OUT-TAKE:

'Despite all the bluster, there is no Plan B that makes any economic sense, or which will avoid big gaps on supermarket shelves'

Time seems to fly for most things, but with the war in Ukraine it is hard to believe it is just a year this week since the Russian invasion.

It has changed things so dramatically that it is now difficult to remember the way things were when Russia was a major importer and exporter, rather than one of the world's pariah states. Everything has changed in agriculture.

Fertiliser and energy costs have rocketed; trade deals are harder to find for a country that left one of the world's biggest trade blocs; reliance on imported food is increasingly risky. If there is a positive it is that people have a new respect for farmers and food, which they are now less inclined to take for granted.

Sadly, that view is not shared by government minsters, who appear to see disengagement from agriculture as part of the outworkings of Brexit.

Food shortages are the one thing guaranteed to bring a new focus to agriculture. We saw that during Covid and this week empty supermarket shelves were again grabbing headlines. This time it is a shortage of vegetables, mainly because of awful weather in Spain and other southern Europe/north African countries that supply the UK.

People, perhaps, need reminded that a risk of shortages is the price of expecting vegetables and fruit to be available out of season. It is, however, an indictment of the government's stance towards agriculture that the country that once led the world's agricultural revolution is experiencing shortages of vegetables.

This is a wake up call – which will probably be ignored by politicians – that we need to take the issue of food security a lot more seriously. This should be driving green aspirations of politicians, but instead they are making food a by-product of their vision of what the countryside would be like.

They are being influenced by social media and 'personalities', rather than science, and will continue to do so until empty supermarket shelves outweigh politicians' vanity about green credentials.

Long supply chains are now more risky than ever and that is not going to change. There will be no easy, or early resolution of the war in Ukraine and even when that happens it will be a long time before there is any prospect of Russia again being the trading nation it was in the past.

The days when it was a cheap and reliable source of fertiliser and energy are over, as are the days when it was a market for vast volumes of EU food. This is why, in the post-Brexit world created around the false bravado of people like Boris Johnson, it makes sense for the government to ignore them and instead find a sensible way forward with the EU as the world's biggest trading bloc in food and agriculture.

Despite all the bluster, there is no Plan B that makes any economic sense, or which will avoid big gaps on supermarket shelves.

When the UK was an EU member state, we tended to view the European Parliament as a talking shop. But thanks to co-decision with the European Commission and member states over key issues, including the budget, its powers have grown.

That has made the EU more democratic and MEPs more relevant. The spike in fertiliser prices boosted their focus on food security and farm profitability and MEPs are now pressing for more action over fertiliser prices.

They want long term green measures, but accept the need for action is now and not long term. They also want more European self reliance, warning that swapping dependence on Russia for another source of imports will not improve food security.

In the short term, they want to use the agricultural budget to support farm incomes against fertiliser costs and so maintain productivity. They also want the EC to consider joint action to ease supply problems, buying on behalf of member states rather than countries having to compete against each other on a global market.

They want an action plan to tackle this and issues around soil nutrients by June, confirming their view that this is a current crisis and that action is needed to protect fertiliser use this year.

Some of these ideas might well be unrealistic, but in contrast to Westminster, some of the MEPs are at least acknowledging the scale of the problem and the need for action to protect farmers and consumers from food insecurity.