Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of an El Niño weather event on (a) food security and (b) critical infrastructure in the UK.

The Defra-funded Food, Farming and Natural Environment climate service, delivered by the Met Office Hadley Centre, provides climate modelling services to Government. Defra published the Met Office High-Impact Low-Likelihood Outcomes paper last year which highlighted the potential impacts of strong El Niño years on net global crop production and how they may amplify any other global food production shocks.

Defra is monitoring the potential impacts of this year’s predicted El Niño, on both domestically produced food and imports. This includes considering potential impacts on food supply chain dependencies, including transport, ports, storage and other food industry infrastructure.