Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Andrew Dickens: Food security should be an election priority

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Andrew Dickens: Food security should be an election priority · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: If you think we're bad, the UK is far worse.
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  Speaker 1: This weekend, The Independent published a piece on UK farmers,
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  Speaker 1: warning that food shortages are just ten days away for
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  Speaker 1: the UK, and there are signs that suggest they've already arrived.
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  Speaker 1: It's a food crisis. Experts say that Britain's food insecurity
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  Speaker 1: needs to be treated as a growing national emergency. They
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  Speaker 1: don't have enough food. Global conflict combined with climate change,
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  Speaker 1: are affecting their supply chains. So these days Britain produces
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  Speaker 1: about sixty percent of its food. That's compared to eighty
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  Speaker 1: percent back in the eighties. The shortfall is met by imports,
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  Speaker 1: principally from the EU, but that's been affected by Brexit
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  Speaker 1: and the fuel crisis for everywhere else. They are particularly
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  Speaker 1: vulnerable when it comes to fruit and seasonal vegetables. Already
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  Speaker 1: there are shortages, they're getting worse and the prices are
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  Speaker 1: climbing now. Compare that with US. New Zealand, on the
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  Speaker 1: other hand, is considered to have one of the most
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  Speaker 1: secure food supplies in the world. We make more than
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  Speaker 1: we eat. We currently grow enough food to feed forty
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  Speaker 1: million people. We have five point five so even in
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  Speaker 1: a major global crisis, New Zealand would remain as one
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  Speaker 1: of the best place countries to feed its own population.
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  Speaker 1: And I think that's quite important. And while we might
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  Speaker 1: not export oil or mobile phones or plastic necknacks or whatever,
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  Speaker 1: the one thing that every single person in the world
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  Speaker 1: needs is food, and in that we are resilient and
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  Speaker 1: food therefore is a good product to be making. But
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  Speaker 1: we're entering an election again and once again, our food manufacturers,
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  Speaker 1: our farmers are going to be urged by the environmentalists.
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  Speaker 1: Of fact, the Greens did it over the weekend. They're
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  Speaker 1: going to be told to cut production to meet climate
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  Speaker 1: change targets, when in fact the world will be begging
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  Speaker 1: us to make more food. The greenies are worried about
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  Speaker 1: the globe, but the thing the globe needs most of
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  Speaker 1: all is food and water. Yes, the climate might be
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  Speaker 1: a thing, but they need to eat and drink. And
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  Speaker 1: I think that is a very important thing to remember.
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  Speaker 1: And I wonder also if New Zealand first might be
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  Speaker 1: better advised to put a billion into making our farms
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  Speaker 1: efficient and clean rather than some sort of survey on
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: whether we have any mythical oil. For more from early
• 2:02
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• 2:05
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