Farron uses Prime Ministers Question time to call for strategy to grow Britain's farming industry

In light of announcements earlier this week that the world's population has now hit 7 billion, South Lakes MP Tim Farron, today asked the Prime Minister to bring forward a credible government strategy for growing Britain's farming industry to feed us in the future.

With the world's population expected to increased to over 9 billion by 2050, and with an ever growing middle class emerging from the developing world the UN is now estimating that demand for food worldwide is likely to increase by more than 70% to 2050.

In the UK the population is expected to reach over 77million by 2050, potentially making it the biggest population in Western Europe, overtaking Germany and France. However the capacity of Britain to feed herself has dropped by 20% since 1990 - leading to growing concerns that our farming industry will no longer be able to feed the population by the middle of this century.

Commenting this afternoon Tim said: "With the context of increasing demand for food worldwide outstripping even the population increase, this should be a good time to be a farmer. Nevertheless our farming industry in Britain is has lost one-fifth of its capacity since 1990 and more and more farmers are struggling to stay afloat let alone increase production. This is a potentially disastrous situation.

"It is absolutely vital that the Government urgently sets out a credible strategy for how we are going to support growth within our farming industry and ensure that we can feed the British people in the future."