Food Security

I beg to move, To leave out from ““House”” to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:"““notes with concern current food shortages which are believed to have pushed 100 million people into hunger worldwide; acknowledges the steps taken by the Prime Minister to encourage coordinated international action to address global food security; welcomes the additional UK contribution to the World Food Programme; recognises that rising food prices as a result of global pressures are affecting household food budgets; believes that with rising global demand Great Britain needs a strong farming industry able to produce a significant proportion of UK food; notes that UK self sufficiency stands at 74 per cent. for food which can be grown in the UK, which is higher than in the early 1950s; and commends the Government's role in helping to develop a domestic farming sector that produces what consumers want in a way that preserves natural resources and enhances the valuable environmental benefits that it provides to society.””." I welcome the opportunity to debate food security. I also welcome the context of what was said by the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice), if not all the content. I will take his contribution in the spirit in which it was offered. I think that we need both to understand what is happening and why it is happening, and to agree what we should do in response, both internationally and at home. Let me begin with the international aspect. As the hon. Gentleman said, the last 12 months has seen a remarkable increase in food prices across the globe. Demand for food has increased, one reason being the fact that more people in emerging economies are becoming better off. The world's population is growing: by 2050, there may be another 2.5 billion mouths to feed on this planet of ours. Drought and changing weather conditions have hit yields. High energy prices, poor harvests in some places, speculation, biofuels and export bans have all pushed up prices. We have seen food riots in Haiti, Cameroon and Mexico. The whole House will be concerned about the fact that those price increases are pushing millions of people in the developing world further into poverty and hunger. Despite the unprecedented prosperity in our world, it should weigh heavily on each and every one of us that even before the recent increases in food prices 850 million people on the planet did not have enough food to eat every day, and that a child dies every five seconds somewhere in the world because it does not have enough to eat. Lives are lost for want of enough food, yet there is enough food in the world for everyone; it is just that the poorest cannot get enough of it, either because they have not enough money to buy it or because other circumstances deny them access to it. I shall say more later about the question of the future. It is not for nothing that Josette Sheeran, who heads the World Food Programme, has described what has been happening as ““a silent tsunami””. The United Kingdom, along with others, has responded, giving a further £30 million to the World Food Programme's emergency appeal. There is, however, a fundamental problem, which was referred to by the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire: the need to increase production in the developing world. The Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that global food production needs to rise by 50 per cent. by 2030 and to double by 2050 to meet the demands of a growing world population.