Recommendations and conclusions 37 shown
Recommendation · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Recommended (the committee's words)
Food self-sufficiency is an important aspect of food security. When developing relevant strategies, the Government must recognise the risks of national over- reliance on imports for many products, as experience earlier this year of empty shelves for certain salad items has taught.
Conclusion · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Concluded (the committee's words)
The UK food system is inseparable from the global food system, and increasing food security is not only a question of improving domestic self-sufficiency. To rely only on domestic production would increase the UK’s vulnerability to extreme weather events in the UK. Even food produced at home depends on importing certain components from abroad, such as animal feed, fertilisers, and pesticide.
Recommendation · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Recommended (the committee's words)
Since food security depends on some degree of imports, it is vital that environmental harms are not exported abroad. That is why it is so important to get the UK’s trade deals right on food and the environment. We welcome the Minister’s desire to demonstrate global leadership on food production and the environment. The Government must show its leadership by upholding standards for the environmental impacts of food production in its trading relationships with other countries. It should publish a statement on climate and biodiversity standards for food production, equivalent to its promised statement on animal health. Its commitment to incorporate climate scenario analysis into trade models by 2025 should be matched by biodiversity scenario analysis.
Conclusion · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Concluded (the committee's words)
The food system globally and in the UK has become too concentrated and too driven by price alone. The Government and food industries must focus on embedding more diversity of produce and farming methods within the food system and reducing concentration in the market.
Recommendation · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Recommended (the committee's words)
Given the increasing volatility in food supplies, not just due to extreme weather, but also due to the recent geopolitical and health crises we have experienced, the Government should publish its food security report annually rather than every three years as it has currently committed to. The fact that many of the measures included in the food security report are already published annually only lends more support, in our view, to the argument that the food security report ought to be published every year.
Recommendation · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Recommended (the committee's words)
Defra collaborates with other Government departments and with industry on food security issues, but this work is neither sufficiently co-ordinated nor long-term. The Government should establish a cross-government, cross-sector food security body to bring together all the actors in the food system to examine and make policy recommendations on long-term food resilience and environmental issues. While much food policy is devolved, some areas that affect food security, such as trade, are not devolved; and many farms straddle territorial borders. Therefore the cross- government body should also involve the devolved administrations. The body could be in the form of a Food Resilience Forum, but must take a long-term view. One Environmental change and food security 71 responsibility with which this platform could be tasked would be to conduct forward- looking reviews in specific markets to inform investigations ahead of, rather than during, a crisis.
Recommendation · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Recommended (the committee's words)
The fact that the Government currently only has an “aspiration” for half of public money spent on food to be produced within the local area or produced to higher environmental standards is a missed opportunity. The Government should turn its ambition on public procurement into setting a target, and should set mandatory environmental standards for publicly procured food.
Recommendation · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Recommended (the committee's words)
Preventing and reducing waste at all stages in the food chain should be a central component of the Government’s food strategy, as this is a quick-win compared to other actions to maintain food security in the face of environmental change. The Government should publish a strategy for preventing and reducing waste in the food system. This should include targets and timescales, not just for reducing wastage of food itself but also for reducing the waste of resources that go into producing food, such as fertiliser and water.
Recommendation · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Recommended (the committee's words)
We welcome the Government’s ambitions to boost the UK seafood industry, a sector which is currently heavily reliant on imports. But significantly more detail is required on how it will do so in an environmentally sustainable way. The Government must publish concrete proposals for improving the contribution of UK seafood to food security, setting out clearly how its proposals will improve rather than harm the natural environment.
Conclusion · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Concluded (the committee's words)
We welcome the Food Data Transparency Partnership and the progress it is making towards establishing baseline food sustainability metrics and methodologies. However, more clarity is needed on the areas in which the Government intends to set metrics and its timescales for doing so. Such metrics and tools are vital for knowing where action should be focused, and whether progress is being made to improve food resilience, soil health, carbon sequestration and nature restoration. A common standard for these measurements is also essential to maintain trust between policy-makers and the agriculture sector.
Recommendation · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Recommended (the committee's words)
The Government should list all the areas in which it intends to establish baseline metrics and tools for food sustainability. These should include but may not be limited to: soil health, carbon sequestration, biodiversity net gain, and carbon credits. It should publish a timetable for when each metric will be in place.
Recommendation · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Recommended (the committee's words)
Only once national baseline metrics are in place, the Government should consult on mandatory carbon and biodiversity food reporting, as it is already doing for health metrics. The methodology for such reporting must account for the nutritional content of food.
Recommendation · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Recommended (the committee's words)
The Government should also consider compulsory reporting of waste by all food businesses as part of the waste prevention and reduction strategy that we recommend.
Recommendation · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Recommended (the committee's words)
We welcome the targets that the Government has set to establish a soil health indicator; provide a methodology and tools for measuring soil health; publish a baseline map of soil health by 2028; and bring 60% of soils in England into sustainable management by 2030. We recognise that measuring soil health is highly complex, and recommend that the Government explore a suite of indicators taking into account different biological, physical, and chemical factors among others. The Government must provide clear guidance for farmers with a realistic set of science- based benchmarks that they can use to measure the health of their soils accurately and affordably.
Conclusion · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Concluded (the committee's words)
Water management on farms is going to become increasingly important as the climate changes. Using water more efficiently and storing it for use during droughts, as well as managing water demand overall, is going to be critical.
Recommendation · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Recommended (the committee's words)
The Government must set stronger targets for reducing water demand. We support the Climate Change Committee’s recommended target of no more than 100 litres of water per person per day.
Conclusion · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Concluded (the committee's words)
A huge amount of water could be saved by more effectively facilitating the transportation of water from wetter to drier parts of the country. The Government, in collaboration with the devolved administrations, should develop a policy mechanism to transport water more easily and quickly from places where water is plentiful to more water-stressed places.
Recommendation · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Recommended (the committee's words)
Technologies that pinpoint the use of water offer much promise to irrigate farms in a more efficient in targeted way, and should be used more widely. While the Water Management Grant can be used to pay for water efficiency projects, this funding will benefit only a very small proportion of farmers in England. The Government must develop a specific policy mechanism to promote and roll out precision irrigation across the UK farming system. In designing and monitoring the uptake of this mechanism, the Government should mitigate against efficiency paradoxes and report on the impact on water usage.
Conclusion · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Concluded (the committee's words)
We welcome the Government’s goal to increase water storage in the agriculture and horticulture sectors by two-thirds by 2050. We also welcome the Government’s work on reviewing abstraction licenses and its call for evidence on the planning barriers to small reservoirs. However, food producers clearly feel that the Government is not doing enough nor moving fast enough. To reach its target of increasing water storage by two thirds by 2050, the Government needs an implementation plan that considers and removes barriers in a holistic way, namely: funding, planning, and abstraction.
Recommendation · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Recommended (the committee's words)
Poor quality water for farmers affects our food security, and so steps must be taken to reduce the water pollution that the agriculture industry itself causes. We reiterate our recommendations on water pollution caused by agriculture, from our report on Water Quality, that the Government should: • Commission a five-yearly appraisal of catchment-wide nutrient flows; Environmental change and food security 73 • Establish a presumption against granting planning permission for new intensive livestock units where the proposed development would exceed the catchment’s nutrient budget, unless there are more robust mitigations in place; • Intensify work to inspect and remediate large animal slurry stores; • Independently evaluate the risks to human health and the environment of spreading sewage sludge, and • Assess and mitigate the risk of microplastic pollution from sewage sludge. We ask that in its response to this report, the Government includes an update on the commitments it provided in response to those recommendations.
Recommendation · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Recommended (the committee's words)
Currently, nutrients are being lost through leaching into waterways when they could be used to help grow crops. The Government should develop, in collaboration with the devolved administrations and the food and farming supply chains, effective means to transport by-products such as nitrates and phosphates to parts of the UK where they are needed for farming. The Government should monitor the impact of these means on water quality.
Conclusion · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Concluded (the committee's words)
The Government’s commitment to publishing a Land Use Framework for England offers a vital opportunity to ensure that English land performs the many functions required of it, including food production, while also supporting the Government’s net zero and nature targets. There is a clear consensus among stakeholders, other select committees, and the Government itself, with which we agree, that the framework should provide a non-prescriptive set of principles for decision-making, and that the three compartments underpinning the framework should be continuous rather than discrete categories.
Conclusion · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Concluded (the committee's words)
The Minister committed to a publication timetable for the Land Use Framework of this year. We expect the framework to be published no later than the last sitting day in December of 2023 and we expect the framework to balance competing demands on UK land and to integrate fully food security as a central principle. The framework must set out how land will produce food in a way that supports the resilience of our food system while adapting to and mitigating climate change and biodiversity loss. Where feasible, land should be shared to help meet multiple objectives including food production, carbon sequestration, restoring nature, and growing energy crops. The framework must show evidence of having been co-produced with those who are affected by it. Finally, it must also evidence how productivity within existing uses can be improved without negative environmental impacts.
Recommendation · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Recommended (the committee's words)
The success of the Government’s forthcoming Land Use Framework is dependent on its harmony with the English planning system. The Government should publish guidance, under the National Planning Policy Framework, to encourage planning authorities to manage applications for land use changes which affect food security on an expedited basis.
Conclusion · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Concluded (the committee's words)
The questions of whether less meat and dairy should be produced in this country, and whether Britons should eat less meat and dairy, are emotive and personal. They cut to the core of our cultures and our identities and have the potential to be polarising. We heard a range of strong opinions. Many argued that people living in the UK should aim to cut down the amount of meat and dairy they consume, and the Climate Change Committee is clear in its advice that across the country meat and dairy consumption should reduce by 20% by 2030 and by 35% by 2050 in order to achieve the Government’s net zero target. Others, however, pointed to the ecological benefits of grazing livestock. We are keenly aware that many people’s livelihoods in this country depend on livestock farming. That is why we also recommend supporting those farmers who wish to transition to new business practices where necessary and ensuring that their options for producing food in an environmentally sustainable way are commercially viable and culturally considerate.
Recommendation · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Recommended (the committee's words)
In its Land Use Framework, the Government, informed by the evidence we have received for our inquiry, should set out whether the UK can continue production at current levels, or should seek to increase domestic food production to enhance food security, while also meeting its targets on net zero and biodiversity. To do so it should publish alongside the Land Use Framework its methodologies for calculating how these potentially conflicting objectives will be met.
Recommendation · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Recommended (the committee's words)
The Government does not want to tell people what to eat, but from its plans to encourage people to eat more healthily it clearly understands its role in helping people make better choices. In any case, if the Government will not tell people what to eat, the advertising industry will: we heard that for every £5 spent on public health education, £200 is spent on junk food ads. We welcome the Government’s plans in its food strategy to encourage more sustainable eating, but there is more that it can do without being prescriptive. In addition to our recommendations on public procurement, we recommend that the Government should publish national guidance on sustainable diets within the next twelve months. The Government’s plans for a strong food curriculum in schools should include science-based education about the environmental impacts of food production, including food waste. The Government’s work on UK consumer seafood habits should explore how to encourage consumers to eat a wider variety of more sustainable species.
Recommendation · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Recommended (the committee's words)
To achieve the diversity needed for a resilient food system, the UK must produce food through a variety of different farming methods spanning a spectrum from a return to more traditional methods, to agroecology, to the latest in cutting edge technology. We welcome the Government’s commitment to identifying research priorities for innovation in food production, and its consultations on precision breeding and methane suppressing feed products. We recommend that within the next six months the Government publish its priorities for agricultural innovation research and development—referring to our list of suggested topics—and ensure that these areas are backed by appropriate funding. This will provide clarity for researchers, industry, and investors.
Conclusion · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Concluded (the committee's words)
Urban horticulture and controlled environment agriculture both offer opportunities to improve the UK’s self-sufficiency in fruit and vegetables. While they will not supplant the need for open-field farming, they can play a role in diversifying the UK’s food sources and therefore building resilience.
Recommendation · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Recommended (the committee's words)
As well as having environmental benefits, urban horticulture offers potential health and wellbeing benefits and employment opportunities in local communities. The Government should take steps to encourage the availability of green and grey space for urban horticulture, particularly in deprived communities, and to upskill communities in growing knowledge, beginning with the school curriculum.
Recommendation · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Recommended (the committee's words)
Controlled environment agriculture has the potential to provide a fresh year-round supply of foods that are usually imported and to minimise the environmental impact of the production of such foods, so long as it can use renewable energy wherever possible. We welcome the Government’s plans to review the planning permission process to support new developments of vertical farms, but are disappointed that the Government’s decision not to bring forward a horticulture strategy means that there will be no strategy for controlled environment horticulture. The Government should explore ways to grow the controlled environment agriculture sector in an environmentally responsible way, such as through its Land Use Framework and its Environmental Land Management schemes, as well as through the business rates regime.
Recommendation · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Recommended (the committee's words)
The Environmental Land Management schemes offer an opportunity that must not be missed to achieve the three pillars of adapting our food system to environmental change, mitigating the environmental harms caused by our food system, and slowing climate change and biodiversity decline in general. We do not think the Government should take for granted that food security is a public good, particularly given that farmers have encountered more extreme weather and rising costs since ELMs were first initiated. Any decline in food security has profound implications across society. The Government should designate food security as a public good and incorporate food security and environmental goals more explicitly in the design of the Environmental Land Management schemes.
Recommendation · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Recommended (the committee's words)
The initial reaction from the latest iteration of the Sustainable Farming Incentive appears to show that the Government has listened to farmers’ concerns and made the offer more attractive. However, to enable more effective scrutiny of whether that is the case, the Government should publish regular data on the uptake of all three Environmental Land Management schemes, with a long-term view towards publishing data on the environmental outcomes achieved by the schemes.
Conclusion · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Concluded (the committee's words)
We recognise that changing UK food production practices and land uses will take time so that farmers and land owners can transition their businesses. Farmers need to be able to feed their families, but farming is about so much more than business: farming is also about culture, heritage, communities, and identity, and farmers need to be supported and listened to as UK farming transitions to a lower environmental impact.
Recommendation · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Recommended (the committee's words)
Farmers should have access to support from accredited advisers, to transition their businesses and adopt best practices to improve the resilience of our food system 76 Environmental change and food security while adapting to and mitigating environmental change. This support should include knowledge and skills exchange between researchers, agri-tech developers, and farmers, to enable take up of technological innovations. Farmers should be able to access advice and practical support that is tailored to their local area. Existing networks such as the Linking Environment and Farming network, and the new Institute for Agriculture and Horticulture and What Works Centre, have potential to deliver this support. The Government must ensure that small farmers have access to advisory services that are free to use. It should monitor take up of advice services by farms of all sizes.
Recommendation · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Recommended (the committee's words)
New technologies can help to reduce the climate impacts of food production, prevent waste, and grow certain foods domestically for which the UK over-relies on imports. We agree with the Government that this is an exciting area. However, it is vital that emissions associated with these new technologies do not outweigh the environmental cost of importing the same product. The Government should publish a strategy for technological innovation in food production, which should set out robust plans for trialling new technologies, understanding their net emissions, establishing an appropriate regulatory environment, and making technology accessible to farmers, in particular to small farmers.
Recommendation · Second Report - Environmental change and food security
Recommended (the committee's words)
For farmers to transition their businesses, their options need to be commercially viable. The Government should expand its existing support mechanisms to incentivise take-up of technological innovations in food production, such as for precision irrigation and remote sensing. It should also develop natural capital options through its Green Finance Strategy. Any new incentives should be co-designed with farmers. All technological innovations that have been subsidised by the Government should be monitored closely to understand their impact and to prevent efficiency paradoxes arising.