Feed the world: Britain must set an example

THE scale of the Labour government’s failure to address areas vital to Britain’s future, such as food and energy provision, is becoming more and more apparent. It is, after all, beyond argument that Britain’s population is increasing rapidly. Yet the nurturing of the food and farming industries, necessary to ensure that people are adequately fed, has simply not been happening.

It has now fallen to the new Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser to point out what needs to be done. According to Professor Sir John Beddington, farming needs to move rapidly up the policy agenda , not only in the UK but across the world, if the planet is to feed itself.

Yet, instead of empowering Britain’s farmers to get on with the job that they do so well, the agriculture industry has been smothered in red tape while research has been cut back “in a disgraceful and myopic way”.

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One clear example of the latter is the way in which unfounded scare stories about genetically modified food have curtailed research in that area.

Yet, as Prof Beddington points out, GM alone is far from being the answer. Indeed, a proper review of the way in which the world is fed would involve an end to pernicious subsidies, such as those in the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, which distort world trade and provide incentives for fertile land to lie idle.

The question now is whether the coalition Government is prepared to listen to Prof Beddington and make the necessary investment in the industry at a time when spending cuts are the order of the day. Britain cannot solve the world’s food problems, but it can at least set an example, beginning with a fair deal for farmers.