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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department plans to introduce a scheme that would incentivise British farmers to grow cereal crops.

The UK has a highly resilient food supply chain which has coped well in responding to unprecedented challenges in the past few years. For the cereal crops that are produced domestically, the UK is 88% self-sufficient.

Cereals are internationally traded commodities, and their supply chains are dynamic and responsive to global market developments in price and availability. Government works with international partners to facilitate the smooth functioning of that global food trade. We keep the market situation under review through the UK Agriculture Market Monitoring Group and have increased our engagement with industry to supplement our analysis with real-time intelligence and to identify where mitigations are available. In 2021 we also permanently removed Basic Payment Scheme 'greening measures' on crop diversification and ecological focus areas. This means that farmers are free to react to market signals when making crop planting decisions, as well as adjusting their plans according to the weather, their soil type, and their long-term agronomic strategy.