According to the Deltapoll research 76% of GB adults and 77% of NFU Constituencies wanted the UK Government to commit to sourcing at least half of all food for schools, prisons and hospitals from British farms.
The research also found:
- 94% of the public said its important that the UK Government supports British farmers and food production
- 57% of GB adults surveyed believe the current UK Government has not done enough to support British farmers
- 75% of NFU Constituencies want to ban the importation of food that is produced in countries with lower production standards than Britain
- 69% of GB adults surveyed want the UK Government to establish a new food security target for how much food we grow in Britain
- More than 80% of people surveyed believe it is important to buy British food
Joe Twyman, co-founder and director of public opinion consultancy at Deltapoll, said: “In the last three or four years I think there has been a big change in the public’s attitude towards the issue of food.
“It has been driven by three things: Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic and the situation in Ukraine has combined to really focus public attention on food security, standards, production and availability in a way that people just didn’t think about ten or 15 years ago.”
Elsewhere at the NFU Conference Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promised that every penny of the £2.4bn annual farming budget would be spent on farming. He also announced that the UK Government was planning to invest in robotics, launching the biggest ever package of grants for farmers and opening a new round of the farming equipment and technology fund worth £70m.