NFU East Anglia calls for action to fix supply chain issues and safeguard food security
It comes after a summit with a range of food and farming businesses was held earlier this week
NFU East Anglia is calling on the Government to help fix supply chain and food security issues exposed during the pandemic.
It comes after they attended a summit at the start of the week alongside a range of food and farming businesses that grow and deliver produce across the country.
Gary Ford is their regional director for the East. He told us its important the sector is better prepared for the future: "We very much want to highlight and talk about the big issues with the Government so that we can be much more resilient when it comes to facing future pandemics and climate change which is and will continue, to have an effect on food production".
He went on to say that if the Government continues to neglect workers shortages there could be devastating consequences: "It will mean that there will be less choice for consumers as suppliers restrict the number of products that they make available. That's driven by farms growing less of certain crops dependent on the requirement of labour. We will see that manifesting itself on the shelves and inevitably costs will rise".
He told us that more needs to be done to ensure we don't become reliant on imports and remain self-sufficient: "We have seen a progressive increase in the post-war years from around about 30 per cent to 80 per cent in the 1980s. But since then its fallen to roughly 60 per cent. So our concern is that if we don't get this right our ability to feed the nation will future decline which is what we are particularly concerned about".
He concluded by saying that he recently spoke to one farmer who had to destroy hundreds of tonnes of produce due to these issues: "This is wrong and immoral. This is perfectly good food and while we need to be consuming more fruit and vegetables there are tonnes and tonnes of it being destroyed, purely due to a lack of labour".