BRITAIN'S growing reliance on food imports is costing shoppers more than £1.3 billion extra every year, it emerged last night.

While the total amount of fruit and vegetables, potatoes, wheat and barley has soared by almost a fifth since 1997, the bill has rocketed by twice that rate.

Last year Britons spent just under £4 billion on imported foodstuffs, including sharp rises in the amount of vegetables from Canada, potatoes from Israel, Ireland and Cyprus and fruit from Costa Rica, Brazil and Germany.

The figures from the House of Commons library confirm the country's growing dependence on foreign imports, but also highlight the threat posed by global food price rises.

For example, from 1997-2007 the amount of wheat imported rose by just 6 per cent, but the bill rocketed by almost 50 per cent.

The amount of vegetables grown overseas and eaten here rose by around half in the same period, but the cost increased by more than 60 per cent. The number of potatoes imported increased by a quarter but the cost rose by 53 per cent.

And the fruit bill soared by half despite the amount imported only increasing by 40 per cent. Even the amount of barley – the only foodstuff listed which has seen a drop in the last decade – showed a fall of a third, but the bill fell by just a fifth.

Last night the Conservatives said the level of home-grown supplies needed to be increased to offset food price rises.

Shadow farming minister Jim Paice told the WMN: "The increasing dependency on world markets is clearly bad for British farmers, but it is also bad for the developing world with whom we are competing.

"These figures also demonstrate the increasingly serious cost to our overall economy. It is time to halt the decline in domestic production and take steps to reverse it."

The Government insists food security is not the same as aiming for self-sufficiency and an increase in the number of different markets will better ensure a more even supply chain less likely to be disrupted.

Farming minister Jane Kennedy said: "Globally, food security is about whether enough is being produced and whether there are efficient and effective trading and distribution systems to get food to where it is needed."

In July this year, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs launched Ensuring the UK's Food Security in a Changing World.

It called for action to ensure Britain's supply chain can deal with "short-term shocks" and long-term challenges.

In a rallying cry to farmers, shoppers and retailers, Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said recent price hikes in food staples like bread, rice and meat brought into sharp focus the importance of protecting supplies.

Last week Mr Benn told the WMN food security would be the top priority of his department, which lost responsibility for climate change in the summer's reshuffle.

Read Matt Chorley's blog at www.thisiswesternmorning news.co.uk/mattchorley