Call to grow more of our own own

If THE importation of food into the European Union was halted, it would require an additional 35 million hectares of land to be brought into cultivation to compensate for the gap in supply, writes Andrew Arbuckle.

That area is equal to twice the agricultural land in the United Kingdom according to English NFU president, Peter Kendall, who pointed out that for a developed part of the world to be relying on less developed countries for food was short-sighted.

Kendall was speaking at a conference on fruit production in Kent, when he referred to the work undertaken by the Humboldt University in Berlin, which quantified the degree to which the EU is now relying on outside trade to feed its population.

"We're a developed economic block depending on less developed countries to meet our needs, at a time when the food security challenge is at the forefront of debate."

Kendall supports the main conclusion of the report which states the food needs of the world can only be met when the rich countries produce and export more food and not less.