As the UK worries about empty supermarket shelves, a timely animated film illustrates another serious threat to the country’s food security and offers a vision of how it could be overcome.

The UK can’t grow food without phosphorus. ‘Phosphorus in the UK Food System: risks and opportunities’ shows how we are damaging our environment and using up precious supplies of phosphorus – a finite resource – through our unsustainable agricultural model, which is currently reliant on imported phosphorus fertiliser. It explains that we already have enough phosphorus in our food system to grow the food we need and offers examples of how we are already recycling phosphorus within the system.

The importance of reducing our reliance on manufactured fertilisers was underlined in the recently published National Food Strategy, an independent review of the UK’s food system.

The animated film was commissioned by the Lancaster University led project, RePhoKUs, which is already working with food system stakeholders to develop solutions to the phosphorus problem.

Plants, including both arable crops and livestock-feeding grass, require phosphorus to grow. In the UK we theoretically have enough of it already circulating in our food system – our soils, manures and waste – yet we are currently dependent on phosphorus fertiliser imports from other countries to grow our food.

At the same time, inefficient farm-to-fork flows of phosphorus also results in major losses and pollution. Up to three-quarters of our rivers and lakes fail to meet water regulations - phosphorus is a main cause of failure. In addition, major phosphorus price spikes in the past have impacted these imports making it costlier for farmers to use and food more expensive.

“Transforming the way phosphorus is used in the UK food system is essential to secure food and water security, and maintain a clean healthy environment for generations to come, but it requires all sectors to come on board.” says RePhoKUs project lead Professor Paul Withers.

“That’s why we commissioned Seed Creativity to create this unique animation as a call to action, communicating the risks and opportunities of phosphorus in the UK food systems to a wide range of stakeholders. In particular we wanted to emphasise the importance of working with farmers and supporting them in the changes that need to be made, rather than expecting them to shoulder all the burden themselves.”

“While farmers are the main end-users of phosphorus, in a circular economy, the whole phosphorus value chain play a critical role, including water utilities, food processers and retailers, consumers, waste managers, regulators and policy makers” says RePhoKUs work package lead, Associate Professor Dana Cordell, of University of Technology Sydney.

The RePhoKUs project, funded under the UK’s Global Food Security research programme, was established in 2018 to better understand the critical role phosphorus plays in the UK food system, and the possible changes needed to enhance its sustainability and resilience to future shocks.

The project team have just launched an interactive platform this month to engage national stakeholders in setting priorities for the UK’s first National Phosphorus Adaptation Strategy.

The interdisciplinary research team has investigated biophysical and socio-economic factors at the farm, catchment, and national scales, including a detailed analysis of the complex flows of phosphorus in our food systems and all its sectors, the need to address regional phosphorus imbalances, potential staple food price fluctuations, and UK-wide cross-sector action.

The animation was produced by Yorkshire company Seed Creativity.