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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether food security is part of the Government's agricultural planning; and what assessment her Department has made of the amount of farmland required to guarantee food supplies in a time of crisis.

The Government sees the contribution of UK agriculture as vital to our food security. A detailed analysis of the global and domestic factors affecting UK food security, the UK Food Security Assessment, was published in 2010 and refreshed in 2012. Its main conclusion was that UK food security depends on a combination of a strong domestic food production base and access to a wide variety of world markets. The assessment also analysed the impact of extreme scenarios and concluded that if necessary the UK could feed itself from domestic resources.

The Government is working on a 25 Year Plan for Food and Farming which will set out ways our domestic food production base can be further strengthened, building on the Great British brand.