This Is How the British Government Failed to Save the Food Industry

The head of Britain’s National Agricultural Confederation, Minette Butters, has recently warned that the country could face a food crisis if the government does not take serious action.

Butters called on British officials to support farmers in dealing with high prices for energy, fertilizers, and costs; otherwise, the country may face a heavy food crisis.

Butters added while global fluctuations threaten the stability of global food production and energy security, the British food industry is also threatened.

Britain’s fruit and vegetable supply is at risk, and the country is sleepwalking into a larger food supply crisis, as Minette Butters puts it.

In October, the largest network of food banks in Britain launched an emergency appeal for support, warning of the harshest winter ever as an increasing number of people face the risk of hunger amid the ongoing cost of living crisis.

Recent research states that leaving the European Union cost British families more than 5.8 billion pounds (7 billion US dollars) in high food expenditures and caused an increase in food price inflation by 6 percent.

 

Sleepwalking Into a Food Crisis

Millions of Britons were obliged to skip meals or spend a whole day without eating in recent months, as new reports show.

After the UK’s cost of living crisis worsened, the Food Foundation Charity said that nearly one in five families experienced food insecurity in the last two months, which means more people went hungry than during the chaotic first period of the Covid lockdown.

According to the foundation’s latest data, nearly 10 million adults and 4 million children are now unable to eat regular meals after hunger levels have more than doubled since January following the increase of food prices by 14.6% last November.

In light of food insecurity, Minette Butters, the head of Britain’s National Agricultural Confederation, has warned that the country could face a food crisis if the government does not take immediate action.

She indicated that fertilizer prices in the country had increased more than 3 times since 2019 and that feed and diesel prices have also increased by more than 75% in the same period.

The British Office for National Statistics said in a statement published by Reuters that the annual rate of consumer price inflation rose to 11.1% in October, the highest level since October 1981, from 10.1% in September.

Already hurt by inflation, soaring costs of everything has put great pressure on growers “already squeezed by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic and Brexit,” the National Farmers Union warned Tuesday.

“Prices for producers are failing to keep up with input costs, forcing growers to cut back on output and risking more businesses shutting down,” the group said.

“This is a very serious food security issue right now,” NFU President Minette Batters said at a press briefing in London. “We are seeing contraction” in the farming industry, she said.

 

Why Now?

The Farmers Union in Britain said that the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union (Brexit) hampered the provision of foodstuffs to Britain, which is witnessing a noticeable shortage in some commodities provided by the country’s stores.

The British National Farmers Union said the perceived shortage of eggs may be just the beginning of a serious food crisis, warning that consumers may soon see a crisis in tomatoes, cucumbers, pears, and other fresh produce.

Minette Butters announced that Britain’s imports of fruits and vegetables may soon face a big problem, calling on the government to help producers who encounter great difficulties.

Butters pointed out that Britain’s exit from the European Union contributed to a certain extent in exacerbating the problems that afflicted the food sector amid a severe shortage of labor and the high cost of red tape faced by British exporters trying to sell their products in the European market.

Criticizing the continuing trade challenges with the bloc after Brexit, Butters claimed that Brexit helped increase costs, and the government is exporting less to the EU than before. Leaving the EU would have inevitably led to the UK’s current conditions.

Butters added that the problems of Brexit have deepened the crisis, not to mention Covid-19, the escalating cost of gas, global inflation, and the Russian-Ukrainian war.

 

Any Repercussions?

Britain’s Meat Producers Association said trade and immigration barriers imposed by Brexit would continue to cause problems, with most meat plants facing a labor shortage of between 10 and 15 percent.

Nan Jones, director of policy at the Meat Producers Association, said that the new conditions for exports to the EU have made everything costlier and more time wasted, resulting in some meat exporters losing customers in Europe.

However, the Meat Producers Association said convergence with EU agri-food controls would be “reasonable” and that common veterinary standards would remove the barrier to too much testing.

This comes at a time when many stores have put a temporary limit on eggs that a customer can buy amid the impact of the high cost where the price of animal feed has increased by 75 percent since 2019, forcing many farmers to reduce the number of laying hens.

The National Farmers Union urged Rishi Sunak’s government to declare extraordinary market conditions and provide emergency support to egg producers.

At the same time, some producers of fruits and vegetables were forced to reduce their production by between 20 and 30 percent over the past two years, according to the Farmers Union, which warned of a possible shortage in the production of tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, celery, sweet peppers, and pears.

The union warned that some cow farm owners are considering the possibility of reducing the number of cows they raise on their farms.

Moreover, the government has received requests to draft legislation aimed at ensuring that dairy producers receive a fair price for their products, with talk of a decline in milk prices to a level below the cost of production.

The Farmers’ Union also called on the government to increase the number of seasonal foreign workers’ entry visas from 38,000 to at least 55,000 visas to help deal with the post-Brexit labor shortage.

The British Farmers Union criticized the trade exchange agreements reached by the government after Brexit and considered that the agreements with Australia and New Zealand were not in the interest of local producers because they removed customs duties imposed on imports.

The union also warned the government that similar agreements with Canada and Mexico should provide British farmers with “similar access to overseas markets” if import tariffs were to be reduced.

The union added that the number of agricultural companies registered in the United Kingdom decreased by about 7,000 companies compared to their number in 2019, as many were forced to stop their work due to the high cost and lack of manpower.