It shouldn’t take a war for Britain to wake up to the need for food security

Consumer tastes are out of sync with what can be grown seasonally and in a low-carbon way, and expectations need to readjusted. Across our national diet, we only grow 62% of what we consume. We import 83% of the dreadfully low amount of fruit we consume. Rebuilding a regional horticulture sector could be the real growth the Treasury wants. When Rachel Reeves promised “securonomics” in the Mais lecture hosted at Bayes Business School in 2024, I thought it might herald food growth. So far, not.