Essay by Eric Worrall
But you have to dig through pages of “alternative protein”, “rewilding” and “legume protein” before getting to the bugs.
As severe drought hits, the UK’s food system faces crisis – here’s how to change that
Published: August 10, 2026 11.30pm AEST
Neil Ward
Professor of Rural and Regional Development at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of East AngliaThe UK is in the grip of a severe drought. England and Wales received only 9-10% of their normal rainfall in July, and for England it was the driest July since records began in 1836. A fifth heatwave has just been forecast. This is the shape of things to come and is what climate scientists have long predicted.
The drought’s length and severity are affecting UK agriculture and food production. This follows other shocks to the system, such as the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, that have already fuelled food price inflation. Impacts are now front page news. Crucially, concern is shifting from cost alone to the security of food supply. Inflation hits the poorest people hardest but supply disruption can affect everyone.
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Last year, I spent many months with colleagues developing a Roadmap for Resilience for the UK food system. Our starting point was that significant change is inevitable. Adapting to climate change and bolstering resilience against international threats and disruption means that struggling on with business-as-usual is no longer a viable option. On top of that, our diets are fuelling poor public health, straining NHS resources and dragging down UK productivity through diet-related worklessness (unemployment or sick leave). Meanwhile, our systems of production have been eroding biodiversity and polluting rivers and waterways.
Our roadmap highlights three key transformations: to make food production more resilient by changing what we grow and production systems, to be smarter in our use of land to produce food alongside adapting to climate change and reducing net emissions, and to make healthier diets more accessible and affordable. The UK has enough land and agricultural resources to avoid greater import dependence and boost national resilience and self-sufficiency. Crucially, this magnitude of change would require a long-term plan over a 25-year period, and a commitment to addressing these three transformational changes together.
Read more: https://theconversation.com/as-severe-drought-hits-the-uks-food-system-faces-crisis-heres-how-to-change-that-289417
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Reading through the “Roadmap for Resilience“, they talk a lot about diverting more agricultural land to rewilding, and replacing animal protein with protein extracted from legumes.
Both propositions are absurd. Diverting agricultural land to unproductive uses in the middle of a food production crisis is a sure way to make the food crisis worse. Legumes can be grown all the way up to Scotland, but older people whose diets are dominated by vegetable protein suffer significant health complications.
Given all the talk of bean protein, where is the insect reference? The code phrase is “alternative protein” and “novel protein”. And the one clear reference to insect protein which somehow got left in the roadmap report.
That study “Scoping the potential of insect protein in university student diets in the UK” is published on root and reason’s old website (Roadmap for Resilience is published on their new website):
Scoping the potential of insect protein in university student diets in the UK
The project will investigate the affordability, sustainability, and nutritional quality of insect protein-based diets compared to alternative protein diets. Main meals and a dessert option will be developed using mealworms and crickets. Students will be invited to a tasting session of the insect recipes against their equivalent dessert or protein alternative and will complete a survey rating the recipes. Students will be aware of the purpose of the study and that at least one of the recipes contains insects but will not be informed which contains insects. The project will highlight the potential of insect proteins as an affordable and sustainable diet for university students.
Project lead: Stephen Axon (Bournemouth University)
Project collaborators: Bugvita (C.F. Banks Limited), Fern Baker (Bournemouth University), Frank Vriesekoop (Harper Adams University), Jane Eastham (Harper Adams University), James Fair (Bournemouth University), Rounaq Nayak (Bournemouth University)
Findings
1. A clear disgust factor exists when considering insect proteins
2. More nuanced, this disgust factor first applies to aesthetics and then secondly regarding taste
3. A distinction between whole-insects and ground-insects included in recipes is clearly demarcated
4. Ground-insect deserts were more popular than savoury recipesSuggestions for further research
Future research ideally needs to be focused on explicating the disgust factor regarding insect proteins more clearly. There are many examples whereby insect proteins can act as a nutritional and less carbon intensive food supply yet acceptability remains the largest barrier. Consequently, future research needs to be conducted in broader population acceptability.
Source: https://www.agrifood4netzero.net/funding/funded-projects/funded-scoping-study-projects/scoping-the-potential-of-insect-protein-in-university-student-diets-in-the-uk/
The insect protein advocates haven’t gone away, they’re just being less open about their plans for your meal table. And they have no problem rewilding away productive agricultural land, knowing this will make food price spikes worse, which could leave many people with no alternative other than to do things they would never have accepted in more prosperous times.
What Britain needs is more reservoirs. Extreme dry spells are unusual in Britain but hardly unprecedented – Western Europe, Ireland and Britain suffered a series of extreme crop failures and droughts in the late 1400s, during the Little Ice Age. But droughts can be mitigated – capturing more of the heavy rainfall which fell earlier this year in Britain would have ensured plenty of water to carry farmers through this dry patch. But for some reason the people who run Britain would rather build wind turbines and make excuses than build water reservoirs.
