David Simpson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Simpson on 2016-10-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to address the change in Britain’s self-sufficiency rating.

George Eustice

The government has a manifesto commitment to introduce a 25 year plan to grow and produce more food, both to increase consumption of British food in the domestic market and to export more.

The UK Food Production to Supply ratio in 2015 was 61% for all food and 76% for indigenous-type food. This compares with 62% and 76% respectively in 2014. This has remained steady over the last decade.

Global food security is dependent on a number of factors including increasing production sustainably, reducing waste and ensuring open markets around the world to facilitate trade.