Dwindling oil stocks and EU trade and energy policies threaten
food price hikes and could cause food shortages in the UK,
according to a new report by Green Party Euro-MP Caroline
Lucas.
The report calls on the government to establish a Royal
Commission on Food Security to examine the issue.
It also suggests the UK’s
Competition Commission
considers its findings in its ongoing investigation of the
supermarkets’ dominance of the food retailing sector.
Fuelling a Food Crisis examines the dependence of the EU’s food
supplies on oil – for production, processing and transport – and
concludes that food prices are becoming increasingly linked with
those of oil, and therefore more exposed to the price volatility of
the energy sector.
'Massive impact'
“Future oil price rises will have a massive impact on food
security, and unless we address the problem now, we could face the
prospect of food shortages in the UK - one of Europe's largest food
importers - and the possibility of starvation in some developing
countries,” said Dr Lucas.
The report warns that we must change energy, trade and
agriculture policies at an EU level if we are to avoid a food
crisis precipitated by ‘Peak Oil’ – the point at which half of
global oil production has been consumed, and beyond which
extraction goes into irreversible decline, and prices rise
accordingly.
Many industry experts predict that Peak Oil will happen by 2020.
But an increasing number argue we are close to, or have already
passed, the peak of oil production.
“We have to decouple the food and oil markets – by cutting
agriculture’s dependence on oil, by promoting local and organic
food systems where possible and reversing the UK’s current
enthusiasm for international trade in food, and revising EU energy
policies which risk promoting bio-fuel production at the expense of
foodstuffs,” said Dr Lucas.