Probably… and how can we prepare?
By food emergency, I mean a prolonged period of serious food shortages, and/or extreme food price inflation. Many of us already know how fragile Britain’s food security is, and how flimsy the long-standing Government strategy is: ‘Leave it to Tesco.’ We currently import 46% of our food, and supply chains are complex and vulnerable. Is an outright food emergency a serious risk?
The best expert I know in this field is Tim Lang, Professor of Food Policy at City University. Tim believes there is a high risk of outright food shortages in the UK within the next few years, and his major report was published in February 2025: Just in Case: 7 steps to narrow the UK civil food resilience gap. See Executive Summary here, or full report here.
The report lists 28 threat events and conditions, but in my view it understates the probability and impacts of food shortages and related price inflation, which Tim emphasised when he spoke at the Welsh Senedd last year.
There is an alarming lack of focus, structures and resources for food security from the UK Government, and pretty inevitably this is mirrored in regional and local government. The report highlights the need for Government to “create and maintain a coherent food policy”, enabled by a new National Food Security and Resilience Council.
Below the UK level, there is a network of Local Resilience Forums, which currently focus on sudden emergencies like floods, and mainly involve the blue-light services. The report advocates creating Local Food Resilience Committees under the LRFs, but it suggests a very wide remit and membership. Ideally, I’d like to see these local bodies more tightly focussed on preparing for and managing food shortages.
Just in Case comments that “official food security thinking persists in being conceived ‘top down'”, and quotes research showing only a 35% trust level in the UK Government. If measures like food rationing and collective catering (think soup kitchens) are needed, as I believe they will be, trust between people, within communities, and with government at all levels will be crucial. Strengthening the social infrastructure of local communities is the focus of the Community Climate Resilience project I am co-leading.
Despite the poor overall picture, there are some bright spots to learn and build from, including work in London, Birmingham, Bristol, Yorkshire, and Wales. Our Food 1200, based in Powys, is working with Tim Lang and the Welsh Government to improve resilience and food sovereignty here, and it has also set up a new website to promote uptake of Just in Case across the UK: www.foodsecurityaction.org.
The full report is 350 pages long, and includes a whole chapter on what we can learn from 10 countries which are better prepared than the UK, such as Canada, Italy and Sweden. This includes clear guidelines for households and communities on stockpiling and emergency procedures.
Food security is an urgent national priority, and what’s really needed is coherent impetus and funding from UK Government, feeding down through regional bodies and local authorities, and meshing with food producers, retailers, and consumers. This could be tough, given the Labour regime’s focus on cutting spending and looking like a right-wing regime. Have a good look at www.foodsecurityaction.org to see how you and your contacts could help.
At the level of local communities, there’s plenty that can be done. For example:
- Increasing local food growing to reduce import vulnerability.
- Listing and connecting community assets, such as village halls with kitchens, catering companies, to increase preparedness.
- Getting voluntary sector organisations to meet and face into this issue.
- Encouraging Community Supported Agriculture, farmers’ markets and other ways to bring local producers closer to consumers.
Even 52 pages may feel like a long read, but I urge you at least to read the Executive Summary and check out the Food Security website. We all need this to work.