The Future of Food Security in the UK: Why Factory Farming is Not the Answer

The UK is increasingly recognising the importance of maintaining strong food security. At the same time, more and more of UK meat comes from factory farms, with corporations claiming that this improves our food security. However, our review of the evidence suggests that conversely, the factory farming of chickens and pigs undermines UK food security. Instead, the key to boosting UK food security is to focus policy on cheaper British-farmed fruits and vegetables, as well as alternative proteins.

We evaluate factory farming and alternative proteins on 3 key pillars of food security:

1. A self-sufficient UK food system

• Factory-farming is dependent on imported soy for animal feed, reducing UK self-sufficiency. Taking imported soy feed into account, the UK is only 41% self sufficient in pork, 54% in chicken and 57% in overall meat – far lower than DEFRA’s official estimates.
• Despite this, the real crisis deserving policy attention is the UK’s low self-sufficiency in fruit and vegetable production.
• Reducing factory-farmed meat consumption by 20% and reallocating the land to crop inputs for alternative proteins could increase UK meat self-sufficiency by 35 percentage points, greatly reducing the need for food imports.

2. An affordable, healthy diet for everyone

• Experts agree that the UK overconsumes meat, so further reducing the price of factory-farmed meat does nothing for nutrition security.
• Fruits and vegetables are the backbone of nutrition security, yet affordability remains a major barrier.
• Alternative proteins are healthier than the meat they replace, but similarly, insufficient investments in affordability are a key bottleneck to widespread adoption.

3. A fair, robust farming sector

• Factory farming breeds and amplifies animal diseases such as Bird Flu and African Swine Fever. Animal disease devastates farmers’ livelihoods and destabilises the food system, causing sharp fluctuations in food prices and costing taxpayers millions in culls.
• Factory farming concentrates excessive power in a handful of large, profit-driven meat corporations, who obstruct food security reform for their own gain.
• Alternative proteins could create thousands of rewarding jobs for UK farmers.
• Factory-farmed meat contributes towards climate change which drives the extreme weather that ruins UK crop farmers’ yields.
• Factory farming pollutes our countryside, jeopardising long term food security and costing taxpayers millions.
• A 20% swap from factory-farmed meat to alternative proteins could reduce the environmental damage from factory farming by £32M a year.