Member

We are fooling ourselves if we think this country has a higher degree of self-sufficiency in meat and milk production. We cannot produce at home enough to feed our domestic herd. The single largest item in the UK’s food budget is the import of 16 million tonnes of animal feed, at a cost of £5.5 billion. This will have required 850,000 acres of land to produce—what could be best be called ghost acres of the United Kingdom, though, in this case, mostly situated in Brazil. Chuck in a black swan event, such as a global pandemic or a regional conflict, and I hope the Committee can appreciate why this is an increasingly important policy area that requires joined-up government thinking.