Brown urges food prudence

Gordon Brown has urged people to avoid wasting food in a bid to tackle rising prices.

Research suggests that British households are throwing away hundreds of pounds worth every year, which adds to inflation and wastes money.

Speaking as he arrived at the G8 summit in Japan the prime minister said families should avoid "unnecessary" purchases.

Brown's call for prudent eating came as a joint report from the US government and the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development warned that world food prices will rise five per cent this year - and keep climbing for a decade.

A wide-ranging study by the Cabinet Office published on Monday has also found that the average UK household now spends nine per cent of their income on food.

But there is a significant gap between the poorest tenth of the population, who lay out 15 per cent, and the wealthiest tenth who pay seven per cent.

Those on lower incomes also spend proportionally more on staples such as milk, eggs and bread - which have seen the biggest price rises over recent months.

Families in the UK are throwing away a total of 4.1 million tonnes of perfectly good food every year, costing each around £420 annually, according to the 10-month study.

Brown said the G8 needed to agree a "global plan" to tackle the issue.

"That's why I am proposing that we take action to both increase the global supply of food and reduce unnecessary demand," he said.

"We will be discussing at the G8 how we can help Africa realise its great potential as a food producer and we would like to see production of key food stuffs in Africa double over the next 5-10 years."

However he added: "If we are to get food prices down, we must also do more to deal with unnecessary demand such as by all of us doing more to cut our food waste which is costing the average household in Britain about £8 per week."

The government is also publishing its long-awaited Gallagher report into bio-fuels.

The research is expected to conclude that bio-fuels have driven up global food prices, as farmers devote increasing amounts of agricultural land to growing them.

Meanwhile, Sir David King, the government's former chief scientific adviser, argued that genetically modified crops held the key to solving the food price problem.

He said changing diets, global warming and pressure on fresh water supplies meant the long-term prospects for producing enough food without new bio-technology were poor, and that GM was the only technology "likely to deliver" the increases in food supplies needed.

Ordinary plant breeding programmes could not produce varieties quickly enough, he added.

"We need more crop per drop [of water] because of the fresh water problem," he told the Financial Times. "Unless you move into plant technologies to develop these crops, food provision is not going to increase.

"The future lies there [with GM]. And this is urgent."