DAERA plan for NI food security

DAERA Minister Edwin Poots said: “Covid-19 has highlighted the importance of our food chain, at a local, national and international level. Our local supply lines are quite secure and food is moving well off-farm and onto our shelves. There is more than enough for us all, given that NI produces enough to feed 10 million people across the globe.

“The current situation has, however, highlighted the need to look at this issue on a system-wide and coherent basis, to keep food on our shelves. Our priority as an Executive is to put in place measures that secure supply lines for the food we import into Northern Ireland from the UK, EU and the rest of the world.

“My Department has developed an Initial Plan on Food Supply outlining what success looks like, the risks, the roles all NI Departments need to play in achieving success and our next steps.”

“We are also developing a Food Observatory to continuously assess the health of the food system, with a view to encouraging and supporting measures to maintain its flexibility and resilience.”

Food Supply is about the management of risk along the entire food chain, including: the import of raw materials such as animal feedstuffs; food processing; distribution and consumption, food availability, access, affordability, safety, nutrition and quality, resilience and confidence.

The Minister continued: “If we have learned one thing from the current crisis, it’s that we shouldn’t take the supply of food for granted. In the future we will continue to refine this approach and I am sure that the entire Executive will play its part in securing our food chain.

“I’d like to once again thank our local food heroes, from our farmers to those working in production, distribution and retail. You are the reason that we haven’t experienced any major interruptions to our food supply lines. Your hard work and dedication to producing high-quality, local food is unparalleled, and I am extremely grateful.

“Farmers in particular are facing challenging times as a result of Covid-19, but they are also a key part and driver for economic growth, as has been demonstrated during previous times of crisis. We must do all we can to protect this sector and ensure it’s sustainable and profitable in the long term.”

Responding to these developments, Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU) president Ivor Ferguson said: “Once we are out of the woods with COVID-19, Government needs to urgently introduce policies that support the profitability and expansion of local food production within the UK. During this pandemic our farmers have been committed to producing high-quality food farmed and grown to some of the highest environmental and animal standards in the world.

“They have overcome numerous obstacles to ensure product gets moved off-farm to reach consumers and Government needs to recognise their efforts, providing opportunities for business growth. The agri-food industry is at the core of our economy and everyone within it has risen to the challenge since the COVID-19 outbreak began. Going forward support needs to be there to allow it to flourish appropriately.”

The UK is approximately only 58 percent self-sufficient in food and, according to the UFU, agri expansion policies will help to improve this situation.

Ivor Ferguson continued: “The current pandemic has exposed just how vulnerable our ability to import food is and how the food chain could be severely affected if we were too heavily reliant on these goods coming into the UK. The UFU is constantly reiterating the need to support local food production and the less produce we need to import the better. Our self-sufficiency will not rise dramatically overnight but with the correct policy in place it will improve over time benefiting our farmers, consumers, the economy and the environment as the food we produce would have a lower carbon footprint.

“With that said, the Government need to act immediately and put legislation in place to ensure that any product imported into the UK, is produced to the same standards that our farmers adhere to here. The absence of this regulation has the potential to create an uncompetitive market, undermining our UK farmers and their ability to the feed the nation.

“Processors, retailers and the food service sector also need to be responsible in their sourcing policies. We need them to support UK produce and not to undermine our market. Consumers have recently been very clear in communicating this at retail level having made the distinction between local and imported food, which our farmers appreciate greatly.”

The UFU president concluded: “We all want to be able to purchase high-quality food when we need it, no matter what is going on in the world. Local food production is the only way we can guarantee this and emphasises the need for consumers to buy local. If COVID-19 taught us anything, it’s that when times are hard we rely on our neighbours more than ever and that includes our farmers, the primary producers.”