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With food inflation currently hovering at around five per cent, Sir John warned the volatility of prices would only get “worse”.
With food inflation currently hovering at around five per cent, Sir John warned the volatility of prices would only get “worse”.
In a new blow to families struggling to pay their grocery bills, Prof Sir John Beddington said the cost of food was "not going to stop" rising in the foreseeable future.
During a radio discussion about food prices, he said much of world's agriculture was dependent on stable weather patterns, which have undergone "major changes" in recent years.
This, he warned, meant that food supplies were "extremely fragile" and that reserves were subjected to extremes in conditions caused by climate change.
With food inflation currently hovering at around five per cent, Sir John warned that as the world's population grew, and the fight against poverty became more successful, the volatility of prices would only get "worse".
"The concern [on rising food prices] has been there for some time and I think the message I got, is this is not going to stop," he told BBC Radio 4's World at One programme. "The volatility ... is also going to get worse."
Sir John has warned that demand for food and energy will jump 50 per cent by 2030 and for fresh water by 30 per cent, as the global population tops 8.3 billion.
He said today that the problems were varied. "There is going to be another billion people on the planet in 13 years' time," he said.
"There are already a billion people in poverty. That is going to increase demand for food.
"And indeed the dilemma is, as we bring people out of poverty, the demand for food is going to go up."
He added: "The second complicating factor, of course, is climate change. We are going to see the extremes in rainfall, either floods or droughts.
"These are the sort of things that we have got to expect with increasing frequency. Put together that with our system of agriculture, you have got a real problem.
"We have got major changes in weather patterns, so supply is going to be extremely fragile, reserves are way down ... and we are going to have these shocks."
He said while governments were attempting to tackle the crisis, people had to think harder about the "massive problems" on food distribution and waste.
He said a different way of thinking on agriculture systems were needed, which was "climate smart" and didn't rely on "unsustainable practices".
His comments were supported by campaigners.
Debroah Doane, a director of the World Development Movement, a world poverty charity, also told the programme that the era of cheap food was "definitely over".
"This is the new normal - volatile prices in food commodities and then at the supermarket shelf high prices. Once prices are up, they are up," she said.
Last year, an official report found British families have been hit twice as hard by the rising cost of food as most of western Europe.
Food prices in Britain have risen by 32 per cent since 2007, double the EU average, according to Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) figures.
The increase is almost twice the current rate of inflation of 2.7 per cent.
Rising prices will take the annual food bill for the average family to over £4,000 within a decade, up from £2,766, heaping further pressure on already-stretched households.
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