The report said that between 2m and 7m hectares of further agricultural land could potentially be needed for housing, further woodland, crops for biofuels, crops to increase Britain’s food security, and dedicated areas to protect wildlife. Photo: ALAMY
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The UK could run out of land to meet its growing demands for food, housing, green energy and environmental protection by 2030, according to a Cambridge University-backed report.
There could be a shortfall of as much as 6 million hectares of land – three times the size of Wales - to meet the requirements of a series of policy aims as Britain's population grows, the study found.
It warned there was a “worrying lack of clarity” from Government about how much agricultural land was expected to be repurposed to fulfil its various policy goals.
The report said that between 2m and 7m hectares of further agricultural land could potentially be needed for housing, further woodland, crops for biofuels, crops to increase Britain’s food security, and dedicated areas to protect wildlife.
"With the UK population forecast to reach 71.4m by 2030 from 62.6m in 2012, the additional demands for food, living, working and amenity space will create further, significant pressures on land," it said.
"New residential and commercial developments, transport infrastructure, food production, environmental needs and recreational space will be competing for land."
However, only between 1m and 5m hectares of such land could potentially be freed up, through more efficient farming, reductions in food wastage and by people switching to eat less meat, which is land-intensive to produce.
This could therefore leave a shortfall of as much as 6m hectares if demand grows in line with the highest scenarios and supply increases in line with the lowest.
Andrew Montague-Fuller, programme manager at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership which produced the report, said: “In this initial analysis, we identified a significant gap between additional land demand and potential supply, as well as a worrying lack of clarity about what agricultural land is expected to deliver.
"It is clear that more research is needed, and that business, government, farmers, and landowners need to work together to ensure we can meet these growing demands, while also protecting the environment.”
A spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said: "DECC recognises that land resources are limited, and there could be increased competition between land used for agriculture, living space, energy, nature and ecosystem services in the future. We agree with the report’s conclusions that land should be used more efficiently in future - for example, agricultural residues and manures used for energy generation, crop yields increased, and food waste minimised."
A Defra spokesperson said: “We have good food security in the UK thanks to our own thriving £97.1 billion food and farming industry and trade access to markets across the globe. We are investing £70 million in agricultural technologies that will help us to increase the efficiency of food production and help our food, farming and science industries grow economically while meeting the increasing global demand for food.”
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