Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 30
30
The Department told us that it did not think that ELM’s focus on environmental management...
Conclusion
The Department told us that it did not think that ELM’s focus on environmental management would result in the UK importing more food. It explained that the scheme was also designed to boost productivity so that, despite taking land out of production to deliver environmental benefits, farmers can produce more food from the remaining land. It said that this would potentially free up some land to convert to forestry without the need to import any more food. This was echoed by the RSPB, which told us that delivering environmental benefits could also support long-term viable farming and directly improve farm businesses through increased yield. The Department said that there was nothing in its approach or programme that suggested that in 10 years’ time the UK would be importing more food.83
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government
Not Addressed
3: PAC conclusion: We are not convinced that the Department sufficiently understands how its environmental and productivity ambitions will impact the food and farming sector over the next decade. 3: PAC recommendation: The Department should urgently explain to the Committee, showing its forecasts both for changes in land use and resulting changes in payments to farmers, how it expects its farming programmes to affect food production and farm productivity in England and report annually to Parliament on the level of food price inflation together with any changes to the proportion of the food we consume that is produced in the UK, which was 53% in 2018. 3.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: end of March 2022 3.2 The government agrees that it is important to understand the impacts of reforms on the food and farming sector and, with that in mind published a detailed analysis in 2018 and 2019 that set out the likely impacts of direct payment reductions on different types of farm business. 3.3 The 2019 Future Farming and Environment Evidence Compendium sets out a comprehensive analysis of the impact of removing direct payments alongside an analysis of routes to improve productivity and grow farm incomes. 3.4 The government is currently updating this analysis to reflect data on farm incomes immediately preceding the start of the agricultural transition and will publish an update by 31 March 2022. 3.5 The government agrees it is important to publish regular data on food price inflation and food self-sufficiency. Food price inflation and self-sufficiency is reported annually in the Food Statistics Pocketbook sections 6, 7 and 9 (a National Statistics publication, Food Statistics in your pocket: Summary.