The British government is launching a ‘Grow for Britain’ initiative to try and boost domestic food production, a leaked document has revealed.
Seen by The Telegraph, a notionally right-leaning newspaper close to Britain’s governing Conservative Party, warns that “the cost of food has real consequences for people across the country” and that members of the Boris Johnson administration are going to be working “to address poverty in the round as we learn to live with recent events and manage the impact of cost of living pressures”.
The food strategy — the first developed by a British government in 75 years, according to The Telegraph — is being developed “at a time of significant increases in food prices, largely as a result of energy prices and exacerbated by events in Ukraine, which is very challenging for people across the country,” the document states.
“We are engaging closely with the food industry to understand price impacts and any mitigating measures.”
Measures under consideration include — perhaps unsurprisingly for a government which promised to reduce immigration but has helped it to pass over one million a year — expanding seasonal migrant visas to include poultry workers and amending planning rules to make converting land for agricultural use simpler.
More controversially, the plan will reportedly include requiring government-funded institutions such as requiring National Health Service (NHS) hospitals, state schools, and prisons to provide a vegan option on their menus — with the logic perhaps being that this will increase demand for local fruit and vegetables.
The strategy also suggests that “a new generation of sustainable and efficient greenhouses” can provide British farmers with “opportunities to reduce our reliance on overseas production” when it comes to produce not well-suited to the local climate.
It will likewise “focus on pioneering more organic-based fertilisers” after over-reliance on Russian exports was exposed by the Ukraine war and associated Russo-Western sanctions clash — made worse by the recent announcement that one of only two fertiliser production plants in Britain is being shut down due to factors such as the rising cost of energy
“Everything we do now is forced to go through the lens of what it does for economic growth and easing the burden on British families,” a source at Downing Street, the Prime Minister’s official residence, said of the leaked strategy, claiming that “[i]t’s going to be in everything we do.”
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