Former soldiers could be drafted into a relaunched the Dig for Victory campaign to boost Britain’s food supplies to prepare the country for possible war with Russia.
Defence Gardens Scheme (DGS), an organisation which retrains armed forces veterans as community gardeners and vegetable growers, has called on the government to help it scale up across the country to boost resilience for conflict and other national emergencies.
In a submission to a parliamentary inquiry on the UK’s national resilience, DGS says ministers should conjure the spirit of the Second World War programme Dig for Victory, which was renamed Growing for Victory in 1941.
At the peak of that campaign, 1.4m allotments and millions of private gardens, parks and public spaces were transformed into productive land for growing vegetables, cereals, grain and fruit, boosting Britain’s wartime food security.
Sally Coulthard, chief executive of DGS, told The i Paper: “Veterans can help with community resilience. They have served their country in uniform, now if there is a requirement to support increased national resilience and preparedness, they can serve again in their communities.
“If it was a case of ‘your country needs you’ and we have got food shortages and the country is asking people to come forward, DGS would be willing and able to support the scaling up of increased community food growing.”
She said the scheme answered the call of two major government strategy papers – the Strategic Defence Review and the Veterans Strategy.
Concerns over food security
The SDR, published in June last year, called for a “whole-of-society” approach to preparedness, and for “widening participation in national resilience and renewing the nation’s contract with those who serve”.
Meanwhile the Veterans Strategy, also published in 2025, said former armed forces personnel were national assets “whose unique skills strengthen communities, boost the economy and enhance national security”.
The UK currently imports 46 per cent of its food, and concerns are growing that supplies could be hit by nationwide power cuts, cyber attacks, depleted harvests due to drought and flooding in other countries or an all-out conflict between Nato and Russia.
The months-long effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz caused by the war in Iran has also heightened fears about the UK’s food supply chains.
Earlier this week, more than 150 experts wrote a letter to Andy Burnham warning that Britain can no longer rely on “just in time” supply chains for feeding Britain.
Unlike several other European countries, Britain does not have a national strategic food stockpile, after it was closed down at the end of the Cold War.
The House of Lords National Resilience Committee is conducting an inquiry into how prepared the country is for emergencies, including war with Russia, and is expected to publish its findings next month.
Army vets are an ‘underused national asset’
In its submission, DGS said UK’s 2.1m former armed forces personnel were “a significant, systematically underutilised national asset”, adding: “Veterans bring leadership capability, a culture of service, and practical skills in logistics, planning and working effectively under pressure. They are present in every region of the country.”
DGS already runs grow your own programmes across the country, but says they can scale up their Growing Champions scheme – under which veterans would train others – with just £700,000 of funding.
In the event of war or other national emergency, army veterans could dig land, sow seeds and harvest crops which could be distributed in the local community.
Coulthard added that growing schemes not only increased food production but also helped wider resilience in local communities, by boosting people’s mental health and a sense of cohesion.
The public would embrace a relaunch of Dig for Victory, Coulthard said, adding: “Dig for Victory worked because it gave ordinary people something practical to do, and trusted people to lead it in their own streets and allotments.
“That is still what’s missing. DGS’s idea is simple: veterans trained as Growing Champions can support local leaders, bringing skills and a sense of purpose that communities badly need.
“The benefits go well beyond food. People who grow together are healthier, less isolated and better able to cope when things go wrong. Structured and supported community schemes can serve as a core part of national resilience.”
‘We are prepared to play our part’
Coulthard added: “I think awareness that we all need to do something is rising, and quite rapidly, and the time is now right for direction. Hence the DGS written evidence to the Lords resilience committee, as we are prepared to play our part if needed.”
DGS was set up in 2019 and has delivered Grow Your Own courses at the Eden Project in Cornwall for five consecutive years.
It also runs workshops at the Royal Hospital Chelsea, the home of the Chelsea Pensioners, and at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.
The organisation is in talks with the Royal Horticultural Society about certifying the DGS Grow Your Own programme, to allow veterans to receive formal training qualifications.
In its submission to the Lords inquiry, DGS said Dig for Victory not only provided food security but created a feeling of solidarity in local communities “for a civilian population under sustained psychological strain, through purposeful outdoor activity and connection with the land”.
It added: “The United Kingdom in 2026 faces a convergence of threats that maps with uncomfortable precision onto the vulnerabilities that the Growing for Victory campaign addressed.
“The UK currently imports approximately 46 per cent of its food. Supply chains that were already exposed to disruption through the Covid-19 pandemic, Brexit and climate-related harvest failures are now additionally threatened by the geopolitical instability across Europe and the Middle East.
“The conflict in Ukraine has already demonstrated the speed at which global grain supply can be destabilised.
“A more serious deterioration of the European security environment could expose critical dependencies in a matter of weeks.”
The Cabinet Office, which oversees national resilience, has been contacted for comment.
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