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

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the low level of self-sufficiency in fruit and vegetables in England; and what steps they will take to increase domestic production.

We have a high degree of self-sufficiency in many of those fruit and vegetables suited to our growing conditions. For example, in 2021 we were able to provide 57% of our vegetable needs, and 72% of the strawberries consumed. Our innovative and enterprising farmers and growers are now exploring ways to maximise this further by optimising growing conditions to increase yields. With advances in technology, they have already extended the growing seasons of a variety of crops through the adoption of Controlled Environmental Agriculture (CEA) technologies enabling crops to be grown and harvested year-round in a climate-controlled environment.

Our plan to help our fruit and vegetable growers to increase productivity and domestic production was outlined in the Government Food Strategy, launched earlier this year, which announced the development of a new Horticultural Strategy for England. This will cover a range of growing models including high-tech controlled environment growing to increase domestic production.

Defra has committed £98 million for the first round of the Farming Investment Fund which provides grants to farmers and horticultural growers so that they can invest in the equipment, technology and infrastructure that will help improve their productivity while enhancing the environment. We have also invested significant funding to provide grants for industry-led innovation across the farming sectors, including CEA, through UKRI's £90 million Transforming Food Production programme, and more recently through the £270 million Farming Innovation Programme with over £70 million of competition funding committed to date.