Global Food Security

Alyn Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2022 Westminster Hall

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. It is a rare experience to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), rather than him following us. He said that we cannot grow everything in this country, but anyone listening to “Good Morning Scotland” earlier would have heard about the tea plants that have just been harvested on Orkney.

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

And in Stirling.

[Patrick Grady]

My hon. Friend says that has also happened in Stirling. That shows that, with a bit of ingenuity —and possibly as the result of a changing climate, which we will come back to—it is surprising what can be harvested when minds are put to it.

I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mrs Hamilton) on securing her first debate in Westminster Hall, and on an incredibly powerful speech. I agree with pretty much every word that she said, which makes it quite difficult to find something new to add to the debate. It is slightly unfortunate that it seems to be the case in Westminster Hall these days that very few Government Back Benchers want to come along, contribute and offer their perspectives. That leaves the Minister with a slightly unenviable task. Perhaps we will hear in due course which portfolio he is going to be addressing—I understand that these are slightly uncertain times.

I welcome the appointment of the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) as a Minister of State in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Perhaps it is understandable that he is not right here right now, although it is unfortunate, because I suspect he would have been here to speak from the Back Benches if circumstances allowed. He has been a real champion of global poverty and global justice issues, and that is a rare thing to say about a Conservative Member. Out of all the chaos and everything else that is going on, his presence at Cabinet should be welcomed, but he has a very high standard to live up to now. Those of us who have been in these debates over the years will be looking to see whether development and justice issues really do start to feature more prominently in the Government’s foreign and development strategy.

As both previous speakers have said, food security is a challenge both at home and abroad. People watching this debate might wonder why we are spending time discussing food security around the world when there are people reliant on food banks in our own constituencies —Glasgow North is no exception—but the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington powerfully laid out precisely why that is, why it is a common challenge for humanity as a whole, and the range of steps that need to be taken to tackle the issue.

If food insecurity is a global challenge, it requires a global, as well as a domestic, response. The reality is that it is the same attitudes and philosophies among decision makers, whether at home or abroad, that have left people queuing at food banks here in the UK and queuing for emergency food supplies in famine-hit countries in east Africa. The constituents I hear from in Glasgow North, including supporters of the Borgen Project, who I hope to meet in the next few days, do not want to live in a world where anyone goes hungry, whether that is families down the street or families halfway around the globe—especially not when they know that hunger and food insecurity simply should not and do not need to exist in the modern world.

The reality, though, is, as we have heard, that for too many people, hunger continues to be all too real. We have heard about some specific examples. The food crisis in east Africa is now affecting about 50 million people. In particular, Somalia is on the brink—or perhaps even past the brink—of the official definition of famine. However, food insecurity is not only a crisis or emergency situation, but a daily reality for hundreds of millions of people around the world. As was said by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington, who introduced the debate, the number, astonishingly and depressingly, seems to be rising. That is particularly frustrating because the solutions are not unknown. In my time as a Member of Parliament, I have had the huge privilege of meeting farmers in Colombia, Zambia, Rwanda and Malawi, and in Wellingborough and Scotland, and they all know perfectly well how to farm sustainably. They know how to grow crops that will feed themselves and their families and produce a surplus for market, if only they have the right kind of support and fair access to markets.

In the middle years of the 2010s, as we came close to the deadline for the millennium development goals and negotiation for the sustainable development goals was under way, a coalition of international development and advocacy organisations, including one that I worked for at the time, ran a campaign called “Enough food for everyone IF”. It made the point clearly that we live in a world that is more than capable of producing sufficient nutrition for the global population—even taking into account the rapid increase in world population numbers in recent years—provided that we get the priorities and processes right, and that is still true today.

First and foremost, as both previous speakers have said, small-scale farmers all over the world have to be at the heart of how we produce and distribute food, and they need support to grow what works best for them—as I said, enough to feed their families and enough surplus to sell at market. Too often, small farmers become reliant on particular crops and particular fertilisers and inputs, or are forced off their land altogether by multinational monocroppers and agribusinesses. That is to slightly over-simplify a whole range of interventions that are also needed, from decent irrigation, to proper education on farming techniques, to fair access to energy and fair access to markets.

We have to change our own food habits here too. Reducing western demand for meat and for out-of-season fruit and vegetables has the potential to change demands for land use around the world. A fantastic report was launched last week by campaigners for the Climate and Ecology Bill, which looks at the paths towards net zero through changing land use and changing global diets to more sustainable, more nutritious, better diets that will make us all healthier, thinner, fitter, more resilient to disease and more resilient to climate change. It is a win-win-win situation, which gets us closer to net zero into the bargain as well.

We have to address the root of the issue, and help people to understand where food comes from. It comes not from packets in supermarkets, but from the ground; we have to put things into the ground to get it in the first place, and we have to work very hard. We have to help more people understand how to cook and prepare cheap, nutritious food for themselves. That is the whole point of a holistic and rights-based approach to development that tackles a range of problems all at once.

The UK Government have to rediscover the leadership that they once showed in these areas and rebuild the consensus. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington said today’s debate was the first Westminster Hall debate she has led; the first Westminster Hall debate I led was in 2015, on the sustainable development goals. In those days, there was a consensus. Members from all parties would speak together and would congratulate the Government on achieving the 0.7% target and on taking a leading role in shaping the SDGs. Now, the SDGs seem to have been forgotten, the aid target has been slashed to 0.5%, and the Government have announced that non-essential aid spending will be frozen. What on earth is non-essential aid? Surely, by definition, all aid is essential. All aid meets a vital need that cannot be met by a domestic Government.

Cutting the aid budget and diverting funding away from long-term sustainable development projects that boost food and other security is ultimately a false economy. Perhaps, for example, fewer people would be tempted to get on small boats and cross the English channel if their countries of origin were not being dried up or flooded by climate change, with their families and communities going hungry as a result. There would certainly be less need to spend vast amounts on emergency intervention and famine relief if there was proper investment in long-term sustainability.

I was thinking back to my days in the international development sector and was reminded of a saying that was attributed to the late Brazilian archbishop, Dom Hélder Câmara:

“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor are hungry, they call me a communist.”

I think that attitude still pervades in a lot of the world today. Investing in global food security is perhaps the ultimate in preventive spending policy. If people at home or abroad have access to good quality, nutritious, affordable and culturally appropriate food, they will live longer, happier and more successful lives.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Pritchard, and to wind up for the SNP in this very important debate. I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mrs Hamilton) on securing it. She said it was her first Westminster Hall debate; I hope it is not her last.

This important discussion is close to my heart. I was a Member of the European Parliament from 2004 to 2019, when that Brexit thing got in the way, and I sat on the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development. I was often struck by the interconnected nature of those issues: climate change, food insecurity and resource scarcity are drivers of many of the issues that we traditionally view through a foreign affairs prism, but which actually need to be viewed through a much more coherent prism.

It is a pleasure to see the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) in his place. I know that fishing and farming are close to his heart; he has been a strong advocate of both sectors for a long time. He made the point powerfully that the UK imports 46% of its food, so the UK’s food security cannot be viewed in isolation; it needs to be viewed through a much wider prism, and our policies need to align better.

My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) made a very powerful point on behalf of his constituents: they do not want to see anybody suffering from food insecurity and hunger, whether in our own communities or worldwide. That needs a far stronger response. In a very powerful speech, the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) spoke about the interconnectedness of climate change and international development policy, and said that we need to do better than we have managed to date.

I feel for the Minister, because there is an awful lot in this. As I say, I was struck by the fact that food, agriculture and foreign affairs are often interlinked, and the same is true domestically. Call it agriculture and only so many people are interested, but many are interested in food, nutrition, land management, trade, climate change, animal welfare, development policy and social justice. Food is at the heart of many of those issues, and we do not have the policy coherence that we need. I feel for the Minister, who has to cover all that.

To make a consensual point—this has been a cross-party, consensual debate—these issues cut across party, country and region. We all need to work on them together, because I am afraid they are getting worse, and they are getting worse faster. The developed world—I do not like that term—is in a position to help other countries that are suffering the consequences of our economic, trade and foreign policy.

I have some concrete suggestions. I am indebted to two organisations: the National Farmers Union of Scotland has produced a number of strong recommendations for domestic food security, which is part of the wider context, and the International Development Committee’s “Food insecurity” report contains a number of strong recommendations. I hope the Government take those recommendations to heart, because if they tackle this issue seriously, no one will applaud louder than me. It needs urgent attention and cross-cutting solutions.

The biggest thing we can do to tackle short-term food insecurity is to go back to the 2019 Conservative party manifesto and reinstate the 0.7% international aid commitment. I appreciate that the cut to 0.5% is temporary, but it means that a lot of people in the developing world are suffering. On 6 May, the ONE campaign published concrete data showing that the UK official development assistance cut had caused 11.6 million children, girls and women to lose out on nutritional support, 6.2 million girls under two and 12 million babies to lose out on nutritional support, 7.1 million children to lose out on education, 5.3 million women and girls to lose access to modern family planning methods, and 3.3 million to lose humanitarian aid. In addition, 54 MW of clean energy has not been installed.

That relates to my wider point about policy coherence. We must remember that food needs a farmer. We should not allow ourselves to get tied up in short-sighted debates about meat versus vegetables, and between competing land uses. Farmers will be integral to how we feed ourselves now and in the future. Farmers need to be at the heart of that policy. Policy coherence needs to begin at home, and our policies are not as coherent as they need to be.

I was struck by the point made by the hon. Member for Strangford about forestry. We are dealing with that issue in Scotland as well; the Scottish Government have recently brought out new forestry guidelines. I remember when I helped to draft the European Parliament’s common agricultural policy. It encouraged farmers to diversify into energy crops, photovoltaic panels and forestry, but it was always meant to be for the bits and bats of land that farmers could not do much else with. It was never meant to be taking prime agricultural land out of agricultural production. We must get that back out of our agenda. Of course there are going to be competing land uses—at home and worldwide—but we must put food production far higher up our national security and resilience agenda.

There has been a good debate and discussion. We have a lot of suggestions. I again refer Members to the International Development Committee’s report, which has a lot of concrete suggestions and, in a spirit of constructive co-operation, I offer the Minister our support; where we see positive developments, we will be constructive. These points are not party political. They are not limited to one country, however we define country. They are not limited to the domestic, however we define that too. We need to work together on this stuff.