Our Aim

Our aim is to introduce pro food security policy at the local government level through the creation of a food system resilience committee within Cornwall Council. The committee will be responsible for all matters relating to the full restoration of food security, for the protection and development of local food production, of local produce supply chains, and of retailing food grown locally for local consumption.

The Declaration of a Food Security Crisis.

The case for the creation of the food system resilience committee can be supported by town and parish councils and by residents living within Cornwall through their declaration of a food security crisis, the more people who sign the declaration the more weight will be thrown behind our demand for the creation of a food system resilience committee.

It is therefore necessary as a first step to justify the claim that there is indeed a food security crisis in the UK.

We believe the following three pieces of evidence are sufficient to make such a justification and they are as follows:

1. A decline in the financial viability of the agricultural sector combined with a policy bias towards environmental actions at the expense of core food production has resulted in falling agricultural self sufficiency with (as of 2021) only 54% of the food on our plate coming from domestic production, this has resulted in higher levels of 3rd party risk being introduced into our food system through increased import dependency. The decline in the financial viability of the agricultural sector is further evidenced by the three following pieces of data which all come from various DEFRA reports:

i. Production to consumption of native crops (crops which can be grown in the British climate) is now down to 73%. This was at 95% in 1985. Native crop production has therefore been falling at an average rate of 5.5%/decade for the last 4 decades. Source DEFRA UK Food Security Index 2024.

ii. Return on investment in the farming sector is on average 0.5%. Output prices are so low and input costs so high that very little money is being made. Every £1 million pounds worth of asset will only generate an annual return of £5k. Source DEFRA Balance Sheet Analysis 2022/2023 Nov 2th 2024.

iii. The percentage of agricultural holdings not making a profit has tripled in 3 years. In 2022 10% made a loss, in 2023 it increased to 17% and in 2024 it was reported at 30%. Source DEFRA Agriculture in the UK 2022 report, DEFRA Farm Business Income by Type of Farm in England 2022/2023 Nov 14^th 2024.

2. Supermarket supply chains which currently service around 85% of UK grocery expenditure are often long, resource intensive, fragile and susceptible to disruption, are operated on a ‘just in time’ basis and by nature carry very little strategic food reserve potential. Supply shocks in recent times caused by the Ukraine conflict and Covid evidence the risks of such heavy dependence on a supply chain model designed for cost competitiveness above consideration of how effective it can be in a crisis scenario.

3. There is at present a very concerning lack of policy relating to the creation of strategic food reserves and to food shortage emergency preparedness planning in the UK for example the 2022 Government Resilience Framework contains no mention of food security:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-uk-government-resilience-framework

and of the 89 risks mentioned in the 2023 National Risk Register only one is related to food (contamination, not scarcity or how the public can prepare or cope with it):

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-risk-register-2023

The Role of Local Councillors and Members of the Public.

Town/parish and county councils can and must play a vital role in the battle to help fully restore our food security as must concerned citizens and it is important for everyone to be aware that through their proactive support for the agricultural sector they will also be protecting the wider rural economy and it’s supporting sectors (haulage, machinery sales, service etc) and they will be preserving the cultural value which a thriving, well managed and beautiful countryside brings to society as a whole.

The Importance of the Declaration of a Food Security Crisis.

The declaration of a food security crisis by local authorities will give them a policy framework counterbalance with which to reject any decision which compromises agricultural production such as the use of farmland for commercial solar power generation. At present no such mechanism exists within local government and therefore pro food security councillors face an uphill battle in the decision making process when working against a previously established climate emergency influenced policy framework.

Many councils have (without consultation to the electorate) self declared a climate emergency through their membership to the organisation uk100.org and this has reinforced support at both the local and national level for the wave of net zero based attacks on our food security (solar farms, carbon offset forestry, subsidy prioritisation of environmental schemes over core food production etc.). By making such a declaration without reference to the body of contrary scientific opinion regarding man made global warming (such as The Climate Declaration at clintel.org) these councils could be accused of institutional bias or even seen to be guilty of pre determination within their decision making process, something which could lead to them being considered not fit for purpose and not capable of objective strategic planning in any other capacity.

The legal campaign of bringing a local council to task over its self declared climate emergency will however take a significant amount of time and money, what we need right now is a policy framework counterbalance that pro food security councillors can refer to, something that is quick and easy to adopt and something that will have an immediate and positive protective effect on food security through its support for farming and local food production. Hence the request for parish councils and other local authorities to firstly declare a food security crisis, and then based on the support for it within the community, to secondly demand the council create a food system resilience committee to oversee the fullest restoration of food security as is possible within their powers.

If you believe that we need to address the issues surrounding our national and local level food security then please help us build our case to request Cornwall Council create a food system resilience committee by signing the food security crisis declaration below:

‘Petition to Declare a Food Security Crisis

If you are a member of a parish or town council within Cornwall then we request you schedule to discuss this document at your next council meeting and if by a majority vote you are in agreement to support our campaign then please sign on behalf of your council.

A list of all signees will be kept in the public domain via both our website at farmersmovementcornwall.co.uk and on our facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/924829825688596

To see how this campaign action fits into our wider food security policy review please see our food security policy flowchart here:

https://farmersmovementcornwall.co.uk/introduction-to-the-food-security-policy-flowchart/

Thank you for taking the time to read this important document and for giving it your consideration, if you have any questions relating to it then feel free to contact me on the email address below. I very much hope that you will support our campaign efforts and will stand with our local farmers and growers, we must restore our agricultural self sufficiency and make our food system more resilient against worst case scenario supply chain failures as quickly as possible, it’s time to put food security first.

Regards

Peter Lawrence
Farmers Movement Cornwall

welcome@farmersmovementcornwall.co.uk