No food will be grown in 50 years if we don’t cherish landscape, warns Titchmarsh

Alan Titchmarsh
Alan Titchmarsh blames supermarket prices and cheap imports for the decline in British-grown food - Heathcliff O'Malley

No food will be grown on British soil in 50 years if we fail to “cherish our landscape”, Alan Titchmarsh has warned.

The nation’s most famous gardener blamed supermarket prices and “cheap imports” for the decline in British-grown food.

Speaking on the Rosebud podcast, he said households now spend more money on leisure and recreation than food, unlike when he was a child.

He added: “When we were little in the 1950s, 30 per cent of the household income was spent on food. Nowadays it’s between eight and 12 per cent.

“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.”

He claimed British agriculture would die within 50 years unless we “cherish our landscape, pay our farmers a fair price for their food and buy locally”.

‘Good soil being turned over to solar panels’

“We’re getting more and more cheap imports,” said Titchmarsh. “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.”

Titchmarsh called the situation “bonkers”, adding that the use of solar panels was “bad land management”. The Government plans to triple the nation’s solar capacity by the end of the decade.

“We desperately need to cherish our landscape,” he continued. “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 has previously opposed plans for a 22,000-panel solar farm in the countryside near his Hampshire home, describing it as “totally inappropriate”. The plan was eventually withdrawn by the developers for technical reasons.

Titchmarsh, a gardener, broadcaster and writer, is known for hosting Gardener’s World and his 30 years presenting the Chelsea Flower Show on the BBC.