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 water shortages on food security.

Drought has caused an early harvest with reduced crop quality and yields. Livestock farmers face risks with forage and winter feed supplies.

The Environment Agency’s (EA) measures to support farmers include:

• Improving water access outside of licenced conditions

• Supporting Water Abstractor Groups to enable water rights and infrastructure sharing

• Local Resource Option studies driving scheme collaboration.
  

The EA’s upcoming Autumn prospects report will help inform farmers, improve resilience and planning for next year.

Defra assesses the potential impacts of water shortages on food supply as part of the National Risk Register (NRR) cycle. We work closely with Defra Water colleagues, the Cabinet Office (which leads on the NRR) and with the wider resilience and Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) community across Government to ensure that risks to food supply are fully considered in national risk assessments and contingency planning.