Brexit and food security

Tim Lang from City University raises food security concerns in an article on Brexit: Feeding ourselves

Lang argues: 'If the UK really does want “independence” and to “take back control”, we might like to think about how our current food system, according to an Aberdeen University study this year, has 70% of its cropland located abroad, with 64% of its climate change impacts there too. Others feed us here and pollute there on our behalf.'

'UK self-sufficiency has been inexorably dropping from the high point that EU membership took it to in the early 1980s. Then it was more than 80%. Now it is down to 61% according to Defra’s statistics.'

'The UK imports 30% of what we eat from the EU. A huge amount of that is the good stuff for health: fruit and veg. We export whisky, biscuits, fat and meat. History suggests that a country which only just feeds itself is in a potentially fragile state. Just-in-time logistics means supermarkets operate on about three to five days’ stocks.'

The need for a Common Sustainable Food Policy

An authoritative and informative survey of the CAP by Alison Bailey, Tim Lang and Victoria Shoen concludes with a call for change and the formulation of a Common Sustainable Food Policy: Common Food Policy

Whatever else the referendum debate has done, it has stimulated some excellent work on the future direction of policy.

We need to stay in the CAP but we must continue to work for reform

I was one of the speakers at an event on the impact of Brexit on food at the House of Commons last night. It was organized by the Food Foundation, Food Research Collaboration and the Food Ethics Council. The other speakers were Tim Lang of City University and Fiona Smith from Warwick who covered the complex international trade dimension which she described as a 'quagmire'.

Tim Lang claimed that the issue of how food and drink would be affected has been 'largely ignored' in the debate so far. His report suggests there will be 'volatility, disruption and uncertainty' in a post-Brexit trade world. 'The UK should wake up to the significance of our and the EU’s food role in this changed world,” said Lang. 'The public isn’t yet interested, seeing it as a matter of farming. This is dangerously wrong.'

I argued that Pillar 1 subsidies would be vulnerable after Brexit, Pillar 2 subsidies less so. Kerry McCarthy, the shadow cabinet member for Defra, asked why this was the case. I responded that Pillar 2 subsidies would be defended by a coalition of environmental and conservationist lobbies along with farmers, whilst Pillar 1 subsidies would be defended by farmers alone. Pillar 2 subsidies would also receive more support from academics as they were seen as providing public goods.

There was agreement among the panel that the emphasis needed to be on sustainability and that the CAP needed to address public health issues. There was increased public concern about these issues, but it would take at least ten years to make progress. If the UK remained in the EU, the Government needed to take a more systematic and engaged approach to CAP reform.

Kerry McCarthy made a good point when she referred to the Janus-faced nature of the CAP, on the one hand encouraging niche, high valued added, quality production and on the other hand intensive forms of commodity farming.

As President Obama pointed out, we live in an interconnected world and that is why we need a policy like the CAP, for all its imperfections.

Brexit a diversion from sustainability

The referendum on the UK’s European Union membership will have “momentous significance” for the country’s food system, according to a new briefing paper published by the Food Research Collaboration (FRC). The report – called Food, the UK and the EU: Brexit or Bremain? – argues the country must “wake up to the enormity of unravelling 43 years of co-negotiated food legislation”.

According to the authors – Professor Tim Lang, of City University London, and Dr Victoria Schoen, of the FRC – both consumers and businesses will be affected by a vote to leave the EU. This is a deviation from what the authors describe as the real task of getting the UK food system, from production to consumption, to be more sustainable. If the country decided to leave, food imports are predicted to become more expensive, prices would increase and there could be major disruptions to the finely tuned just-in-time supply chains on which the UK food system now depends.

With such prices increases for imported goods, it is suggested there could be consequences for the consumption of foods that the UK relies on EU nations to produce. For example, nearly 40 per cent of the UK’s total food supply of fruit and vegetables comes from the EU, and nearly 55 per cent of its supply of pigmeat.

The authors express concern about the health implications of Brexit, as diet now accounts for 10.8 per cent of the nation’s total disease burden (compared with 10.7 per cent for tobacco). According to the report, the UK is about 60 per cent food self-sufficient so should be wary of instant independence from the EU.

The authors also warn of a potential “food service and food factory crisis” if EU labour currently working in those industries lost their freedom of movement to be in the UK – figures show EU employees make up more than a quarter of the food manufacturing workforce (26.9%) and a tenth of workers in food and beverage services (11.3%). This compares with 6.1 per cent across the UK economy as a whole.

The paper can be accessed here: Brexit or Bremain

Why isn't food in the Brexit debate?

The fact that food was not being talked about in the Brexit debate was a political failure said Professor Tim Lang, introducing the 2015 City University Food Symposium on the topic.

Professor Alan Swinbank outlined four broad possible scenarios post Brexit, reduced from a long list of eleven:

• More highly protected agriculture with a self-sufficiency objective
• Freer trade
• Recreate the status quo
• Some tweaking to enhance environmental credentials

Any free trade area negotiated with the EU was unlikely to be a simple deal. Internal market rules and geographical indications would have to be respected.

Peter Backman of Horizons FS said that what was distinctive about food service industries and catering was that they relied - and he emphasised the word relied - on migrants.

Ian Wright of the Food and Drink Federation said any impact on access to imports would have a detrimental effect on business. We would cut ourselves off from the talent pool in the EU when the industry had a skills gap of 100,000 workers. He predicted that the UK would break up in a post-Brexit world.

Martin Haworth, acting director-general of the NFU, said that agriculture had 34,513 full-time employees from outside the UK. The EU did lead to some inappropriate or disproportionate regulation. Legislation was the price of single market access.

Kate Trollope of EU Food Policy said that as a third country, EU approval would be required of manufacturing and processing plants in the UK. Border inspections could lead to time delays. There would also be import fees.

David Baldock of the IEEP said that it would be difficult to envisage the Treasury requiring anything other than significant cuts in payments to agriculture. The exit scenario was not one for the UK to dictate, it had to be negotiated.

Former civil servant Andrew Jarvis warned, 'If you are not at the table, you are not on the menu.'

Polls taken showed that those in the room overwhelmingly favoured staying in the EU, whilst the latest opinion polls show public opinion evenly split.