Wales imports most of its produce and schools get just 6% of vegetables locally. One expert warned Wales must grow more fruit and vegetables or face climate and conflict risks.
Summer droughts and wildfires warned about supply chain fragility, according to Duncan Fisher. Fisher co-founder of Our Food Trust. He said the nation depends on produce from southern Europe and north Africa.
“We are hugely dependent,” Fisher told BBC News. “These vegetables are coming from really vulnerable parts of the world like south Europe and north Africa – the areas most prone to drought, fires and overheating.”
Fisher said the United Kingdom “has an incredibly centralised food system with 95% of the food we eat bought from nine supermarkets”.
“There’s no storage, it’s a just-in-time system so the food is stored in lorries moving across motorways,” Fisher said.
Fisher said that structure creates a security hazard due to potential cyber-attacks. He explained that if problems arise, the system lacks resilience and provisions run out immediately.
Defence Secretary Wes Streeting made an appeal in October. People were advised to keep emergency supplies ready such as water, tinned items, baby food, torches, and mobile phone charging packs.
Horticulture accounts for only about 0.1% of Welsh agricultural land, while 90% is used for farming. Fisher and Sue Holbrook launched Our Food Trust about 10 years ago. The trust aims to build 100 farms producing local fruit and vegetables for local markets.
Growers at Fisher’s Wern Farm near Newtown in Powys said agricultural practices must change. Wern Farm is located near Newtown in Powys. They said changes will help the nation survive climate change, wars, and global supply chain disruptions.
Organisers said one primary hurdle for new farmers is securing stable housing near crops.
“If there’s a high wind during the night, they need to get out there and protect things,” Fisher said. He explained the necessity of on-site farm housing. He added that if an animal like a sheep gets in, someone must remove it before the entire crop is ruined within an hour.
Lydia Dibben agreed land access and accommodation represent major obstacles for new entrants to the field. Dibben is a 28-year-old grower working at Wern Farm. She said without her housing provided, she would need to take another job to pay rent, leaving her with insufficient time to farm.
Dibben manages just over an acre of land this year and produces 50 vegetable boxes each week. She described the past summer as the most difficult experienced across her five years of growing.
“The hours I were keeping were just insane,” she said. She described how she would arrive at the field by 05:00 and work until the heat forced her inside around 11:00 or earlier. She added that working inside polytunnels became impossible by 09:00 due to extreme temperatures, forcing her indoors just to survive the heat.
Related reading