“from the drawing board to the destruction of our food”

The problem is not that Whitehall has never been told. The problem is worse:

The consequences are known, written down, acknowledged , and then subordinated to the energy timetable.

Whitehall policy does recognise Best and Most Versatile agricultural land. EN-1 says applicants should minimise impacts on Grades 1, 2 and 3a land and preferably use poorer-quality land instead. It also says schemes should not be sited on BMV land without justification and that the economic and other benefits of that farmland must be considered.

But then the same policy system creates a trap. Alternatives only have to be considered if they can meet the project’s objectives in the same timescale.

That means once Whitehall, DESNZ, National Grid, Ofgem, and generator contracts define the objective as “deliver this connection by 2030”, farmland protection becomes secondary.

They are not starting with the question:
“Where can we build a future grid while protecting food production?”
They are starting with:
“How do we connect offshore wind, substations and new transmission lines quickly enough to meet the Clean Power 2030 timetable?”
That difference destroys the countryside.
For Grimsby to Walpole, National Grid itself says Weston Marsh Substation A would enable the connection of Outer Dowsing Offshore Wind into the network by 2030.  EN-5 also states that overhead lines are the Government’s “strong starting presumption” for electricity network developments unless certain protected landscapes are involved.  So the system is already tilted towards fast, visible, land-hungry infrastructure.
National Grid

Lincolnshire is not ordinary land. In Parliament, Lincolnshire was described as producing 30% of the nation’s vegetables, 19% of its poultry, 20% of its sugar beet, with Greater Lincolnshire having agricultural output of more than £2 billion, around 12% of England’s total agricultural output. The same debate stressed that Grade 1, 2 and 3a land predominates in the Fens and that food security is part of the national interest.

So why do they not realise the consequences?
Because Whitehall sees land through maps, corridors, constraints, connection dates, and cost models. Farmers see it as living productive ground , soil structure, drainage, rotations, vegetable yields, family businesses, seasonal labour, food contracts, and generational investment.
The human and food-security cost is abstracted away.
That is why the phrase should be:
They have converted national energy policy into local food sacrifice.
Lincolnshire County Council has already made a similar point, saying the proposals fail to consider the cumulative impact of NSIPs and energy infrastructure on communities such as Weston, as well as the continual loss of high-quality farmland on national food security. The council also says National Grid has not provided sufficient costings or alternative analysis.

The campaign argument should be:
Whitehall has designed an energy system on paper, but the paper sits on top of real land, real farms, real food production and real communities. A substation may be a rectangle on a planning map in London, but in Weston Marsh it is productive soil permanently taken out of national food supply.

The question to force is this:
Why is food security being treated as a planning inconvenience, while grid delivery is treated as a national emergency?

Once that question is asked, National Grid and Whitehall have to explain why the 2030 energy timetable is allowed to override the long-term security of Britain’s food-producing land.