Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps the Government is taking to increase the level of self-sufficiency in UK food production.

The UK’s current production to supply ratio is 60% for all food and 75% for indigenous-type foods. This has remained steady over the last decade and is not low in the context of the past 150 years. The UK has historically been a net importer of food and sources from a diverse range of stable countries and this will continue once we leave the EU.

Self-sufficiency is not in itself an indicator of food security. Achieving increased self-sufficiency in indigenous products would not insulate us from shocks to the system – for example, weather and disease can affect the harvests and yields.

Our aim is for a thriving and self-reliant agriculture sector. Our future agriculture policy contains several provisions to help food producers better engage with the market: these include measures to increase productivity and invest in new technology.