'Kyoto-style deal needed' on food

The world must intervene more to ensure food supplies, Mr Benn says

An agreement similar to the Kyoto deal on global warming is needed to protect world food supplies, Environment Secretary Hilary Benn will say.

Mr Benn is to tell the Fabian Society that climate change, rising population and water and oil shortages create a "perfect storm" of problems.

He has set up a UK Council of Food Policy Advisers to look at the issue.

In his lecture in London, Mr Benn will urge quicker global help with crises such as price jumps and shortages.

'Two more Chinas'

He will warn that global food production will need to double to meet the demands of the nine billion people who will be living on this "small and fragile planet" by 2050.

Mr Benn will add: "And the question is: do we have the capacity to feed the equivalent of another two Chinas?

"Global food production will need to double by the middle of the century just to meet demand.

"We have the knowledge and the technology to do this, as things stand, but the perfect storm of climate change, environmental degradation and water and oil scarcity threatens our ability to succeed.

"And if food production is not sustainable, it will never be secure."

He will add: "We need to look at how we can build on the work of the World Food Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organisation and others to create a kind of new Kyoto - a global agreement to secure the future of our food."

This would involve co-ordinating humanitarian help, providing a "quick response" to food crises.

It would also mean monitoring global demand, prices and supply, while offering advice and money to help countries produce sustainable farming, Mr Benn will say.

'Klondike rush'

He is also to argue that say agriculture must shift away from a dependence on fossil fuels, through smarter use of fertilisers, tractors powered by renewable energy and new crops and technologies.

Wealthy countries with a lack of agricultural land - such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - are engaged in a "Klondike rush for land" in Africa, he is expected to say.

There will also be "even more competition for water", with two-thirds of the world's population living in areas with scarcity problems by 2025.

He is also expected to say he wants to build on the success of recent initiatives in "edible education" with better labelling of where food comes from, how it was produced, its carbon footprint and welfare standards.

The Soil Association's campaigns director, Robin Maynard, said: "The real challenge is embedded in the reference to a 'new Kyoto protocol' for food and farming.

"Intensive agriculture is hugely dependent on oil and fossil-fuel based inputs like fertilisers - the latter responsible for an extra 14% of total greenhouse gases from farming.

"Mr Benn rightly implies solar powered, organic farming, rather than reliance on 'ancient sunlight' in the form of fossil-fuels is the future.

"As the Defra [Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs] chief scientist, Bob Watson, has said, 'business as usual' is not an option given the accepted target of cutting emissions by 80%."