Government and the food industry are coming under increasing pressure to move a more sustainable supply chain based on greater support for UK agriculture and a focus on producing healthier, more ‘local’ foodstuff.
The House of Commons’ Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee is expected to publish its findings from an inquiry into securing UK food supplies up to 2050 over the next few days.
And the Council of Food Policy Advisors - set up earlier this year by environment secretary Hilary Benn and chaired by Dame Suzi Leather - is soon to publish its first report for ministers, which will call for more concrete action.
“Our role is holding government and industry to account,” Leather told a conference on food security organised by the Westminster Food & Nutrition Forum last week. “Our ability to adapt to and mitigate climate change will depend on our willingness to use science and adapt to different diets. Government needs to demonstrate leadership.”
She called on government, industry and consumers to adjust to “low input, sustainable healthy diets” and suggested public policy procurement should be used to drive this policy forward. “Understanding this diet is key to giving advice to consumers.” Leather added: “It’s not about [being] healthy ‘‘or’’ sustainable - it’s both.”
Only last Friday the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) published recommendations to government for a sustainable food system in the UK, which called for a halt to the decline in UK food production and proposed a seven-point plan to create a sustainable food system.
The SDC’s paper called for a new definition of food security in order to feed everyone sustainably, equitably and healthily. It urged the government to make a clear statement of intent to encourage maximum levels of appropriate and sustainable food production in the UK.
SDC commissioner professor Tim Lang said: “In recent years, governments have relied on big food retailers to deliver low prices in the name of a ‘cheap food policy’. Rocketing food prices last year have shown how volatile this system is. Government must now put resilience and sustainability at the heart of its food policy.”
He added: “Focusing on sustainability in this way will integrate economic, environmental and social outputs.”
Food and Farming Minister Jim Fitzpatrick said: “DEFRA [the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs] is leading the government’s work on food policy, and plans to publish further work on a food strategy before [parliament’s] recess, which will include the UK Food Security Assessment and draft indicators for the sustainability of our food. We look forward to working with the SDC and a range of other organisations on this.”