When lockdown began in March, it wasn’t just toilet paper that we couldn’t buy. Essential day to day foods, from flour to tea bags to pasta, evaporated from supermarket shelves too. Brexit – even with a trade deal – may lead to even bigger disruptions to food supplies, as about two fifths of our food is imported. How secure is our food supply in Britain? Will UK farmers be able to fill the gaps, or should we be stockpiling now? Will we be eating chlorinated chicken in 2021? Are Covid and Brexit an opportunity to rethink British farming and the provenance of the food we eat? Kamala Dawar (University of Sussex) and Dieter Helm (University of Oxford) discuss with broadcaster Charlotte Smith (Farming Today).

In our ninth Festival of Economics, co-programmed by Diane Coyle and Richard Davies, economists and experts from around the world debate with each other – and their audiences – some of the key economic questions of our time.

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Festival of Economics: Brexit, Farming and the Food Supply Chain