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Today I've been trying to get my head around the food supply issues caused by #COVID19
My first ever job in the civil service was as a food economist so it's been nostalgic, but also I'm probably a little rusty, please do add/correct!
Anyway, a thread...
My first ever job in the civil service was as a food economist so it's been nostalgic, but also I'm probably a little rusty, please do add/correct!
Anyway, a thread...
In March all the talk was of stockpiling and of wasted short shelf life produce because restaurants were closed. But as that's calmed down we've started to hear more concerns about longer term food availability.
In the UK, just over half of the food we eat is grown here. Of the food we import, two thirds comes from the EU and the rest is spread fairly evenly across the other regions of the world.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/food-statistics-pocketbook/food-statistics-in-your-pocket-global-and-uk-supply
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/food-statistics-pocketbook/food-statistics-in-your-pocket-global-and-uk-supply
Usually our farms are supported by a huge influx of EU migrant workers who harvest all our crops. Most of those people simply aren't going to come this year.
That means we need to find enough resident workers to harvest the crops. And that's not easy. Not only is it low paid and labour intensive work, but transporting and housing thousands of people in a socially distant way is really tricky & rural areas have less access to hospitals
We could scale up production in urban areas too if we act quickly. @DefraGovUK estimate 3% (!) of household fruit and veg is grown in gardens and allotments. We could probably double that we allocate some school playing fields/parks/golf courses to temporary allotments.
But, none of that will be enough.
According to a report by the University of Leeds, even if we suddenly stopped exporting all the food we currently export and ate it all ourselves we'd only be able to supply around 60% of our total food needs.
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/download/481/british_food_makers_report
According to a report by the University of Leeds, even if we suddenly stopped exporting all the food we currently export and ate it all ourselves we'd only be able to supply around 60% of our total food needs.
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/download/481/british_food_makers_report
And obviously in our climate we can only produce so many things. Pre-Covid, while we produced enough 
, 
, 
&
to feed ourselves, we only grow half the 
and less than a fifth of the amount of 
that we eat.
, , & to feed ourselves, we only grow half the and less than a fifth of the amount of that we eat.
That means we need to work with other countries, particularly the EU, to make sure they are able to produce enough, to ensure transportation is available, and to limit trade restrictions.
It's difficult to know yet how much global production will reduce, but according to the FAO after SARS Chinese farmers faced worker shortages and higher transportation costs which made operations unprofitable and during Ebola staple crop production in West Africa fell 12%.
Our biggest supplier of both fruit and vegetables is Spain. They are particularly badly hit by Covid-19 and are themselves facing a shortage of 75,000 agricultural workers.
Currently transporting food internationally is also difficult, flights have dramatically fallen, and 400 container shippings have been cancelled. https://shippingwatch.com/carriers/Container/article12074738.ece
And because some countries are much more food self sufficient, it's tempting for leaders to talk about placing export restrictions on key crops.
http://www.fao.org/3/i2493e/i2493e03.pdf
http://www.fao.org/3/i2493e/i2493e03.pdf
But we saw in 2008 that when protectionism increases, prices go up and the poorest are hit hardest. We can't let that happen on top of the existing Coronavirus crisis.
G20 ministers should be working together to ensure everyone has the food they need at a price they can afford.
G20 ministers should be working together to ensure everyone has the food they need at a price they can afford.
So overall, I think I am more worried about this than I was when I started looking into it!
It feels like one of those things that if we act quickly we can get ahead of it but if we leave it too late might be quite a big problem...
It feels like one of those things that if we act quickly we can get ahead of it but if we leave it too late might be quite a big problem...
Would love to hear what @DefraGovUK @tradegovuk, local govt in rural areas ( @NorfolkCC @CambsPboroCA @LancashireCC et al), farmers and others are thinking/doing about it. Should we be worried?
