We need to have a mature and rational debate on food security

This is well worth underlining, particularly to politicians who seem to be taking a key industry for granted. They are ranking the environment over agriculture, when in reality they should be seen as parallel objectives. Much as some may like to ignore reality, meaningful gains for the environment will come from farmers managing land and producing food more than will ever come from grandiose schemes launched with a fanfare. These lack focus on the practicalities of delivery in an economy that relies on food production and exports. Past executives at Stormont understood this; even direct rule ministers got the parallel concept. But this executive seems not to fully grasp the importance of agriculture and rural communities. They may believe there are more votes in urban areas, but come the Assembly elections next year they will have to justify their lack of enthusiasm for a key driver of the economy. Given what is happening in the world we all need resilience just to read the news every morning. Oil prices up; then late this week the focus moved to gas prices. Farmers are at the centre of the outcomes. Gas price rises on top of oil price rises will directly affect already rising fertiliser prices. That means a new cost/price squeeze for every farming business, regardless of enterprise, scale or location. Donald Trump does not like taking lessons. But from Vietnam, through Afghanistan post 9/11, then Iraq and now Iran, foreign wars without clear objectives do not work out well for the US. Trump's actions in Iran are undermining his political support, even within his MAGA movement. His massive ego has overcome common sense; having bullied countries with tariffs tariffs, he is now surprised they are not interested in entering a war of his making. This does not mean Iran is not a despotic and hateful regime that deserves to be toppled. But this is not the way to deliver that successfully and an alliance of the US and Israel is unlikely to secure wider support against Iran in the Middle East or globally. In economic terms there is nothing worse for any economy or business than an unbeatable and rising oil price. This drives up costs from production inputs to distribution and retail where energy costs are rocketing. Inflation means a return to higher interest rates that hit consumer spending and business investment to create jobs; economic growth plans that made sense a few weeks ago have been torn up. This is the price we are all paying for a war started without a definition of how success would be measured or in Churchill’s language how “war, war” is eventually turned into “jaw, jaw” with some realistic prospect of regime change in Iran. The US has massive firepower, but few military tacticians would say a country bigger than Spain and France combined can be defeated from the air. Like Ukraine for the past four years the Iran war is creating uncertainty in agriculture. It may be less strategically important for Europe than Ukraine, but what has happened to the oil price has trumped no pun intended the geography of the conflict. With hindsight and logic the US aim should have been to protect oil and gas exports via the Straits of Hormuz; that would have probably attracted global allies to Trump’s cause, but he missed that opportunity. The fallout for agriculture is enormous. Costs are rising for key inputs, but the route to higher prices from retailers is not there.

Every UK government minister is stressing action against the cost of living, but their war chest for doing so is just about empty and getting worse as the economy falters and government borrowing costs rise. The political pressure on retailers to avoid price rises is intense, but that is the only possible direction of travel. If they are relying on imports the cost of shipping to the UK has risen massively since the Iran war began. The United Nations has said global food security levels are at record lows and that too is pointing to higher prices. War confirms that long supply chains are risky and this is the case now. We need a mature, rational debate on food security in the UK and Europe. The Iraq war and breakdown of the international rules based order should be placing that at the top of the agenda. It is not there yet, but in time that political penny will drop at Westminster.