NFU President Peter Kendall has said that the Soil Association appears to be ‘in denial’, after the pro-organic charity released a report claiming that widely-quoted figures on future food production needs were wrong.
In its ‘The big fat lie about doubling food production’, the Soil Association claims that global food production forecasts and policy have been driven by two frequently offered statistics – either that there is a need to increase food production by 50% by 2030, or that it needs to double by 2050. The UN Secretary General and Defra Secretary of State Hilary Benn have both quoted the figures, but the Association claims they are incorrect.
It says the required increase in production will be closer to 70% by 2050 and questions what it says are assumptions contained in a UN Food and Agricultural Organisation report of 2006.
NFU President Peter Kendall said: “The Soil Association appears to be in denial. The suggestion that the world might have to double food production by 2050 is a plausible analysis that is not only drawn from the UN FAO report of 2006 but other analysis from a range of authoritative and academic sources.
“No-one is trying to twist the figures. Moreover, whether the increase turns out to be another 70% or 100% is largely immaterial. The challenges faced by the world in securing food supplies in the future are vast. Available land is limited; natural resources such as water and soils are being depleted in many parts of the world. And climate change will place a strain on attempts to increase productivity.
"These challenges require serious investment in research and development, knowledge transfer and sustainable agricultural production in which organic systems will undoubtedly play some part. Is the Soil Association seriously trying to take on the strong academic consensus about the scale of these challenges?
“Though the problems of food insecurity will be felt the most in the developing world, we believe that the farmers in the developed world, including the UK, will have an increasing role to play in global food security. As the Efra Select Committee argued recently, the UK has a ‘moral duty’ to increase food production, not only to respond to any growth in demand domestically, but also to play a part in meeting growing global demand.”
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