Britain's food security: the future challenge

Land area needed to feed a family of four. Graphic: Dave Llorens (2011)

According to this Wikipedia article, for each square kilometre of arable land Russia has 117 people to feed, the US has 179, and the UK... 1,077. In a future where energy has become very expensive and other countries feed their own people first, could Britain sustain itself without imports?

The infographic above suggests not. The author calculates that a family of four would need 89,050 square feet of land for food, or slightly over 2 acres. Per 4 people in the UK, we have 39,977 square feet of arable land, i.e. only 45% of the estimated requirement.

We may not always be able to fly in cheap vegetables from Kenya and Zimbabwe, and out-of-season fruit from around the world.

Do we have a plan?

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