WIREDGOV

The UK believes in a whole-of-society approach to national security. Agriculture has both a traditional and a novel role to play in protecting the country.

In 2024, the UK's total agricultural labour force was 452,900 or 1.3% of the total workforce, spanning 209,000 farm holdings across 69% of the land in the UK. UK Farming is the only part of the national food system – including imports, trade and supply chains – that the government can control when geopolitical crises create perilous vulnerabilities. An estimated 5 million Ukrainians are facing food insecurity within the country and internationally the war has created wider global shocks in the food, fertiliser and energy markets. Similarly, the Covid-19 pandemic severely impacted global supply chains and created domestic food shortages. Meanwhile, climate adaptions are already impacting domestic food production in the UK, which UK defence chiefs have warned about for two decades.

UK agriculture produces approximately 62% of the total food consumed domestically. If war with Russia breaks out – which NATO assesses likely by 2030 – the other 38% of food production would be placed at risk, requiring a rapid increase in domestic production to feed the country. Therefore, maintaining a stable rural economy and introducing – and testing – surge capacity will increase resilience and contribute to a whole-of-society approach to war preparation. Moreover, the farming sector has additional value and skills to protect the nation and is largely an untapped resource which the UK government should mobilise.

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