A call for leadership to build national food resilience and security

Led by Foodrise, Professor Tim Lang and Professor Paul Behrens, the Food Ethics Council joined 180 fellow food systems leaders, academics and organisations in signing a joint letter published on Monday 5th October. It calls on the UK’s Prime Minister and First Secretary of State to show urgent leadership in building national food resilience and security without delay.

Read the full letter and list of signatories here courtesy of Foodrise, also copied in full below.

5 October 2026

Dear Prime Minister and First Secretary of State,

Request for your leadership to build national food resilience and security

For too long, the UK has been complacent about food as a national security matter, even as the urgency of the matter has become irrefutable. Government agencies, the National Audit Office, parliamentarians, industry insiders and researchers have all warned of impending shocks and a scale of destabilisation that could make business-as-usual nigh impossible (see Annex 1).

The UK (along with the West) is entering a new era in which food supplies will be disrupted, public expectations may not be met and food can be weaponised. The food system is exposed to shocks and threats from geopolitics, climate heating, ransomware, energy outages, software malfunction and disinformation. These shocks will fall upon a system that is highly wasteful, import-dependent, environmentally unsustainable, and driven by the pursuit of private profit rather than resilience, with millions of people unable to afford a decent, healthy diet. The ‘just-in-time’ model means little or no stock is held along the supply chain, and the UK has no national food storage, as stores were wound up in the 1990s. Instead, the Government’s Prepare website and recent ministerial comments have advised households to keep a store of food for emergencies lasting a few days, with scant attention paid to the form that store should take or the practicalities and affordability of such recommendations for many lower-income households. In the Government’s own 2026 survey, 29% of respondents said a lack of money had stopped them preparing further.

In this context, we welcome your Government’s continuation of the resilience work begun under Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership. HM Government has also rightly acknowledged, in the UK Food Security Report and its national security assessment on global ecosystems, the escalating environmental and geopolitical risks to UK food security. And yet the gap between HM Government’s current approach and what must happen next to secure the nation’s food security is stark.

At the same time, there is much that the UK can and should build on within its current food system: the creativity of farmers and growers; the improvement of British food availability and cultures since the mid-20^th century; the awareness that food systems rely on natural ecosystems; the recognition that food is one of the UK’s largest employers; and much more.

But the hard truth is that the food system built over recent decades is not fit for today’s or tomorrow’s challenges. The UK’s home production is woefully inadequate in many different food types. More than half of our croppable land grows feed for livestock rather than produce for people. Indeed, as the above-mentioned national security assessment concludes, ‘The UK does not have enough land to feed its population and rear livestock: a wholesale change in consumer diets would be required.’ The public has been led to assume that food will simply be there. It may not be, unless the UK’s food system is transformed for the world of climate, ecosystem, and geopolitical volatility.

We therefore urge you to:

• Commission an audit of the current reliance on a few, very large food firms to assess the UK’s vulnerability to modern forms of disruption (such as ransomware, chokepoints, energy dependence and crop failure), as well as dependence on international upstream agricultural inputs needed for food security (such as fertilisers, vitamins for animal production and feed requirements).

• Establish a new system of local food resilience committees under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, with the aim of addressing food supply disruptions at the local level. The current Cabinet Office Post-Implementation Review provides an exceptional opportunity to integrate food resilience into the Act and its regulations. Once established, food resilience committees would enable local emergency responders and their partners to prevent food emergencies – and to respond to any that cannot be prevented (see Annex 2).

• Inject clarity into the national approach to food production, with a view to re-aligning it around nutritional needs, in line with the Eatwell Guide and the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee. Priorities include boosting UK production of legumes, vegetables, fruit and nuts. Reports suggest that the costs of unhealthy diets are on the order of £100 to almost £300 billion per year. Addressing our food environment would lower these costs, correct price signals, improve productivity and decrease the burden on ecosystems.

• Instruct the Cabinet Office to assess food supply disruption and food shortages as risks in their own right in the National Security Risk Assessment, and to publish that risk in the National Risk Register. Food supply contamination is the only food-specific risk in the 2026 Register, and disruption to food is cited exclusively as a knock-on consequence of other risks. Unless food shortages are recognised as a national risk, community risk registers, which draw on the National Risk Register in classifying local risks, will continue to be silent on food crises for local populations.

• Establish a new National Council of Food Security, Defence and Resilience as a partnership between Defra and the Ministry of Defence, with oversight from the Cabinet Office and with the participation of the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive.

• Rename Defra as the Department for Environment and Food Security, to reflect the department’s vital role in national security.
• Place responsibility for food storage on national, regional, local and community storage schemes, not only on the public.

• Engage households and communities on food resilience, security and defence – going beyond the limited ‘top–down’ advice offered so far on Government websites.

• Put in place the policy and regulatory mechanisms to support decentralisation of the UK’s highly centralised food sector, as well as innovation in and regionalisation of food supply networks.

We are keenly aware that any attempts to accelerate public protection are likely to elicit political challenges. Yet feeding all people well in the coming era of shocks will not be easy, nor will the process of change be effortless. Your leadership, Prime Minister and First Secretary of State, is required to build the nation’s food resilience and national security. Food security must be championed, not ducked.

Yours sincerely,

Professor Tim Lang, Professor Emeritus of Food Policy, City St George’s, University of London; Lead Author, National Preparedness Commission ‘Just in Case’ report

Professor Paul Behrens, British Academy Global Professor, University of Oxford

Carina Millstone, Executive Director, Foodrise

 

Co-signed by: 

Lt Gen (Retd) Richard Nugee, Chair, Advisory Board Climate, Nature and Security APPG

Dr Jessica Banks, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Dr Matthew Gibson, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Dr Lynne Jones OBE, Honorary Associate Professor, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Professor Martin McKee CBE, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Dr Maddy Power, Associate Professor, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Dr Jordan D. Beaumont, Sheffield Hallam University

Professor Emeritus Tim Benton, University of Leeds

Professor Stefan Kepinski, University of Leeds

Dr Megan Blake, University of Sheffield

Professor Emeritus Peter Jackson, University of Sheffield

Professor Hannah Lambie-Mumford, University of Sheffield

Professor Sarah Bridle & Professor Bob Doherty, University of York

Dr CM (Tilly) Collins, Imperial College London 

Dr Jessica Thorn, Imperial College London

Professor Emeritus Dave Goulson, University of Sussex

Professor Caroline Lucas, Professor of Practice, University of Sussex

Professor Emeritus Erik Millstone, University of Sussex

Professor Aled Jones, Anglia Ruskin University

Dr Dimitrios Koutoukidis, Associate Professor, University of Oxford

Professor Peter Scarborough, University of Oxford

Dr Siobhan Maderson, Aberystwyth University

Professor Emeritus Terry Marsden, Cardiff University

Professor Kevin Morgan, Cardiff University

Dr Adrian Morley, Manchester Metropolitan University

Professor Oyinlola Oyebode, Public Health, Queen Mary University of London

Dr Clare Pettinger, Associate Professor, University of Plymouth

Professor Chistina Vogel, City St George’s, University of London; National Preparedness Commission

Professor Neil Ward, University of East Anglia

Dr Lopa Saxena, Coventry University

Professor Moya Kneafsey, Coventry University

Kath Dalmeny, Chief Executive, Sustain: The alliance for better food and farming

Anna Taylor DBE, Executive Director, The Food Foundation

Dr Helen Angel, Founder/Director, Golden Zones Foundation CIC

Lucy Antal, Director, Alchemic Kitchen; Founder, Queen of Greens.

Sara Ayech, UK Director, Madre Brava

Vic Borrill, CEO, Brighton & Hove Food Partnership

Julie Brown, Director Growing Communities

Mark de Cates, Director, Stroud Community Agriculture

Steve Clarkson, CEO, Organic Farmers & Growers CIC

Dan Crossley, Executive Director, Food Ethics Council

Deborah Doane & Dr James Meadway, Directors, Verdant

Joyce D’Silva, Ambassador Emeritus & Philip Lymbery, CEO, Compassion in World Farming

Jenny Ekelund, CEO, Good Food Oxfordshire

Michael French, Founder, Ecclesia Farms Bournemouth and Grounded Community Charity

Dorothea Hackman, Founder, Euston Foodbank

Shane Holland, Executive Chairman, Slow Food in the UK

Gemma Hoskins, Global Climate Director, Mighty Earth

Keenan Humble, Director, Feeding Liverpool

Natasha Jones, Director, Canalside Community Food CSA

Daphne Lambert, Founder CEO, Greencuisine Trust

Maddy Longhurst, Co-director, We Are Avon; Landed Community Kitchens UK/EU

Dr Amy McDonnell & James Sutton, Co-executive Directors, Zero Hour

Gemma McFarlane, Director, Sharing Skills CIC

John Mclennan, Trustee, A Greener Melrose

Caroline Monkhouse Flower, CEO, FEAST With Us

Lisa Noteyoung, Deputy CEO, Nine Yards

Heather Poore & Gavin Ellis, Co-CEOs, Hubbub

Claire Pritchard, CEO, Greenwich Cooperative Development Agency; Chair Mayor of London’s Food Board

Matt Reynolds, Director, Living Seeds CIC

Kath Rosen, CEO, The Orchard Project

Suzy Russell, Coordinator, Community Supported lp (CSA) Network UK

Daniel Sargison, Director, Grassroots Garden CIC

Charles Secrett, former Director, Friends of the Earth EWNI

Shiri Shalmy, Co-Director, Cooperation Town

Gilly Smith, Founder, BrightonFoodStory

Ian Smith, Director, Food Plymouth CIC

Helen Starr-Keddle, Deputy Director, Food Matters

Charlotte Steel, Chief Executive, Highland Good Food Partnership

Rebecca Sunter, Interim Executive Director, Eating Better

Anna Taylor, Co-founder, Patcham Repair Cafe

Matthew Thomson, Director, Sustainable Food Cornwall

Pam Warhurst CBE, Chair, Incredible Edible

Duncan Williamson, Director, Joyfully Greens CIC

Sarah Witts, Founder and lead facilitator, Nature Connects CIC

Rajesh Makwana BEM, Executive Director, Sufra NW London

Sue Cooper, Good Food Stockport

Mary Cosnett & Chloe Masefield, Bwyd Powys Food

Dr. Daphne Du Cros, Shropshire Good Food Partnership

Nikki Dravers & Gwen Young, Gateshead Food Partnership

Mary Duckett, Bwyd Abertawe Food, Swansea’s Food Partnership and Network

Adam Guy, Middlesbrough Food Partnership

Kate Hughes, Chair and farmer, Sustainable Food Somerset

Caroline Kenyon, Chair, Greater Lincolnshire Food Partnership

Finlay Laverton, Andover Food Partnership

Augusta Lewis, Sustainable Food Places, Carmarthenshire

Susana Lopez, Enfield Food Partnerships

Shannon Mahanty & Stephen Mawhinney, Islington Food Partnership

Ann Owen, Partneriaeth Bwyd Ceredigion

Matthew Passchier, West Northants Sustainable Food Network

Alice Peperell, Bristol Food Network; Bristol Good Food 2030

Kelly Price, Food Partnership Coordinator, Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham

Lucy Rees, South Gloucestershire Local Food Partnership

Fiona Revell & Karen Stewart, Eastbourne Food Partnership CIC

Lucinda Sehic, Food Cardiff Cardiff’s Local Food Partnership

Professor Dianna Smith, Southampton Food Partnership

Darren Squires, Hull Food Partnership

Sabine Virani, Sustainable Food Norwich

Charles Walker, Nottingham City Sustainable Food Partnership

Carlos Yescas, Food Newcastle

Ali Ghanimi, Brighton and Hove Food Partnership

Vera Zakharov, Sustainable Food Places Campaigns Coordinator, Sustain

Cllr Bethany Anderson, Haringey Council

Cllr Alastair Binnie-Lubbock & Cllr Noah Birksted-Breen & Cllr Emma Neath & Cllr Reiner Tegtmeyer & Cllr Mihai Chereji, Hackney Council

Cllr Dr Ezra Cohen & Cllr Emily O’Brien, Lewes District Council

Cllr Dr Pallavi Devulapalli, King’s Lynn and West Norfolk Borough Council

Cllr Sheridan Kates, Islington Council

Cllr Rosie Pearson & Cllr Sandra Simpson, West Oxfordshire District Council

Cllr Lorna Jane Russell, Camden Council

Cllr Neil Sandison, Rugby Borough Council

Dr Eva Johanna Holmberg, Chichester & Arun Green Party

Tim Howells, Chair, ADPH Yorkshire and Humber Food Systems Network

Matthew Hudson, Luton Borough Council

Zak Shinwarie, Medway Council

Dawn Jenkin, Consultant in Public Health, Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health.

Mike Barry & Ali Morpeth, Co-Founders, Planeatry Alliance

Ffinlo Costain, Co-producer, Conference on Food & National Security

Tessa Clarke, Co-founder & CEO, Olio

Donnally Bettis, Teampuill Stone Growers

Louise Dollimore, Ooooby

Peter Dollimore, The Montessori Place

Patrick Gillett, Director, Hempen Organic

Rob Haward, CEO, Riverford

Andy Middleton, Co-Founder, Weave Global

Nick Miller, CEO, Miller Research (UK) Ltd

Michael Pawlyn, Director, Exploration Architecture

Tom Pycraft, Ark Events

Debra Willoughby, Grange Farm

Martin Bryant & Patrick Mulvany, Rugby Eco Hub

Joe Buxton & Daniel Edwards & Dr Vicky Gerrard & Anna Perego & Jamie Sumner-Ailes, Stroud Community Agriculture

Dr Charlie Clutterbuck, just-grow.uk

Chris Dady, Campaign to Protect Rural England, Norfolk

Barbara Davies Quy, Size of Wales

Laura Elliott & Michael Mayhew, The Food Library, Northampton

Sue Fairweather, Cornwall Climate Action Coalition

Duncan Fisher & Sue Holbrook, Our Food Trust

Alison Fletcher, Programme Manager, Root and Reason CIC

Andy Fryers, Abergavenny Food Festival

Kate Harrison, Healthy Me Healthy Communities CIC

Polly Henderson, Bosavern Community Farm

Dr Julie Hudson, Stratford Climate Action

Tania Inowlocki, Climate Emergency Camden

Michael Kennard, Compost Club; Regenerative Soils

Michelle Lawson, Resilient Orchards Cornwall CIC

Penny Locke, Hungerford Food Community

Dr Stephen Norrie, Net Zero Stratford

Dr Janet Palmer, Warwickshire Climate Alliance

Clare Owens & Becky Vipond, Co-directors, Squash Liverpool CIC

Jo Poulton, Founder, Basic Income for Farmers; National Food Service Advocate 

Phil Pritchard, Oxford City Farm

Ketchurah Ravindren, Calthorpe Community Garden

Antony So, Agrifood policy consultant & contributing author, National Preparedness Commission ‘Just in Case’ report

Geoff Tansey, Curator, Food Systems Academy

Dr Lucy Tordo-Gillingham, Feeding Bristol

Anuradha Vittachi, Hedgerley Wood Trust; Mycelium Map

Dr Julia Wilkinson, Chichester Climate Action Network

Georgie Worth, Mike’s Table CIC; Chyan Community Field

Andrew Wright, Incredible Edible Spelthorne

Mark Horler, Chair, UKUAT

Victoria Sherwin, Director, Incredible Edible Lambeth

Annex 1: Recent warnings

• An internal 2024 report by Defra’s Futures team, Status of Defra’s critical systems to 2030 and beyond (unpublished, but reported by The Times in March 2026), finds that there is ‘a realistic possibility that by 2030 (increasing to 2050) our food, water and natural ecosystems […] are at strategic risk of catastrophic failure’.
• A national security assessment published by Defra in January 2026, described by the Ministry of Defence as the Joint Intelligence Committee’s assessment, judges there is a possibility that some ecosystems (such as coral reefs in South East Asia and boreal forests) start to collapse from 2030’, with ‘catastrophic implications, including the collapse of major food sources’, and that without greater resilience ‘it is unlikely the UK would be able to maintain food security if ecosystem collapse drives geopolitical competition for food’.
• In its September 2026 report Resilience of the food supply chain to disruptions, the National Audit Office states that ‘the [food] sector’s ability to withstand catastrophic events that cause severe disruption has not been tested’, that Defra’s actions in recent years ‘have not been sufficient to ensure the supply chain is resilient to such events’ and that there is ‘opportunity to strengthen preparedness for emergencies by increasing the transparency of the government’s planning assumptions and testing these with local government and industry’.
• The National Preparedness Commission’s Just in Case report on food security (2025) finds that the country ‘is not prepared to deal with the scale of shocks experts and industry think possible and likely’.
• In its July 2026 inquiry report ‘Is the UK prepared?’, The All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Environment finds the UK ‘fundamentally unprepared’ for rising climate impacts, including on food, and recommends moving responsibility for climate resilience from Defra to the Cabinet Office. 
• In July, a coalition of 100+ organisations across the UK food system backed a proposed Good Food Bill. They agree food is a national priority and should be taken seriously across government. The Bill proposes targets for fruit and veg production and consumption, childhood obesity and food insecurity, and makes the case for ministerial and local authority duties and accountability, while setting a national ‘reference diet’ that could be used for benchmarking. Meanwhile, the reality is that healthy diets are unaffordable for many, and farmers are not appropriately incentivised. 
• Anonymous senior professionals at some of the UK’s biggest food businesses warn investors (April 2025) that the industry is not prepared for the increasing food supply disruptions and shocks of the ‘incredibly turbulent period we are now entering’.
• In the Roadmap for Resilience: A UK Food Plan for 2050 (October 2025), the UKRI-funded Agri-Food for Net Zero Network+, drawing on input from over 150 experts across research, farming, charities, and the food industry, calls for urgent action to reshape the food system so that the UK does not ‘lurch from crisis to crisis’, and to protect national security, the economy, and the NHS. The Roadmap amplifies earlier expert-led research suggesting that civil unrest could follow from serious actual or feared disruption to food supplies.

Annex 2: Civil food resilience at the local level

Although the fragility of the UK food system is well documented, and although food is one of 13 Critical National Infrastructure sectors (with no individual food asset yet identified as critical), neither the UK Government Resilience Framework (2022) nor the Resilience Action Plan (2025) addresses disruptions to the food supply chain at the local level. If supermarket shelves were to be empty for weeks on end, local responders would be poorly placed to alert the public, coordinate emergency food distribution or tend to the needs of vulnerable groups. The National Audit Office recently found that the capability and capacity of local resilience forums in England to respond to food supply disruptions is insufficient, that most do not plan specifically for them, and that Defra has yet to develop a local food distribution framework for vulnerable people. Ad hoc, haphazard civil society-led responses could emerge, but so could civil disorder.

We see the need for legislation to require local authorities or Mayors to establish a food resilience committee. Operating within or alongside local resilience forums in England and Wales (including London’s borough resilience forums), regional resilience partnerships in Scotland and emergency preparedness groups in Northern Ireland, such civil food resilience committees would enable local emergency responders and their partners to prevent food emergencies – and to respond to any that cannot be prevented.

Each food resilience committee would carry out functions such as:

o   communicating with official resilience structures about the local context; receiving and amplifying national action and advice; tailoring national messages to the local context;

o   mapping local food supply chains;

o   conducting local audits of food capacities and (community) assets;

o   maintaining community risk registers on food risks, threats and civil vulnerabilities;

o   building networks of expertise and trust to call on as required;

o   serving as an early warning system on food matters;

o   encouraging place-specific vulnerability prevention and resilience building, including by supporting a shift to sustainable, local food production and consumption, individual and community food growing, composting, water harvesting, and food storage and rotation (since the UK currently does not maintain strategic national food reserves – even though we are dependent on ‘just-in-time’ international supply chains for at least 40% of our food). 

Committee membership should bring relevant knowledge and be representative of society in the locality, including civil society, food-related professions (such as public health, trading standards, social services, planners), local food businesses, food industries, educational and research institutions, and leads of local food partnerships, boards and related bodies. Ideally, committee co-chairs should have local standing, such as a local director of an emergency planning committee. To ensure a high level of trust, committee members must be democratically accountable to the elected authority. 

Carina Millstone, Executive Director, Foodrise said:

“Amidst severe geopolitical tensions and the fast worsening climate and environmental crises, food corporations have led us to an impasse that threatens the UK’s food and farming. The signatories to this letter call for leadership from the Prime Minister to boost the nation’s food resilience and security without delay.”

Professor Tim Lang, Emeritus Professor of Food Policy, City St George’s, University of London, lead author of the National Preparedness Commission Just in Case report said:

“Governments rightly warn people we’re in a hybrid warfare era and to stock up a bit on food. The Government Resilience Framework’s focus on prevention and ‘whole of society’ is great in theory but so far food blind in practice. We need system shift: grow more food; more regionalism, diversity and storage at multiple levels, not just households; and public engagement in civil food defence. Central government must provide more strategic leadership while encouraging actions at different levels. Communities and households cannot resolve faultlines in the UK’s food system.”

Professor Paul Behrens, British Academy Global Professor and food system expert, Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford said:

“The Government’s own national security assessment says the UK ‘does not have enough land to feed its population and rear livestock: a wholesale change in consumer diets would be required’. That is Whitehall’s own analysis but there is still very little action on this. Food resilience, healthy diet, and environmental benefits all point the same direction: grow more of the vegetables, fruit and pulses people actually need, closer to home.”

Tania Inowlocki of Climate Emergency Camden said:

“Our first responders are equipped to prevent and respond to floods and fire, but no one is mandated or resourced to address local food emergencies. Parliament can close this preparedness gap by requiring local authorities to set up food resilience committees under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. Committee members would have a deep understanding of local food distribution, needs and supplies, and they’d keep the public informed and engaged in building food resilience, including through stockpiling and growing. That would help us make sure that everyone has access to food – even when the supermarket shelves are empty for longer periods.”

 

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash.