Even though Britain is a relatively rich and clearly food secure nation that produces about 60-65% of our own food and imports about 20% from Europe the economics of importing and exporting make food security a truly global concern. Even if a country has the capacity to produce all it's own food requirements internally, doing so would only ensure that all their eggs would be in one basket as any local food crisis would spell total disaster. In order to be truly food secure any nation must ensure that it's food comes from variety of different sources so that the destabilization of one does not do too much damage. This means that the only way for a country to truly be as food secure as possible, is for the entire world to be food secure.
Specific possible threats to UK food production include the sheep killing bluetongue virus and the wheat-attacking plant pathogen ug99, a 'stem’ or ‘wheat rust' fungus. Britain is lucky to be in a position where any one threat is manageable but it would only take simultaneous outbreaks of a couple of diseases to be disastrous, causing massive food price rises. Combine things like this with a rising global population requiring more food and a decline in populations of insect pollinators, such as bees, moths and butterflies as well as climate change and it becomes clear that even well off countries must take action towards ensuring food security.
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