How climate migration threatens UK border and food security
- May 26
- 2 min read
However, most of the political bandwidth is focused on illegal boat crossings. But to properly protect the UK, we must understand why this is happening before millions more are forced to move and arrive at our shores. That means understanding and then tackling the ‘silent drivers’ of migration, such as climate change. If we fail to address these deep-rooted causes, the issue will only get worse and not only create immigration on a scale we have never seen before, but could collapse the food supply chains our nation relies upon.
In mainly developing countries, extreme weather and failing harvests are becoming ever-more common. When crops fail continuously and the ‘famine season’ hits once again, desperate families have no choice but to move. Usually, they head to the nearest big city. But these cities don’t have enough housing, water, or doctors for millions of new people. This leads to a life in overcrowded slums which becomes a struggle for basic survival, especially during increasing heatwaves.
With cities in their own country unable to host them, they continue on their journey to find a new place to call home.
This problem has far from reached its peak. The World Bank warns that by 2050, the number of people forced to move could be as low as 44 million or as high as 216 million. That 172-million-person difference depends on whether we help make farming more resilient now. If we don’t act, we will see an unprecedented number of people moving illegally toward the UK because they have no other choice.
But this goes beyond just immigration. When farmers are forced to abandon their land, the impact hits the UK directly. Britain cannot replace these farmers and grow essential crops like soy, cocoa and coffee in our climate. When the people who grow them are forced to leave, supply drops and prices at our supermarket soar.
This creates a dual threat for the British public: an immediate cost-of-living crisis and the looming reality of climate migration.
Common sense suggests we face these problems at the source before we lose control. But our national budget is severely overstretched, and we are therefore limited in what we can do. Therefore, we need smarter ways to help developing countries fight climate change. Organizations like British International Investment (BII) are already showing the way. They fund projects like modern irrigation and growing tougher, resilient crops so farmers can stay on their land not through one off grants, but by investing in local businesses, which provided average returns on investments of 5.1% between 2018 and 2024. Additionally, this can raise funding from private investors who want to join in on the returns.
BII’s 2024 results prove this is a smart business strategy: for every $100 of public funding, they brought in an extra $71 of private investment. This is a win for the taxpayer. It keeps food on our shelves and prevents a migration crisis at our borders before it becomes climate-driven.
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