If we ate less of it, we wouldn't have to use so many crops for animal feed, notes Tim Lang


Causing barely a blip on the food industry radar, a World Summit on Food Security in Rome last week rehearsed familiar arguments: more people, climate change, poverty, rising population. Time to raise the UK drawbridge? Turn to GM? Frankly, only UK policy nerds and NGOs bothered about the world situation followed the summit. The main frisson came from global civil society groups urging social reform.

FAO director general Jacques Diouf announced in that FAO's High Level Forum a month ago that 300 experts believed the planet had the capacity and resources to feed its population, both today and in the future. The root cause of malnutrition is not underproduction, but agricultural under-investment. Reverse that and production could rise, Diouf's experts argued. The politically sensitive mal-distribution issue was less discussed. We over-eat while others don't eat.

Where does this leave the UK? Our tentative steps to a 'low carbon but healthy' food system is only part of the roadmap. Defra is working on its Food 2030 vision. Who should grow and eat what, where? A rebalancing is needed across supply chains and may be forced by events.

Many eyes, the FAO's included, focus on animal production. Climate change forecasts prophesy lower UK cereal production. Just under half currently goes down animals' throats rather than ours. Some 20% of UK animal feed (soya, maize) is imported, using land to grow feed for animals that could feed humans directly. Rocketing feed prices are a factor in food price rises, widening the trade gap, which then has to be 'fed' by more exports.

That's the UK. Yet globally, the FAO says cereal output needs to rise by 50% to feed the animals. Why? I think we here need to cut down meat and dairy for health, let alone ecological space reasons water, land, biomass, methane emissions. Cheaper meat is a mixed blessing. It's brought some farmers and companies great wealth, but is the major cause of foodborne pathogens.

Is there room in a low-carbon diet for hill sheep or cattle? Some retailers see answers in hi-tech feeding regimes. Others already extol the virtues of grass-fed meat. Good for hills, but slow growing and still emitting gases for longer. How do we weigh up these competing demands: keeping land in use, people with skills? Consume less meat and dairy, certainly. But how?

Tim Lang is professor of food policy at City University t.lang@city.ac.uk.