F OOD production in the past 10 years has seen a dramatic fall of 11 per cent. No wonder Defra secretary Hilary Benn thinks it is time to rethink and reverse the food security trend.

Looking through the charts of all the different agriculture sectors over 10 years there are some quite alarming trends.

From what I can see of all the main crops in Britain, oil seed rape is the only crop which has seen an increase in acres planted. The largest drop of is in sheep meat production with 25 per cent less breeding ewes than there were a decade ago.

You wouldn't think with an ideal climate that the UK would see the production of fruit and vegetables also tumble.

It is a sad fact of life that while the world has been awash with cheap food, politicians haven't really given a damn but as this balance is beginning to change the Government is looking more and more to promote GM food. Is it the alarming drop of home produced food that is making the Government more and more reliant on GM food production, which has seen Ministers regularly put out statements like 'GM is safe to eat'?

I find it a sad state of affairs when government departments are asked the question 'do you use food produced in Britain?' They really don't have a clue.

Hilary Benn has been banging on now for months as to how important it is for Whitehall to support British farmers.

In the light of that,

The Countryside Alliance using the Freedom of Information act, made a request on the six main government departments as to how much home produced food was served at official functions.

There is no excuse when government departments just say 'we don't know where our grub is sourced' because we would be locked up if we couldn't account for our business.