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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent estimate she has made of the (a) annual contribution to the economy of food production and (b) number of people employed in the food production industry.

The latest provisional data shows that in 2014 the whole food chain from farming to retail and catering was worth £108 billion to National Gross Value Added, and employed 3.8 million people. Within this, farming contributed £10.7 billion Gross Value Added and employed 440 thousand people, and food and drink manufacturing contributed £26.9 billion Gross Value Added and employed 410 thousand people. These statistics are derived from the Aggregate Agricultural Accounts by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and the Annual Business Survey and the Labour Force Survey by the Office for National Statistics.