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

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of a super El Niño event on UK food security and the rural economy.

The UK has a resilient food supply chain underpinned by diverse sources, robust domestic production and reliable import routes. However, this cannot be taken for granted.

The Defra-funded Food, Farming and Natural Environment climate service is delivered by the Met Office Hadley Centre and provides essential climate modelling services to Government. Defra published the Met Office produced High-Impact Low-Likelihood outcomes for UK food security paper last year here. This highlighted the potential impacts of strong El Niño years, on net global crop production and how they may amplify the impact of any other global food production shocks occurring elsewhere.