Resilience: disease

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The Covid-19 pandemic demonstrated that disease has the potential to inflict devastating, lasting, social and economic harm. The UK food system adapted during the pandemic, faced with a sudden shift in demand as volumes moved from the out-of-home sector into retail. This required huge effort, however, and it should not be assumed that the feat can be repeated.

Food system resilience is also threatened by diseases of plants, animals and fish as well as other biological threats such as pests and parasites. Many animal diseases either can be transmitted from their hosts into humans or might have the potential to do so in future. In the last 30 years, 75% of new human diseases have emerged from animals.

System vulnerability

International trade plays a vital economic role for many countries dependent on export revenue. It also helps to ensure food security, value and choice for shoppers around the world. However, trade may also allow for international transmission of diseases and facilitate the movement of pests – especially where traders evade surveillance.

The movement of plants and animals within the UK market may also promote the spread of infection. The rapid spread of Foot and Mouth disease in 2001 was partly attributed to the movement of infected, but still asymptomatic animals.

Commercial agriculture sometimes favours specific plant or animal varieties, leading to a lack of genetic diversity. For example, there are over 1,000 known types of bananas, but commercial growers now focus almost exclusively on the Cavendish type. The Cavendish is now proving vulnerable to new disease variants.

A lack of genetic diversity may increase vulnerability to disease or limit the ability of farmers to adapt to climate change. Genetic banking, of seeds, plants and animals, may help to preserve genetic diversity for the future, but it is not clear how banked samples could be used by the agricultural system at scale when needed.

Antibiotics are widely used in farming, to both treat and prevent diseases. Excessive use, however, may lead to the emergence of antibiotic-resistant diseases. This risks the health of both animals and humans since resistant pathogens can be passed from animals to people through consumption.

Currently, development and approval of new antibiotics is fairly slow, meaning that dangerous infectious diseases can evolve faster than countermeasures.

The UK government operates various safeguarding systems and can respond to disease outbreaks. However, these systems require investment of resources and skills and there is some evidence of a shortage of vets in the UK, possibly reducing capability. Vets are listed on the current Shortage Occupation List.

New potential risks

The global food system must produce more food in future to feed a growing population. This suggests that, globally, farm production must become more intensive, without significant dietary shifts and this may increase vulnerability to diseases due to increased livestock densities.

Investment in technology and infrastructure reduces vulnerability to risk. For example, controlled environment agriculture such as indoor horticulture systems can be sealed against infection.

Climate change will create new complex and variable exposures to disease and insect pests – it has already been linked to the spread of avian flu, alongside the emergence of new and more dangerous strains.

If parts of the UK become hotter and drier, diseases like common scab and pink rot – which affect potatoes - may thrive. Whilst warmer and wetter conditions will encourage diseases such as blight to become more prevalent.

Insect populations are also likely to change. For example, diamondback moths, which attack brassicas, usually only found in the UK during warmer months, may now be able to over-winter in the UK; and warmer climates favour the survival of biting insects which spread many animal diseases such as Bluetongue.

The UK’s exit from the European Union means it is no longer part of the EU’s disease monitoring and control systems. Whilst this does not mean that the UK is entirely cut off from international support systems, it does potentially leave the UK more exposed to disease risk.

Over 2024 the UK is implementing new border measures. These will apply to imports from the EU and the rest of the world. The new approach is intended to be intelligence-led, with checks and controls implemented according to risk. However, the new system is untested for now.

Over the longer term, any future changes to the trading relationship with the EU will drive impacts on the UK’s border and bio-security measures.