Food Security Summary

Feeding the population

Question: “Feeding ten billion people is no problem,” or by 2025 Africa will be lucky to feed less than 25% of its population.”

The truth is hopefully somewhere between these statements, but where? And it’s not just an African problem, a lot of our UK fresh veg comes from Africa.

Soil degradation

Soil degradation is rife, not just in Africa, but in California, New Zealand, China and East Anglia. It is probably hidden in other areas by fertilizers and increasing intensity of farming practices. This is just one aspect of environmental vandalism.

We need informed strategies for rebuilding soil as an asset or we may need to learn how to grow crops on Astroturf. But do we want chemically derived food?

Commercial Farming and Nature

There seems to be a disconnect between commercial farming and nature. This manifests itself in soil condition but also in pollution of water courses, rivers and estuaries as well as the ”geological time bomb” of fertilisers in our sub-soils and rocks. Farmers are under intense pressure to buy fertilizers but when most farming subsidies end up with the agro-chemical corporations the system is obviously wrong.

We must realise that we are a part of nature, not apart from it, and if we screw up nature it won’t support us. Crops and farming practices must be appropriate to where they are grown; if we try to fight nature we will lose.

Nutrition

Feeding ourselves should not be the end objective as is demonstrated by obesity, especially in deprived areas. The debate needs to be re-focused on Nutrition. This involves education of consumers as well as providers and policy makers but it is put at risk by the global market and their vested interests.

Global market

The global market is run by about ten supermarket corporations; a cartel on an enormous scale. There is a whole raft of corporate and governance issues which are keeping the global rural population poor and virtually enslaved. In the event of any problems they will become the next wave of migrants. If we want food security their security is part of our solution and those solution must include for major climate change risks.

British overseas investment

British overseas investment in replanting forest projects in places like the Colombian Amazon are good starting points. The Australian drought and other recent debacles have revealed that a lot of tropical crops grow naturally under trees: no trees, no crops!

The same may be true of high rainfall areas in temperate climates where soil erosion or nutrient leaching is prevalent, such as in UK upland moors.

Farming community

In the UK we need to get the farming community onside instead of alienating them by treating farms as tourist attractions. This is a major social engineering exercise and will take time. It took an experienced East Midlands farmer about twenty years to achieve a balanced robust pasture for grazing all year round.

Government policy needs to be similarly long term to be worthwhile or relevant.