As the country settles itself to a new coalition Government, where does food sit in importance and priority? We can start by looking at the respective manifestos issued prior to the Election. The Conservatives advocated red-tape reduction but there was also support for new rules for country of origin labelling, mandatory government public food procurement policies, the appointment of a supermarket ombudsman and clear labelling for genetically modified products. In terms of food security and protecting UK producers of food, <\/p>\n
they promised greater protection for UK farmers whilst also committing themselves to greater support for free trade. Whilst the latter impacts on supporting exports, it works on imports of food too and thus throws up some contradiction. <\/p>\n
The Social Democrat Manifesto also proclaims strong support for farming basing this on the premise that Britain\u2019s future security depends upon a sustainable farming industry. They set out a pledge to deliver a fair deal for UK farmers in the context of production methods seeking to protect the natural environment and heritage. As with the Conservative document, they played on the need to regulate supermarkets by creating a legal Supermarket Code and a powerful independent regulator of Britain\u2019s Food Market. They also sought to help consumers in their choice of foods with the least environmental impact through clearer labelling and to work with the EU to ensure that country of origin labels identified the source of the products not where they are packaged.<\/p>\n
As I write, it is too early to see how this might play out in terms of coalition Government but commitment to climate change and environment is without doubt a core value. Consequently it seems sure that there will be a push towards local sourcing of food and debates on food miles may re-surface. Indeed the issues on sustainability are not just about our carbon footprint – water security is a real and really challenging issue. The developments in Nottinghamshire hospitals towards sourcing meat supplies locally and, in their words, improving quality, traceability and cost, fits this agenda. <\/p>\n
Both parties to the coalition refer to the power of the supermarkets and the need to regulate. However, it is unclear how this will really work. With a Government pledged to efficiency savings and taking out unnecessary costs, does the creation of another watchdog for supermarkets really fit? With the real and sustained interest in food provenance, is there not an opportunity to encourage greater co-operation across the supply chain rather than coerce? Supermarkets in their purchasing must act responsibly and there are clear fears of undue power. However, if the new Government truly seeks to support home production emphasising provenance and sustainability, may be all sides of the chain need to recognise that it needs to be a combined effort. If we are to commit resources to control food retailing, perhaps it should be directed to getting all sides together and truly engaging in positive and pro-active discussions.<\/p>\n
There has been much discussion about food security and everyone recognises the challenge. Britain needs to adopt a very clear strategy to meet that challenge and determine how it is to meet its needs both home produced and by import in the most economic and sustainable manner. Whilst the pressing issue of our economy and the scale of our deficit will occupy much of the time, we need to balance this immense problem against the major one relating to world food supplies in the future. It needs very clear and hard analysis of every area of policy and current programmes to understand what really can be done to secure our food supply and maintain maximum efficiency in our food chain. <\/p>\n
I hope the opportunity will be grasped for a full and open discussion on food supply with some really practical and radical thinking and front line action. Whilst our supermarket shelves remain fully stocked with such a wide range of goods, it is easy to see food security as an academic debate when in fact it is a very real and pressing challenge.<\/p>\n
Via ISN<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As the country settles itself to a new coalition Government, where does food sit in importance and priority? We can start by looking at the respective manifestos issued prior to the Election. The Conservatives advocated red-tape reduction but there was also support for new rules for country of origin labelling, mandatory government public food procurement […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1615],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6631","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uk-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6631\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}