says.

Tom Bradshaw, chief executive of the National Farmers Union, acknowledged the risk the climate crisis poses to the future of agriculture and said ongoing “record temperatures” showed what the farming sector was facing.

But he criticized the plan for failing to allocate long-term funding to tackle climate breakdown. The plan says the budget for environmental land management (ELM) programs will increase by up to £2bn a year by 2029. This funding increase was first announced last summer.

ELM schemes are pay packages that replace the EU’s common agricultural policy (Cap) after Brexit and pay land managers based on the amount of land under their care. The aim of the programs is to pay farmers to care for nature, soil and other public goods rather than just farming and owning land.

“The Treasury is conspicuously absent from this plan. Instead it puts the balance of risk even more on farmers’ shoulders,” Bradshaw said.

On Wednesday the government allocated an additional £53 million to its farming innovation programme, which will include dedicated funding rounds focusing on robotics, soil health and water management.

It has also launched a new £30 million farmer collaboration fund to support farmer groups to grow their businesses, form partnerships and share best practice.

Last March the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) abruptly closed applications for the sustainable farming incentive (SFI) ELM scheme, sparking outrage from farmers.

Applications for a “simpler, fairer” SFI scheme will open for small farms and those without agreements this month, and for all eligible farms in September, the plan says.

As the UK faces its second record-breaking heatwave in two months, Martin Lines, chief executive of the Green Farming Network, said it was “a huge relief that the plan recognizes the interconnectedness of agriculture, food production, climate and nature”.

But he said the government must now support the implementation of the plan by “supporting UK farmers with the right investment, plans and market conditions, ensuring our land can deliver for food production, nature recovery, climate resilience and economic growth.”

“Current rising temperatures demonstrate the stark choice we face. With the right support and investment, agricultural systems built on healthy soils, clean water and vibrant ecosystems can deliver diverse products and outcomes while restoring nature and helping to mitigate the effects of climate change,” he said. “On the other hand, delay and inaction lead to disaster.”

Environment secretary Emma Reynolds said the plan marked “a move away from looking only at the next harvest and towards a plan that gives farmers the long-term clarity they need to innovate, invest and grow safely for future generations”.