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Supermarkets are importing more and more food to cover the shortfall, with just 10 per cent of all the fruit and 50% of all vegetables eaten in the country are grown in Britain.
A report from the Department for Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs suggests that since 1997 orchards have declined in size by 33 per cent, while the area of land given over to fresh vegetables and fruit has fallen by 23 per cent.
Did you know in all, 170,000 acres of horticultural land has been abandoned – equivalent to nearly twice the area of the Isle of Wight – in the last decade.
Experts say they are increasingly worried Britain is facing a major food security problem.
Prof Tim Lang of City University and a senior Government food adviser, said: "We are entering troubled times. We cannot sit idly by and watch British production slide ever downwards. If in five or ten years' time there was a water crisis in Europe or Africa – and that is a real possibility – we need to be ready and that means being more self-sufficient. We need to grow more."
Britain imports 1.2 million tons more fruit and vegetables each year than it did a decade ago.
British farmers, in an attempt to compete with cheap imports, are increasingly turning to a small range of profitable crops, growing large numbers on small plots of land.
Robin Maynard, at the Soil Association, the organic body, said: "The results, especially for orchard fruit, are not just the dull diet of a few crisp, inoffensive varieties lingering longer on the supermarket shelf – but also a decline in the once prolific, buzzing variety of wild plants, birds and insects that traditional orchards were home to."
The Cox apple, for instance, is more prone to disease than the Gala – one of the reasons for its decline in popularity with farmers. The Gala has only been grown commercially in Britain since the 1980s but its annual harvest is on course to produce more than 40,000 tonnes within three years.
While some British crops are enjoying a modest revival, such as English strawberries, rhubarb and Egremont Russet apples, there are worries that this upsurge will be dented by the recession.
Supermarkets, which had been keen to champion local food, are now more interested in finding cheap supplies from overseas as they wage a fierce price war, according to Adrian Barlow, the chief executive of English Apples & Pears.
Michael Lunn owner of Coopers Farm said: "Many people will be surprised that we are importing 50 per cent more vegetables than a decade ago given the natural advantages this country enjoys and the increasing pressure on global food supplies.
"Importing huge quantities of food that we can grow ourselves locally is a waste of potential and creates unnecessary vulnerabilities."
