Fixing food supply chains

Why is the UK running out of certain foods? Food insecurity has climbed up the political agenda in recent weeks as five of the six largest supermarkets have started rationing vegetables. Sustain’s Vicki Hird explains that the current shortages are exposing system issues in the UK’s unsustainable and unresilient food sector, as supply chains are threatened by a combination of poor weather conditions, trade frictions and higher costs of production for growers. Tim Benton, research director of emerging risks at Chatham House, has warned about the need to “de-risk” food supply chains in an increasingly insecure world.  

• Extreme weather is reducing harvests. Economist James Meadway explains how extreme weather events are reducing harvests across the world and continue to drive up food prices. Extreme heat in Europe last year reduced potato and sugar beet harvests by up to 50% in Britain. The supply of other home-grown vegetables are also being threatened as extreme weather reduced harvests of leeks by “between 15 and 30 per cent”. The President of the National Farmers’ Union warned the domestic farming sector will struggle to adapt to more extreme weather and higher input costs, leaving the UK more reliant on food imports and more vulnerable to supply chain disruption.

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Food supply shocks will exacerbate global hunger... The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report on climate impacts explains how the climate crisis poses an acute threat to global food supplies, which has severe consequences for global hunger and security. The World Food Programme estimates that the number of people facing acute food insecurity more than doubled from 135 million people before the pandemic to 345 million, mostly in poorer countries.

• …worsen food poverty in the UK… In richer countries, populations will face rising prices with more instances of shortages. Increasing numbers of people are already struggling to put food on the table due to the rising cost of living. The Independent Food Aid Network is already reporting record increases in demand for UK food banks, with 80% of food aid providers reporting a “significant number of people needing help for the first time” and half of the organisations surveyed saying that “if demand increased, they would have to reduce the level of support they could provide or turn people away”.
• …and profiteers will generate windfalls. In this context, the spotlight is falling on those people and organisations within the food system who are benefitting from food inflation and shortages. Last year, Oxfam’s Profiting from Pain report found that “62 new food billionaires have been created” as the largest food corporations receive windfalls from a 30% increase in global food prices over the previous 2 years. Greenpeace’s new report on food profiteering since the pandemic has found that 20 of the world’s biggest food corporations (in the grain, fertiliser, meat and dairy sectors) gave $53.5bn to their shareholders in the last two financial years. The report shows how the 20 companies control supply chains for food itself, and information about those supplies, which fuels commodity speculation.

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Creating a sustainable, nutritious and resilient food supply. Just as energy inflation led to greater scrutiny of UK energy resilience, recent food shortages have prompted a wider debate about creating more nationally self-sufficient food supplies. The idea is that by restructuring the food system, it is possible to both keep food affordable whilst also ensuring better outcomes for farmers, the natural environment and public health. This will require moving away from the dominant globalised model that promotes vertically integrated monopolies which control most of the supply chain. In the current business model, UK farmers receive less than 1% of the profit made on key items like sliced bread, beef burgers, carrots and cheese, according to analysis from Sustain. Alongside strong regulation to stop abuse in supply chains, greater support is needed for domestic growers to be able to invest in agroecological production and new technologies to improve resilience and reduce exposure to import price shocks.

• Food sovereignty. Food sovereignty is an alternative to the export-led model of food production and consumption dominated by multinational corporations. Food sovereignty goes beyond food security and is underpinned by six principles: providing food for people; valuing food providers; localising food systems; centring local control; building knowledge and skills; and working with nature. The Landworkers’ Alliance (LWA) argue that a food sovereignty movement in the UK would allow for diversity of production rather than relying on ‘cash mono-crops’ and “offers an opportunity for us to restructure our food system from one which is profit-oriented to one which is designed to help both people and the natural environment.”
• Democratising ownership and taking back control of the food system. Rob Booth outlines an alternative future for agriculture in the UK and worldwide for Common Wealth. This redistributes power and “puts producers and citizens, rather than agri-business, in control of food systems”, by encouraging democratic ownership models such as cooperatives and community land trusts. The Welsh Government’s proposed changes to agricultural support after Brexit have the potential to encourage agroecological farming and increase food sovereignty by moving towards a more resilient system based on small and medium scale farms producing a wide diversity of food for domestic markets. (LWA and Shared Assets have outlined a series of case studies showcasing good practice in Wales.)
• Supporting growers through international, national and local policy change. Greenpeace, La Via Campesina and others call for “a legally binding global treaty coherent with the Articles of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas” to reduce the influence of agri-business models in the international trade order which exploit cheap labour and encourage profiteering. Common Wealth’s Rob Booth outlines the national level policies, local actions and legislative changes (a Right to Food) needed to transform food supply chains in the UK.