Not very high. WRAP estimates that in 2018, total annual food waste across the UK reached 9.5 million tonnes. Year-round access to a full range of FFV in all seasons has increased over the last 20 to 30 years, leading to longer and more complex supply chains, alongside a drop in domestic supply ratio of fresh vegetables from 76% to 54% since 1990 (see Indicator 2.1.8). Figure 2.1.7a: Domestic UK meat production. For food security purposes, considering exports alongside imports gives perspective to the scale of imports, as well as providing an overview of the value of UK production which is not consumed in the UK. Changing weather patterns and climate will impact nutrient cycles with implications for fertiliser application patterns. Although the land area of France is not large, 60% of the land in the entire French region is very suitable for cultivation , and the entire plain area is even wider, which is suitable for all-round cultivation of food as arable land. [footnote 1] Meeting Net Zero, climate change mitigation, and biodiversity goals will increasingly add to existing, competing pressures on land use. Rainfall erosivity is the measure of rainfall total and intensity, and is one of five main predictors that can be used to describe soil loss rates. Mutton and lamb production has remained stable throughout this period and while demand has varied, production generally met or exceeded demand over the last decade. 20 August 2020. In this fully illustrated book, you'll learn to create an autonomous, diversified, and sustainable garden and to cultivate and maintain it following the main principles of permaculture. Apart from a reduction in oilseeds, these proportions have remained stable over the last ten years. Climate change is projected to cause more than tenfold increases in thermal heat-stress for livestock across the UK. Figure 2.1.11c: Domestic production of wild fish native to UK waters. Minimising the extent of global warming and addressing the risks it poses to food production are both essential to future food security. In 2020, the UK imported 46% of the food it consumed. Wheat yields in 2020 were the lowest since 1981 due to of unusually bad weather. , WRAP, Courtauld Commitment Annual Report 2021, https://wrap.org.uk/resources/report/courtauld-commitment-annual-report-2021. Seeds are another of the main expenses in crop production. Pesticides are subject to regulatory controls which may alter the way in which products are permitted to be used (range of crops, frequency, or rate of application). Figure 2.1.8e: Domestic UK production of fresh fruit. Short-term interventions were important to address the immediate needs of the most vulnerable (emergency food aid, for example) in OECD countries during the COVID-19 pandemic and in some instances digital technologies were used. Annual rainfall variability is projected to increase with greater potential for both extremely high and low national rainfall totals. Changing domestic production is broadly reflected in consumption percentages for beef, pigmeat, and mutton and lamb, with a slight decrease in demand for beef and mutton and lamb in the last two years. Overall resilience is supported by trading with a variety of external partners and the UK imports and exports flexibly as production and prices dictate. [footnote 22]. Other countries. Feed is both the most significant expense for UK farmers and the least stable in terms of price. At 9.6 million tonnes, wheat production was its lowest since 1981 due to unusually poor weather conditions at critical points of crop production: very wet weather for preparing the soil and sowing, too dry in the spring when the crops should have established, and bad weather for harvesting. This was the . To identify regions at risk of soil erosion, information on present-day soil erodibility is combined with rainfall erosivity. Food Self-Sufficiency: Basic Permaculture Techniques for Vegetable Gardening, Keeping Chickens, Raising Bees, and More Paperback - April 19, 2022 by Robert Elger (Author) Kindle $14.99 Read with Our Free App Paperback $16.99 18 Used from $17.47 19 New from $15.35 If a country's value is too small to even reach 100%, it means that the country has not been able to provide food for all the people at present. Apart from a recent pest-related reduction in oilseeds, these proportions have remained stable over the last ten years. The UK currently produces about 60% of its domestic food consumption by economic value, part of which is exported. Grain production has a significant environmental impact, due to the lack of biodiversity in conventional grain fields, damage to the soil through ploughing, environmental harms caused by fertilisers and pesticides, and the oil use embedded in fertilisers and field operations. Waste post-farm gate is estimated at 9.5Mt, of which 7.7Mt is in households and hospitality and 1.8Mt in manufacturing and retail. This has serious implications for undernourished and severely food insecure populations who are most in need. Global food self-sufficiency rate. Finland was named the top country for food security in 2020, ahead of Ireland and the Netherlands. In Bhutan, emerging lessons show how nutrition and other aspects of health are intricately related to the management of food security during the current crisis, and beyond. A study was conducted in Rwanda in two contrasting agro-ecological zones (Central plateau and Buberuka) to characterise farms, quantify their resource flows, and evaluate the effect of resource management on food self-sufficiency. The definition of land used for agricultural production includes arable, horticultural, uncropped arable, common rough grazing, grassland (temporary and permanent), and land for outdoor pigs, but not woodland or other non-agricultural land. Therefore, as long as the country makes further improvements in food, it will increase the food self-sufficiency rate of the entire country to a certain extent. SDG2 sets targets to end hunger, achieve food security, improve nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture by 2030. These are critical challenges for the world requiring international cooperation and policy reform. , UK Climate Risk Independent Assessment, Technical Report: Chapter 3: Natural Environment and Assets, https://www.ukclimaterisk.org/independent-assessment-ccra3/technical-report/. The scale of the UKs imports highlights the value to the UK of imported food and drink. For the country, it is also a top priority to ensure that the people's food and clothing are worry-free. Apr 1, 2015. Strong and effective systems to build resilience and risk management capacity in agriculture production are also critical in helping build food security at the national and global levels. Turkish agricultural self-sufficiency a great opportunity: Analysis This herd supports sales for beef of 2.9 million animals per year, down from 4.5 million in 1980; the numbers sold for beef dropped from 3.8 million to 2.4 million between 1995 to 1996 due to the impact of BSE on sales. For many commodities, imports were higher than usual at the end of 2020, suggesting that some trade may have been brought forward to avoid potential issues at the border in early 2021. Other factors besides calories also matter for adequate diets, including the nutritional Access all OECD publications on food security on the OECD iLibrary. Climate change poses a risk to UK food production already, and this risk will grow substantially over the next 30 to 60 years. More efforts are needed to design coherent food systems policies to address food insecurity to reach SDG2 by 2030. The overall supply, diversity, and sustainability of fertilisers, pesticides, seeds, and fuel amongst other inputs are also important and vary in different degrees for different categories. Animal feed is both the most expensive input across the entire sector and the one for which prices fluctuate most. It also reduced UK potato yield by 6.5%, resulting in a loss of 305,000 tonnes of potato tubers worth 50 million, with the highest production losses in parts of North Yorkshire, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire. As a percentage of total water abstraction this is tiny (around 1% in England), but this abstraction is highly regionally and seasonally concentrated and represents a substantial burden in some areas, particularly in summer months. Despite average global food availability per person growing by 4% to 2030, achieving SDG 2 on zero hunger will be challenging. , Environment Agency, 2021 River Basin Management Plan: Nitrates, https://consult.environment-agency.gov.uk/++preview++/environment-and-business/challenges-and-choices/user_uploads/nitrates-pressure-rbmp-2021.pdf; SEPA, Nitrates monitoring, https://www.sepa.org.uk/environment/water/monitoring/nitrates-monitoring/; Natural Resources Wales, Diffuse Water Pollution Action Plan, https://naturalresources.wales/guidance-and-advice/environmental-topics/water-management-and-quality/water-quality/diffuse-water-pollution-action-plan/?lang=en; DAERA, Nitrates Directive, https://www.daera-ni.gov.uk/articles/nitrates-directive. Well-managed livestock can provide benefits like supporting biodiversity, protecting the character of the countryside, generating important income for rural communities, and contributing to production of other crops as part of rotational systems. In the global food self-sufficiency ranking, the United States ranks This means that the UK exports much of what it catches and imports much of what it eats. Consequently, this section relies on qualitative analysis. Key natural capital assets for food production are soils. Increasingly unpredictable and extreme weather as a result of climate change is likely to exacerbate these fluctuations. Disparate growth in food availability between regions will see consumers in middle-income countries increase their food intake most significantly while diets in low-income countries will remain largely unchanged. The primary difference between the two is that food security is indifferent about the source, while self-sufficiency only cares about the source. Agricultural policy is devolved across the four UK nations. Over the last 30 years land use has been fairly stable for most crops, allowing for fluctuations in prices and weather conditions. While this might not impact directly on food security, the disruption of supply chains for staple foods such as bananas could have a serious impact on consumer confidence and trust. Key findings include: Winters are projected to be slightly wetter, on average, while all other seasons are projected to be typically drier, particularly June to September. The grain self-sufficiency rate mainly refers to the multiple rate of the grain produced by the country throughout the year to the grain required by the population of the country. It focuses specifically on the UKs principal sources of food at home and overseas. The impact of the UKs new trading relationship is not yet visible in data. About 54% of food on plates is produced in the UK, including the majority of grains, meat, dairy, and eggs. Considering the concerns over ensuring food security in many countries, the main objective of this paper is . The total cost of agricultural pesticide products was over 1 billion in 2020. There was a 10% decrease in reported levels of food waste, from almost a quarter (24.1%) of four key products in November 2019 to 13.7% in April 2020. WRAPs 2019 progress report on the Courtauld 2025 Water Ambition notes that 14% of rivers are over-abstracted and nearly a quarter of rivers in England are at risk from unsustainable water abstraction; a similar proportion of aquifers are classed as in poor quantitative status. These include: increased access to locally produced food for restaurants, public institutions, and local citizens; the addressing of of consumer behaviour and eating habits; exploring new business models geared toward the local market; the exploration of possibilities for diversifying the food production, not least with an eye to transitioning a share of animal-based food production to plant-based options and more. Comparing the 2020 cost of feed (5.6 billion) with the 13.8 billion combined value of livestock production it is clear that livestock production remains vulnerable to changes in feed prices, for example through competition with energy crops, poor harvests, and global competition for grain. Following the UKs departure from the EU, new government incentives are being developed or considered across the four UK nations to support sustainable production. The UK is largely self-sufficient in production of grains, producing over 100% of domestic consumption of oats and barley and over 90% of wheat. The number of tourists in each country was considered alongside the local populations, although interestingly for Iceland, tourism was found to have a limited effect on the level of food self-sufficiency in each society. Average yields over recent decades have been broadly stable but fluctuate from year to year as a result of better or worse weather. In Q3 2021, the total value of exports was 6% lower than Q3 2020 and the total value of imports was 2% lower than Q3 2020. [footnote 21], Figure 2.3.5a: UK nitrous oxide emissions, Source: Defra AUK 2020 (Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy), Agriculture accounted for about 11% of total greenhouse emissions in the UK in 2019, with agricultural emissions 13% lower than in 1990. Self-reported food waste in June 2021 is now back in line with the levels recorded in 2018. Haddock (UK, Iceland): variable but healthy, with UK stocks now being managed sustainably. Trends in land use have been generally stable over the last 30 years, but climate change poses a threat to high quality arable farmland and competition for land use is increasing. At present, China's food self-sufficiency rate is relatively backward in the global rankings. Foodbanks run by non-governmental organisations provide emergency food assistance, sometimes using food recovered as part of food waste policies; but policy efforts must focus on sustainable solutions to build medium- and long-term resilience to food supply shocks for those people currently afflicted by chronic hunger and food insecurity. A recent WRAP report estimates that total UK food system emissions are equivalent to 35% of UK territorial emissions; over a third of food system emissions are from production overseas. There are concerns about water availability for fruit and vegetable production in many of the countries on which the UK currently depends, for example in the Mediterranean region. Note that other species of tuna (making up about 7% of UK tuna imports) are often overfished, with illegal, unregulated, and unreported catch. Sugar beet yields per hectare have improved, suggesting greater production efficiency. In the case of Ireland, there is a shared land border, whilst France and the Netherlands represent the shortest sea crossing and a major international port facility respectively. By value the UK is a net importer of dairy and beef, reflecting consumer preferences for eating higher value products and exporting lower value products. Soil health is perhaps the single most important factor for future domestic food production. Global Food Security Index (GFSI) - Economist Impact Fish farms face separate climate-related risks. Seasonality is complex and product specific. Soil and water are the most important inputs of all for primary food production. But there are also products where imports are more diverse, such as rice, spices, coffee, and citrus fruits. Overall, the UKs food supply is concentrated on the UK and Europe, with over 80% of supply coming from these main sources. This chapter of the UK Food Security Report looks at food security in terms of where the UK gets its food from. WRAP also produces more in-depth research into household food waste but at a less frequent rate than the self-reported household levels presented in this report. Organic farming is in broad terms an indicator for current environment-orientated food production in the UK. Understanding the role that socio-economic and demographic factors play in determining household food purchases and consumption is critical too. The Faroe Islands had the highest self-sufficiency ratio in both measurements: 446% when measured in energy (KJ) and 549% when measured in kilos. WRAP estimates that this may have contributed to a reduction in post farmgate total food waste between 2007 and 2018 of around 15% (1.7Mt). Climate is a key factor in soil formation and processes, and severe degradation of soil would have long-term, potentially irreversible, implications considering the critical importance of soil for protecting the environment and providing high quality farmland. Many of them, some activists and some not, are calling for nations and regions to be self-sufficient in food and build local supply chains so the system is more resilient to shocks. Understanding climate impacts on soil erosion is vital for ensuring a sustainable and resilient food system. Definitions: Food Security vs. Food Self-Sufficiency To understand how the climate may change in the future, the UK Climate Projections (UKCP18) use a range of climate models to provide probabilistic simulations of UK climate to the end of the 21st century in a high concentration climate scenario known as RCP 8.5. It is precisely because of this that France can hold the top position in this global food self-sufficiency ranking. , Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, NECD Reporting 2020 Quantifying and mapping exceedances of ozone flux-based critical levels for vegetation in the UK in 2018, forthcoming, https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/library/, pages 4 to 5. Climate change will also likely change pesticide use and impacts through changing temperatures and rainfall patterns. Figure 2.1.3c: Values of UK FFD trade EU and non-EU, 2019 to 2021. Is Your Country Food Independent? - Culture By that measure, which is the one used by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, very few countries qualify. Warmer temperatures and excess or reduced water availability has an impact on species and habitats; climate modelling and analysis of 402 species in England found that 36% were at risk of range loss and 41% may expand their range in future. Regions with low rainfall-high erosivity density and high rainfall-high erosivity density are considered at the greatest risk of erosion. The EUs share of UK imports has remained very stable at around 70% in recent times. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Better agro-food policies are crucial to improving global food security,