Three ways to boost the UK’s fragile food security | Food security

Your editorial is right to warn that Britain’s food system leaves us dangerously exposed (The Guardian view on food security: we have just-in-time, we need just-in-case, 15 October). But scarcity is only part of the problem. Across the country, good food exists; what is missing is the infrastructure to store it, aggregate it and get it to the people who need it.

That failure runs through the whole food chain. Farmers are being pushed to the brink while millions of tonnes of edible produce go to waste. Independent retailers and wholesalers face rising costs, while schools, hospitals and community organisations want to provide healthier food but are constrained by tight budgets.

Meanwhile, climate shocks are becoming more likely, farming methods remain unsustainable, and poor diets carry a vast economic cost (a shocking £300bn per year in the UK, or £10,000 per household, according to an analysis by the Food, Farming & Countryside Commission). The current system is neither resilient nor rational.

There is a practical alternative: local food hubs that can accept surplus food but also enable buying in bulk, combining supplies and shortening the final mile. Hubs can create new markets for farmers, reduce waste and help communities access affordable, healthy food.

Many such hubs appeared during lockdown, but too few survived. The new hub in Barking and Dagenham shows what is possible. It redirects surplus food to organisations tackling the causes of poverty, while laying the foundations for collective purchasing and a fairer local supply chain.

Britain does not lack food, ideas or demand. It lacks durable local infrastructure. If government wants a food system that is secure, healthy and sustainable, supporting food hubs should be central to the plan.

Damien Conrad

Purley, London

Your editorial on food security correctly identifies the problem, but centralised food stockpiles can only ever provide part of the solution. A key measure should be to encourage households to grow their own food. Allotments should be given greater protection from destruction by developers and local authorities, an example of which is the takeover of allotments in Teddington by Richmond upon Thames council to extend a cemetery. Feeding the living should take precedence over accommodating the dead.

Simon Tompsett

Teddington, London

Your editorial makes a compelling argument for government action, but it misses a powerful way we could build our resilience: cutting food waste. In the UK, we waste more than 10m tonnes a year – over half of it in our homes, which costs a household of four £1,000 a year.

We tend to hugely underestimate our own potential to make a difference. Halving edible food waste at home would save over 2m tonnes, and put £500 in householders’ pockets. Boosting surplus food distribution and addressing supply-chain waste could also save food and money, and take pressure off food growers.

No one chooses to waste food. If the government heeds your editorial’s advice to act, then addressing the structural causes of food waste, backed by a national citizen-focused campaign, would give people benefits they can feel today while protecting us against the shocks of tomorrow.

Alex Robinson

Chief programmes officer, Waste and Resources Action Programme