National Food Service
The Committee on Climate Change estimates that agricultural production accounted for 9% of the United Kingdom’s domestic greenhouse gas emissions in 2017 and 77% of land use in 2018. This agricultural land use and associated agricultural practices are a central driver for habitat and biodiversity loss in the United Kingdom, one of the world’s most nature-depleted countries. Further, domestic food production only accounts for 55% of the food consumed in the UK. The 45% of food imported from abroad links British citizens to the global environmental damage which industrial agricultural production is causing worldwide in the form of methane emissions, deforestation, air and water pollution and soil erosion. At the same time, in 2020 it was estimated that 8.4 million Britons experienced some form of food poverty. People up and down the country from all walks of life struggle to regularly access healthy, affordable and sustainably produced food in their local area. The challenges provoked by our broken food system are enormous and systemic issues that require ambitious action on an unprecedented level: action like a Green New Deal.