On the same day that the government announced £168 million in new grants to “drive innovation and improve farming productivity”[1], photos of empty shelves once again started appearing online, and UK supermarkets quickly introduced the rationing of salad and vegetables.
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While the British Retail Consortium expects the current disruption to last only a few more weeks, the root causes of the shortage - climate change, high energy costs and the labour market crisis – are unlikely to be resolved anytime soon. £168 million is not enough.
The UK rightly wants to be seen as a green economy leader. But if voters cannot buy the food they want, commute to work, or afford to heat their homes, our infrastructure is clearly failing us. Rather than focusing on building vanity projects like HS2, the government must do more to support new sustainable infrastructure projects to address the real challenges people are facing today.
The phrase ‘Levelling up’ may have passed its political sell-by date, but focusing on smaller, quicker, place-based investments will help to bring essential new industries and technologies to the regions that need them the most. Such investment can empower organisations to address the broader supply chain and productivity issues which have become endemic.
One area that the UK can and should aspire to lead in is vertical farming. After years of development, this technology is now up to 500 times more efficient in terms of land usage than the equivalent conventional farming method. Using 95-98 per cent less water, requiring no chemicals or pesticides, offering improved product shelf lives, and bolstering food security and sovereignty – this truly represents the future of food. A future characterised by efficient, sustainable farming providing full-time skilled work, opposed to the scramble for short-term mass labour every harvest season.
The good news is that this is already starting to happen. In Norfolk, a British business is ready to open the world’s largest fully automated vertical farm, creating new high-skilled jobs. Not only does this offer huge potential for the UK’s own salad and vegetable supplies, but with the right support, this technology can be rapidly scaled and exported globally. Extensive R&D is also already underway, which could soon see the UK leap ahead – delivering higher calorie crops, such as soy, wheat and rice – all year round but without destruction to our rainforests or planet.
While the government can’t recoup the billions wasted on HS2 and other white elephant infrastructure projects, it should act now to accelerate progress by addressing planning impediments that have long held the country’s infrastructure investment back, and add at least another zero to the farming innovation grants announced this week.
Remove these barriers and the UK will soon be exporting valuable IP and green technologies, rather than struggling to import food, while creating highly-skilled new jobs and stronger supply chains that will help revitalise our vital agriculture sector.
The last Prime Minister was famously outlasted by a lettuce. Getting nutritious British veg back on our supermarket shelves 365 days a year would go some way to ensure Rishi Sunak is remembered for championing green growth, rather than expensive vanity projects.
Peter Bachmann is Managing Director of Sustainable Infrastructure at Gresham House
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/increased-government-funding-to-boost-farming-productivity
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