The National Audit Office has issued a report this morning that says:
[The UK] food supply chain faces a wide range of risks that can cause disruption. These include ‘acute risks' – events requiring an emergency response – such as extreme weather, cyber-attacks, energy disruptions and animal, plant or human disease outbreaks.
It also faces longer-term ‘chronic risks' such as climate change, which can gradually erode resilience over time. Risks can be interrelated and may trigger or exacerbate other risks. For example, climate change is increasing the likelihood of extreme weather events.
Disruption to food supply can lead to food price inflation, less consumer choice, and vulnerable people struggling to access food, which can worsen issues such as food poverty and the health effects of poor diet. It can also increase operating costs and disrupt operations for businesses, and lead to significant costs for the government.
The government's National Risk Register highlights several risks that, while considered low in likelihood, could cause catastrophic disruption (the highest impact category) if they occurred, and result in food shortages because of a failure of the food supply chain. Examples of these risks include a national power outage, pandemic, nuclear accident, or large-scale chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear attack.
And their suggestion is:
To date, Defra has largely relied on the private sector to manage disruptions to food supply. This has been possible because of the resilience in the UK food system, which can source from all over the world, and commercial incentives on businesses to invest against risks and respond during a crisis.
However, the sector's ability to withstand catastrophic events that cause severe disruption has not been tested, and Defra's actions in recent years have not been sufficient to ensure the supply chain is resilient to such events.
Let me put this another way. As I have been saying here for some time, the chance that we will face a food crisis is very high. Trump's war is disrupting worldwide fertiliser supplies, including now those from Canada to the USA, and drought and disruptive trade policies are creating the risk that food supplies could be severely disrupted in the next year or so. Add to this the consequences of El Niño, and the short-term outlook is poor.
Put into the mix the long-term threats arising from climate change, with the probability of major changes in weather patterns that could disrupt a great deal of established agricultural practice at a rate that few countries will be able to adapt to, and that risk is very high indeed.
All of this requires deep, in-depth strategic planning on the part of the government because there is no one else who can undertake such work. The only problem is, as the report notes, the UK government's Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), which would be responsible for this, has to date outsourced all its thinking on this issue to the food industry and has appeared to be unwilling to undertake strategic planning of its own.
So very neoliberal, you might say, and justifiably so.
The climate crisis that we are facing has been created by neoliberalism and its indifference to the planet and our climate. A great deal of the food choices we are facing are, therefore, the consequence of human action. Let us not pretend otherwise.
In that case, the one thing that we can be sure of is that the people we should be asking to manage this quite literally life-threatening crisis are not those who created it, which is what our government's standard response is. The food industry is the problem and not the solution.
As a consequence, it is for the government to take action. It has to think for itself. It will have to make decisions. It will have to impose them on an industry that will fight back. And it will have to do all of this because we, our food supply, and our chances of life, matter more than any threat to the short-term profitability of the industrial complex that is the food industry, which is already poisoning us through its supply of ultra-processed products.
The point has been reached when neoliberalism cannot even pretend to supply answers to any of the reasonable questions people might have about our survival.
The problem is that it is not at all clear that our government has recognised this fact. If they don't, we might all be going hungry, or something very much worse.
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Covid demonstrated the fragility of outsourced “just in time” global supply chains. The Ukraine war has disrupted a key source of agricultural surplus to feed the world. Climate change and El Niño create huge and increasing pressures though heat and storms and floods and droughts. And the Iran war or blockage of the strait of Hormuz will disrupt food production around the world for the next year or more. The picture is grim and getting worse. And it seems the official government position is to stock up on tinned food. Jesus wept.
By and large, the UK should be ok. We are a small and relatively rich country. But populous and poor countries – in Africa and Asia and South America – are facing a real risk of widespread famine. After which will come pestilence, war and death.
I am not sure we will be OK.
I call that an assumption too far.
I agree other countries face even bigger risks.
Andrew says: “By and large, the UK should be ok. We are a small and relatively rich country.”
The implication is that we can just buy food from elsewhere. Not so: that food might not be available, at any reasonable price. Here in France shortages from the disatrous summer are already showing up as eye-popping price increases in the markets (the real ones, where very many people go to buy food) and will shortly show up in supermarkets. One supplier has already said today that it will add 4 or 5 centimes to every meal “in order to support the farmers”. (I’ll try not to be cynical at this point). But supermarket bosses and government spokespeople are on the radio and TV saying that there will be shortages, price increases and that we must all be prepared to buy produce that “doesn’t look very good”. Fruit and veg are smaller, less attractive and dryer and tougher than usual.
All this to say that the UK is far from alone in having terrible crop yields and buying the way out from neighbouring countries might not be an option. And next year will probably be worse.
As an addendum, the way growers adapt in the future might not be that easy to handle. Around here growers are switching away from fruit and veg to produce that is more tolerant of heat and lack of water: cassava, pistachios for example. Expect changes to our diets in the next few years.
I cannot see how East Anglia can grow potatoes soon – they just demand far too much water.
I doubt the government will do much apart from some fine words from Mr Burnham. They are too blinkered to do anything constructive and will see any intervention as standing in the way of growth. We are snookered!!!
Food security starts at home, and British farming is the frontline of it. A resilient domestic supply chain reduces our exposure to fertiliser shocks, extreme weather and geopolitical disruption abroad. Yet this government has piled pressure on farmers – inheritance tax changes hitting family farms, squeezed subsidies post-BPS, and trade deals undercutting UK producers with lower-standard imports – while offering little in return.
If food security is taken seriously, government should: 1) guarantee long-term, ring-fenced funding for sustainable farming schemes, not annual uncertainty; 2) invest in domestic fertiliser and energy resilience so farmers aren’t hostage to global shocks; 3) mandate minimum UK-sourcing standards in public procurement to underpin demand.
The way this Govt has treated UK farmers is shameful and dangerous.
I cannot take anyone who says inheritance tax is an issue seriously on this issue.
Please do not waste my time by appealing for subsidies and then refusing to pay taxes.
I call that grifting.
You are shameful.
“trade deals undercutting UK producers with lower-standard imports”
Didn’t the farming community overwhelmingly vote to leave the EU?
The wilful blindness at work here is staggering.
I’m sure that whilst Covid was around, the distribution of face masks and other PPE was disrupted by buyers with deeper pockets who basically gazumped the needs of other weaker buyers with their buying power.
So much for market management? Their version of efficiency is a profit margin and is at odds with the needs of survival, especially when rewarding wealth is already hard wired into our societal systems. It’s all wrong, for sure.
There has been talk from the government to advise people to “stock up” with canned food for emergency food shortages. How on earth can millions of people already struggling to feed them and their children with the cost of living crisis have the money to do this when they are living hand to mouth already? Let alone whether they have the storage space, especially in many new houses where there isn’t even room to swing a cat.
I wrote about this recently, here.
George Monbiot has discussed the development of microbial protein as a food source to allow rewilding of land. Maybe it is time for the Government to start taking a lead in this avenue? Putting it out there for discussion. I don’t know how feasible an option this is in the short term.
Me neither
George usually does his research
Rebecca Wilcox was on Morning Live at 9.30 saying that there is no problem and we don’t need to be stoking up. That’s likely to be the government’s response because they always adopt and Ostrich stance and hope the problem will magically go away. I’ve been noticing all sorts of shortages for months now during my shopping trips. The supermarkets are filling the shelves with alternative products to prevent them from looking empty.
Much to agree with
Here is a critique of George Monbiot’s food proposals
https://chrissmaje.com/2026/06/saving-the-world-from-bad-ideas-the-continuing-failure-of-food-ecomodernism/
Basically it involves a massive level of ‘inputs’ both of energy & ‘materials’
Thanks for the post. Smaje seems to makes fair points about the bacterial protein. But does not engage whatsoever regarding the contents of Chapter 4 of Regenesis which as I note (in another post) , could address much of the food needs (much – not all) for non-metro areas. This would still leave a large amount of land for growing grain etc. The population needs to move away from the large-scale consumption of meat (& fish farming). There are no simple solutions (of the sort politicos favour).
The Chris Smaje / George Monbiot ‘debate’ on these issues is a bit of a ‘classic’; but I think the criticism of Smaje’s position that it’s inconceivable that the UK can go back (?) to being a nation of lots of small-holder and mixed farms is a valid one. Or, it might work, but only for a seriously-reduced population (which implies mass emigration or death).
I dont profess a genius level IQ or attendance at one of the worlds leading universities but surely the real issue with farms and Inheritance Tax is that the income produced by farming is insufficient to pay it.
That points to farmland being massively overpriced in which case the solution is to tackle the overpricing and not Inheritance Tax.
Couple of positives.
1. Monbiots Regensis Chapter 4. Rolled out across the nation this could feed many/most non-metro locations (it is not a total solution).
2. Cost of farm diesel is now +/- 10p/kWh. Depending on location and cost of capital I could make green hydrogen @ 15p/kWh – that price being locked so we could power farming sector via home made fuel (the conversion of the tractor to burn H2 is straightforward).
Negative: imbeciles/private equity are covering farm land with ground mount PV (when roof top, residential, commercial and industrial is grossly underutilised)
(of course the does not matter cos the wealthy people who run PE won’t be affected by food price rises and shortage – & the plods will protect them from pitchforks etc).
Most of uk farmland is beef and lamb grazing. Renewables are projected to take up 1500sq km by 2050 (of land of varying quality) while at present golf courses take up 1250sq km. While PE is annoying I don’t see the point in attacking renewables. They’re needed at scale? I don’t see why that has to affect food production significantly.
Grazing (and to some extent, crops) UNDER the PV installations is perfectly possible; and according to something I read (from a US farmer) just this afternoon, can even give some improvements in animal productivity. But by no means to negate the point about PV on urban roofs, car parks etc; and ‘every street a power station’.
That was what the Green New Deal was / is in part about.
It’s already here – cabbages not much bigger than tennis balls. Same for cauliflowers, as both seen in a supermarket near me. As to be expected in a baking drought year. I had a debate with a local (Somerset) farmer a few weeks ago about growing more crops other than beef (well, some farmers at least call cattle ‘crops’). “The land isn’t suitable” is the old saw that came up. I don’t think that’s true as our ancestors, not so long ago, grew and lived on all sorts of things. “We need to grow maize” for the cattle – but Maize can wreck soil structure and is a greedy plant. Another grows bl***y Miscanthus for biomass (a.k.a. burning) – insanity – (but the “grants” help). Moaning about “unfair” IHT, and he’s a flipping tenant!!
Time for an agricultural reset, methinks.
Pitchfork time in Somerset!
The moment it was officially advised to stockpile I knew we are screwed: there’s nothing like national reserve of any kind and they don’t give flying toss.
I think it’ll gonna be excellent business opportunity for gardening tools manufacturers, things like peeling knives, machetes…
Agreed
What does a UK suffering food shortages look like? I mean it’s not just going to be food shortages and everything else remaining the same. Food riots? Supermarket delivery vans under military escort to ward of highway robberies? Famished groups of city dwellers laying seige to warehouses? Break down of civic order?… ???
Parents who cannot feed their children WILL riot. There’s no IF about it. They WILL.
For a couple of weeks in August, I cycled down the Danube valley. It was rather hot. All the mono-cropping fields (mostly maize) were drought-stricken – all the way from Linz in Upper Austria, to Budapest. Fruit orchards looked a little better, but trees are naturally more resilient and deeper-rooted. The river itself was dramatically low. (You may have seen reports that Hungary had to shut down a large part of its nuclear power station – which supplies much of the country’s electricity – due to the lack of cooling water. I also visited Gyor, Hungary, where soda-water was invented – by a priest, I was told – and the fountains were all turned off.)
Worrying…
This is well worth reading as his book Regenesis. He has done his research. https://www.monbiot.com/2023/03/09/the-hunger-gap/
In recent years I have usually managed to grow enough potatoes to last until around March. This year, having planted at least as many seed potatoes, it looks unlikely that there’ll be enough potatoes (and/or large enough potatoes) to last beyond Christmas. That’s mostly because of lack of rain (I use watering cans but not hoses) though partly through the appetite of muntjacs for the fresh shoots of potatoes and a lot of other plants.
I loved growing potatoes when I used to. Harvesting them always felt like a miracle.