Britain has been blindsided by the threat to our food security as a result of the war.
For years, Defra has been incapacitated by food and environmental wokeism. When it has not been obsessing over exaggerated fears about methane, it has been placating environmentalists by setting politically correct targets for “rewilding”. These days, food production is no longer even identified in the department’s strategic utterances as a “public good” to be delivered by British farmers.
In short, our ability to produce food, and thus keep prices down, has been hampered by government policy that could not be more helpful to Putin if he had written it himself. We are only around 55 per cent self-sufficient in food, and that number is falling. This means that – unlike France or the US – we are at the mercy of world markets. And they are in turmoil.
The UK, for example, is a big net importer of fertiliser, while Russia is one of the biggest exporters of nitrogen and potash, two of the three critical nutrients. Now, surprise surprise, fertiliser prices are at an all time high, and it is British farmers who are feeling the pinch. But the problem runs deeper. Even before the current crisis, our farmers were facing extortionately high nitrogen prices as a result of British plants ceasing production in response to higher gas prices. And who, at least in part, was responsible for that rise in gas prices? You guessed it, Putin.
At the time, the Government was fixated on headlines predicting a lack of fizzy drinks caused by the knock-on effect of carbon dioxide shortages. But the main impact has been on farm budgets. It has caused a number of British farmers to change to less intensive business models, or even to plant trees and cease farming altogether.
To compound the problem, Russia and Ukraine together also account for 29 per cent of world wheat exports. Until recently, the UK was self-sufficient in wheat in good years, but no longer: now the price of wheat in the UK is dictated by world markets. Ukraine is sometimes called the “bread basket” of Europe, but wheat price doesn’t just affect the cost of bread, it is also the main cost in pork and poultry production.
Environment Secretary George Eustice had the opportunity to address these problems at the NFU conference last month. He chose instead to make enigmatic predictions that climate change would be good for British farming.
In response, the union’s exasperated president, Minette Batters, accused the Government of a “total lack of understanding of how food production works” and pointed out that, despite living in an increasingly unstable world, ministers’ “ambition for our countryside seems to be almost entirely focused on anything other than domestic food production.”
Many of us felt that the recent Cabinet reshuffle was a missed opportunity. Down-to-earth Notts farmer and ex-chief whip Mark Spencer could have been moved to Defra and George Eustice’s talents deployed elsewhere.
Maybe the Ukraine crisis will act as a wake up call and the Government will now get a grip of Defra, purge Putin’s useful idiots in the “Green Blob” and ensure that one of Brexit’s stated objectives – increased food security – is met. In the meantime, prepare for higher food prices.
Jamie Blackett farms in Dumfriesshire
