The Landworkers’ Alliance has announced eight recommendations for a post-Brexit agricultural sector.
The organisation, which represents small-scale farmers producing food using only sustainable methods, asks for policies that "support producers, protects the environment and prioritizes access to healthy, nutritious food for all".
The organisation admit it is a "complex and essential" issue, but nethertheless say it is a "great opportunity" for the government to "listen to the needs and desires of all stakeholders".
Landworkers’ Alliance policy recommendations
• Focus on National Food Security
• Direct public money to high quality food and good farming
• End the discrimination against small farms
• Create and maintain agricultural employment
• Improve environmental and welfare standards
• Invest in farmer-led research for resilient solutions.
• Build markets that work for farmers.
• Democratize agricultural policy making.
'More resilient and just food system'
Over the next 6 months the the Landworkers’ Alliance will carry out an a consultation among its members to draw up policy proposals that aims to address the needs of food producers in the UK.
The alliance says it will also work with other organizations to draw up a framework for a "Peoples’ Food Policy", with the goal to end "systemic inequalities and misguided policies" affecting the food and farming sectors.
Adam Payne, a spokesperson for the LWA said the UK's small-scale, ecological farms are an "amazing resource" that "nourish a huge amount" of our rural culture.
Mr Payne said: "They offer us a pathway towards a more resilient and just food system.
"However, in the past, the UK’s farming strategies have undermined domestic production of healthy, affordable food and left many small farms unfairly disadvantaged in the market place.
"We are looking forward to dialogue with the government to ensure that post-brexit agricultural policy is more equitable, more resilient and more just."
