Just before the House of Commons rose for Easter, Greg spoke in an important debate on food security in the UK. Global factors—not least the horrendous war in Ukraine—are having a huge impact on the price and availability of food worldwide, and it is vital we rise to the challenges; not least to farmers and consumers (or all of us as it could be more neatly put) to produce more food domestically that we already do.
Commenting, Greg said, "In the debate I spoke of the need for government to show the same flexibility to ensuring the final details of ELMs (the new subsidy system for agriculture) works for all farmers, big and small, tenants and landowners alike, as they have shown in adapting rules around the use of urea this week. Likewise I spoke of the importance of trade—ensuring new trade deals focus on producing more and selling more of our top quality British food abroad as a key path to ensuring farming becomes sustainable and profitable in its own right. Agricultural subsidy is essential, and will be for many years and decades. But surely a key goal must be to make all sectors of British farming fully profitable once more. I also spoke of the importance of protecting land for agricultural use, and being wary of policies in other parts of government that can have an adverse impact on both our ability to produce food and the cost of food. British food is the best in the world. Our farmers are heroes. There is much more work to do, but let’s celebrate British agriculture and all do our bit by buying British."
