National Emergency Briefing: Food Security

Paul Behrens 

British Academy Global Professor at the Oxford Martin School

The increasing pressure on global food supplies due to accelerating climate change and nature loss will affect most people in the UK. We can no longer rely on a stable climate that provides us with reliable harvests. We have an increasingly chaotic system of droughts, floods, wildfires and heat extremes, especially when they strike together in global breadbasket areas, which may also be affected by conflict. 

The UK is deeply dependent on the rest of the world, importing around 40 to 50% of our food. Much of this is from areas that are themselves affected by climatic impacts. This will not only affect food availability, but also lead to further food price inflation. 

Our agricultural policies barely acknowledge these risks. Additionally, the current food system itself is damaging the very foundations of our food security:

• It’s a large driver of greenhouse gas emissions

• It drives catastrophic habitat loss

• Pollutes our water and air

• Depletes our fresh water

• Drives antimicrobial resistance

• Creates the conditions for the emergence of new pandemics

Research is clear on what we need to do. We need a food transformation built on 4 pillars:

• Shifting to plant rich diets (this is the main pillar)

• Reducing food waste

• Improving food production

• Increasing climate resilience

In the UK, animal agricultural occupies around 85% of total agricultural land. In a climate and nature constrained world with a shrinking agricultural space this is simply unsustainable. Shifting to plant rich diets is politically difficult to talk about but necessary. If not done in a planned way, we will be forced into this change as food shocks intensify and animals are hit harder by climate change than crops.   

A plant rich diet is not only much healthier for us, but provides several wins:

• Improve food security and cut the over reliance on imports

• Reduce emissions by about 60%

• Increase agricultural income

• Improve biodiversity to meet nature targets

• Cleaner water and air

• Improved mental health by increased access to nature

There are other steps we need to improve food security. The National Preparedness Commission has highlighted many vital steps, from treating food as a critical infrastructure and moving away from just in time logistics towards food production and storage strategies. These will become even more important as climate change bites.  Although changes in the food system can seem hard, we are not starting from scratch. The National Food Strategy has provided a plan with excellent recommendations across the board. We also have international allies moving toward plant rich food systems. Denmark has implemented a national Action Plan, taking the same approach to their food security as they did in the 1990s with their world leading energy security, investing extensively in the food supply chain from farmers to chefs. 

We face a choice – business as usual with all the associated risks of watching our food systems crumble, food costs rise and bracing ourselves for political and civil unrest. Or we can act now to improve our health, environment, rural livelihoods, communities and our resilience.

Professor Paul Behrens’ research focusses on the implications of rapid food system transformations in a rapidly changing world. He is the author of the popular science book, The Best of Times, The Worst of Times: Futures from the Frontiers of Climate Science. His research and writing on climate, energy, and food has appeared in scientific journals and many media outlets. He won the International Champion in the Frontiers Planet Prize in 2023.