Ukraine War: UK Food Security

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am happy to do so. Food security is absolutely at the centre of what we are seeking to achieve in supporting farmers to think as entrepreneurially as they can and recognise that they have been constrained in the past by a system that now allows them to provide exactly what society needs and produce more, good-quality food.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

The Minister referred to farmers. Given the now extremely high fixed cost of artificial fertilisers and pesticides—these imports also have massive environmental impacts in terms of damage to soil, water and air—and that some farmers are already productively and profitably farming and producing good-quality food without such imports, are the Government planning an emergency effort to support farmers in sharing their agroecological knowledge, drawn from organic farming, regenerative agriculture and integrated farm management systems, and to provide free advice to farmers?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am sure that the noble Baroness will welcome the fact that there is a significant shift towards regenerative farming, which will address precisely that issue. In emergency terms, through the sustainable farming initiative and our soil standard, we are encouraging farmers to plant nitrogen-fixing crops, which will reduce the need for synthetic fertilisers.