Our Public Affairs and Policy Manager, Alistair Currie, explains how the war in Iran and the food on our plates are connected
“Food security has direct consequences for the safety and wellbeing of our populations. In this new geopolitical reality, it is inseparable from national security.”
These are the words of the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Emma Reynolds MP, in a speech at the British Ambassador’s residence in Paris on 12 February 2026.
Barely two weeks later, the conflict in Iran exposed just how vulnerable we are to external events. Within days, farmers and businesses were warning that food production and the imported goods on which it depends could be severely disrupted. Oil prices drive fertiliser prices, while essential fertiliser ingredients, including almost half the global supply of urea, pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Four years ago the war in Ukraine drove massive hikes in grain prices and we are facing another crisis already. Include the devastating effects of climate change on food production, and the security we’ve long taken for granted is a thing of the past.
Our new policy briefing – written before the conflict in Iran began – explains how a reliance on animal foods and animal agriculture weakens our food security, and how supporting plant-based foods and agriculture enhances it. It is not just us who are saying that. A recently published National Security Assessment by the government itself states it clearly:
“The UK … cannot currently produce enough food to feed its population based on current diets.”
The reason? “The UK does not have enough land to feed its population and rear livestock: a wholesale change in consumer diets would be required.”
Although all UK crop land has the potential to grow food for human consumption, 56% is currently used for animal feed, despite clear evidence that, in the words, again, of an official government report “livestock offers a much less efficient calorie conversion than crops for direct human consumption” (UK Food Security Report 2024).
Indeed, Compassion in World Farming have calculated that converting land currently used to provide animal feed could feed an additional 16.5 million people in the UK.
Instead, in order to meet current demand for meat and dairy, the UK is not just reliant on imports of almost all kinds of animal-based foods, but dependent on imports of ‘critical inputs’ (mainly feed and fertiliser) to sustain animal agriculture. Intensively raised pigs and chickens require vast amounts of feed – including soya – and even traditional grazing land is often treated with fertiliser, and the cows and sheep on it given feed supplements.
And we just don’t need to.
Plant foods can feed the nation. According, again, to the government’s own reports, existing UK grain production is already sufficient to meet our domestic need for calories, if crops were used for food instead of feed.
As the briefing details, meeting protein needs will require some more significant changes to be made, but is completely achievable. Conversion of suitable protein crops from feed to food, scaling up domestic plant protein production and, in particular, the use of new varieties and techniques can put the food we need on people’s plates. Crops such as hemp, faba beans and even lupins are great sources of protein for humans and can all be grown here. Technological innovations such as vertical farming and precision fermentation offer powerful opportunities.
In a glimpse of more enlightened thinking, the government’s newly published Land Use Framework, contains the aspiration that “By 2050 … We will produce more of what we consume, partly because more of our land will be efficiently growing the high value food that people recognise on their plates, rather than ingredients for processed and unhealthy food or animal feed.” Of course, the government is still referring to meat when it talks about “food that people recognise”, but, taken in tandem with its goal of cutting the total amount of agricultural land, increasing the amount of land used for growing plant foods for human consumption will be essential.
2050 is too far away, however. Recent events have shown how vulnerable we are right now. The government must take heed of the multiple warnings it has received and use the forthcoming food strategy action plan to introduce a strategy to boost the consumption and production of plant-based foods in the UK. If it truly believes food security is national security, it has no other choice.
The Vegan Society supports the policy proposals in The Ten Point Plan for Plant-Rich Diets. Please contact your MP and ask them to back the plan.
You can find your MP’s contact details via the Find MPs function on the UK Parliament website. (Please only write to your own constituency MP.)
Read our suggested text below but please feel free to use your own, so long as your message is brief and polite. If you receive a reply, please do forward it on to us at policy[at]vegansociety[dot]com.
Dear X
I hope all is well with you. I am one of your constituents and also a supporter of The Vegan Society.
Alongside more than 50 leading organisations and experts from a range of sectors, The Vegan Society has submitted a joint policy paper to Defra and DHSC ministers, Reaping the Benefits of Plant-rich Diets: the Ten Point Plan. The paper calls on the government to promote the production and consumption of plant-rich foods in the UK as an essential contribution to meeting the goals and ambitions for the food strategy it has recently set out.
The paper identifies the benefits to public health, environmental protection, food security and economic growth represented by plant-rich diets, and how those benefits can be realised by practical and affordable policy measures. As the food strategy continues to be developed under new leadership at Defra, I urge you to support this timely collaborative initiative and to contact ministers to encourage them to implement the measures outlined in the proposal.
Thank you for considering this request.
Yours sincerely
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