The British state has form on food security. It ignores it until there’s a crisis – and then it’s forced to do rapidly what could have been done better, if only food had been taken more seriously in the first place. We’re revisiting this truth today as the food system’s oil dependency is revealed by the US-Israel war on Iran. Oil transports the food from farm to fork. It’s turned into the fertilisers that have allowed food production to rise since the second world war. It takes us to the shops (unless we walk or cycle).

This dependency was also revealed when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and when oil hit $100 a barrel in 2008, and in the 1970s oil shock. When the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, and the environment secretary, Emma Reynolds, called the big food retailers in last week, it showed they were aware of this impact but weren’t prepared for what to do.

In fact, the UK is awash with scientific and expert advice on what should be done. My report for the National Preparedness Commission, Just in Case, summarised why we should be diversifying supplies, growing more of our own food, coming off the oil-based farming treadmill and engaging the public in protecting itself for coming shocks. Now it emerges that defence analysts have been urging action too.

So how do we get prepared?

First, politicians need to get real about food security. The big political worry until recently for ministers has been food price inflation, not whether the food system is itself vulnerable to shocks. They are linked. Inflation hits people on low incomes hardest. But the bigger national food security issue is now critical in terms of consumers’ capacity........

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