DEFRA’s Net Zero Policies Contributing to Fruit & Vegetable Shortages, Warn British Farmers

British government policy causing shortages and an 'exodus from agriculture'

Empty tomato shelves are pictured at a Waitrose supermarket in Maidenhead, Berkshire, on Feb. 25, 2023. PA Images/Peter Clifton

British farmers are warning that recent shortages of fresh fruit and vegetables in Britain’s supermarkets are partly due to the government’s environmental protection department pursuing net zero policies.

In recent days, major British supermarkets have limited the sale of tomatoes and some other fresh produce after a combination of bad weather and transport problems in Africa and Europe caused supply shortages.

However, some farmers told The Epoch Times that if authorities at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) encouraged food production rather than just focus on net zero measures, British farmers could easily fill the shelves.

Future Farming Policy

In the UK government’s future farming policy, there are schemes that pay farmers to help combat climate change.

Farmers and landowners are also encouraged to create new woodland via £10,000 grants for every hectare created. Plans to restrict solar panels from being installed on productive agricultural lands were dropped in December.

According to the government, the UK produces “61 percent of all the food we need, and 74 percent of food which we can grow or rear in the UK for all or part of the year, and these figures have changed little over the last 20 years.”

However, British farming is facing major issues across almost all sectors, with the prices of animal feed, nitrogen fertiliser, and fuel skyrocketing in recent months.

Greater Self-Sufficiency

On Friday, author and farmer Jamie Blackett wrote in The Telegraph that recent food shortages showed that DEFRA was in the grip of what he called “the Green Blob,” who were “wholly uninterested in the messy business of producing food.”

“We should be aiming for far greater self-sufficiency in this country,” Blackett told The Epoch Times.

“Security is key,” he said, adding that “a little more emphasis on eating seasonal food would not go amiss.”

While some have blamed Brexit for produce the shortages, Blackett said that this theory “is a bit of a red herring,” and that the current situation is “largely weather-related.”

“But the whole idea of Brexit was actually to become more self-sufficient and, also, to break into world markets with some of our products. We should be using the opportunities of Brexit, rather than just blaming it for everything,” said Blackett, who is the sixth generation of his family to farm at Arbigland, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland.

Blackett also levied a portion of the blame at environmental land management schemes (ELMS), which pay farmers public money to work toward net zero—and often by cutting production.

He said the system is “badly designed” and could be improved by getting all farmers to adhere to basic principles, “i.e., farming in a regenerative way, raising biodiversity on all farms.”

He said that the government needs to “think a lot more strategically and they need to design the food system that we actually need.

“By food system, I mean from field to plate. They haven’t done that really, they’ve just tinkered at the edges with the ELMS scheme, which I don’t think is going to change very much and, if anything, is going to take land out of production—which is going to harm our food security,” said Blackett.

Exodus From Agriculture

Steve Evans, a dairy farmer based in Pembrokeshire, south-west Wales, told The Epoch Times by email that “government policy is driving our food sovereignty into the ground.”

“We have the ability to increase food security, yet we’re being hamstrung by red tape. But more important is the absolute car crash that is price dictatorship by the retailers. They have one focus, and that is margin—they cannot function without consumer footfall into their stores and that is driven by pricing but, unfortunately, their abuse of producers is going to lead to their business model failing,” said Evans.

“Will I shed a tear? No,” he said.

“The time has come for the whole pricing structures paid to farmers to change, and it needs to change fast. DEFRA chasing net zero is going to cause an exodus from agriculture, which will put us completely in the hands of overseas markets and availability.”

Former Chief Whip and now British Minister of State for Food, Farming, and Fisheries, Mark Spencer, leaves number 10 Downing Street in London on Nov. 3, 2020. PA Images/Victoria Jones

In response to some of the claims about DEFRA’s net zero policies, Food and Farming Minister Mark Spencer told The Epoch Times by email:

“The current situation—caused by recent poor weather in North Africa—shows how dependent we can be on certain trade routes for some types of food. I know families expect the fresh produce they need to be on the shelves when they go in for their weekly shop. That is why I am calling in supermarket chiefs to find out what they are doing to get shelves stocked again and to outline how we can avoid a repeat of this.”

“As we do our shopping, we should all give our thanks to the UK’s tens of thousands of farmers and food producers for keeping us fed throughout the year and particularly showing their mettle keeping the nation going during the pandemic,” he added.