Alan Titchmarsh has issued a stark warning that within 50 years no food will be grown in Britain and has attacked as ‘bonkers’ plans to build solar farms being built on ‘good soil’ that could be used for crops.
The nation’s most famous gardener also blamed supermarket prices and ‘cheap imports’ for the decline in British grown food, highlighting the sharp drop in the amount people spend on food since the 1950s.
And he predicted the death of British agriculture unless we ‘cherish our landscape, pay our farmers a fair price for their food and buy locally’.
The Labour government plans to triple the nation’s solar capacity by the end of the decade.
Titchmarsh has previously opposed plans for a 22,000 panel solar farm in the countryside near his Hampshire home, branding it ‘totally inappropriate’.
The plan was eventually withdrawn by the developers for technical reasons.
(Image: Getty Images)
Speaking on the Rosebud podcast, the 75-year-old said: “When we were little, in the 1950s, 30% of the household income was spent on food, nowadays it’s between eight and 12%.
“We spend more on leisure and recreation than we do on our food, as a result of which we won’t pay more for food because it’s cheap in supermarkets therefore why should we pay more when we can get it for that.
“As a result we’re getting more and more cheap imports, our good soil in the British Isles is being turned over to solar panels, when it could grow good food, to save energy which will allow foreign food to be brought over here using the energy that we’ve saved.
“It’s bonkers and it’s bad land management, we desperately need to cherish our landscape, pay our farmers a fair price for their food and buy locally otherwise I predict that within 50 years there will be no food grown in Britain.”
Titchmarsh is a gardener, broadcaster and writer known for hosting Gardener’s World and his 30 years presenting the Chelsea Flower Show on the BBC