As a follow up to the Norfolk Chamber’s ‘Audience with George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer’ event on the 7 November, we submitted a number of questions from our members to the Chancellor. Responses to those questions are now starting to be received from the relevant Ministers within Westminster.
Gerard Mulqueen is Business Unit Director at the King’s Lynn based agricultural company Germains Seed Technology.
Gerard’s question to the Chancellor was:
“It is predicted, from various government papers and scientific journals, that a 60% increase in food supply will be required by 2050 to meet the needs of the nine billion global population, putting increasing pressure on the current global agricultural supply chain. This will also be experienced in the UK, where although we export in the region of £12billion of food and drink (2007), we are reliant on 40% of imports to supplement our internal food needs; an increasing trend.
As referenced in ‘A UK Strategy for Agricultural Technologies’, funding is ear-marked to support the commercialisation of research into sustainable intensification of agriculture. What proportion, and in what form, will this funding be available for the Agri-tech cluster in Norfolk?”
Find on the attached document the written response from the Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs.
