England urged to develop progressive food policy in advance of leaving EU

The report calls for a more 'just and stable' agricultural policy for England
The report calls for a more 'just and stable' agricultural policy for England

A coalition of grassroots food and farming organisations have launched a proposal for a more just and sustainable food system in England.

The report, ‘A People’s Food Policy’, outlines a vision of food and farming in England that is supported by over 80 food and farming organisations.

Scotland is already in process of adopting national food policies and is currently developing a ‘Good Food Nation Bill’, while England has yet to make any such proposals.

The report authors describe the policy proposals as a "vision for change that is rooted in the lived experiences and needs of people most affected by the failures in the current food system."

It’s widely acknowledged that agriculture is one of the sectors that will be faced with the most uncertainty as a result of the UK leaving the EU.

Rising food prices is an issue that has already been reported on in the context of Brexit, while migration restrictions are set to have an enormous impact on the availability of workers in the agricultural sector.

In the face of this uncertainty, the report argues that policy, legislative framework and a food act is needed that “integrates the compartmentalised policy realms of food production, health, labour rights, land use and planning, trade, the environment, democratic participation and community wellbeing.”

The report draws on 18 months of nation-wide consultations with grassroots organisations, NGOs, trade unions and community projects
The report draws on 18 months of nation-wide consultations with grassroots organisations, NGOs, trade unions and community projects

'Increasing corporate control'

Heidi Chow, food campaigner for Global Justice Now which is part of the coalition that developed the report, said agriculture in the UK is increasing in its corporate control.

She said: “From the increasing corporate control of agriculture in the UK, to the price of basic food stuffs outstripping the rises in real wages, the UK is witnessing a series of crises in how we produce, distribute and sell food.

“Small farmers are being aggressively squeezed out of the market, with over 33,000 small to medium farms closing down in the past decade. The government’s approach to addressing these problems is at best piece-meal and at worst non-existent.

“The new Environment Secretary. Michael Gove commented last week that the UK can have both cheaper and higher quality food after Brexit. But the experience of many UK farmers and growers suggests that cheaper food prices must be paid for through lowering environmental and social standards across the farming sector.

“Instead we need to see greater regulation of the food retail sector to ensure farmers everywhere are paid a fair price for their produce.”

'Stable and just'

The report says that across Europe, many countries have begun to adopt frameworks like food sovereignty, agroecology and the right to food into regional and national legislation in an effort to create a more 'stable and just' food system.

Dee Butterly, the coordinator of A People’s Food Policy, young tenant farmer and member of the Landworkers’ Alliance said the lack of a coherent food policy framework in England is becoming 'increasingly problematic'.

“In this country we have shameful levels of food insecurity, with food bank usage rising year on year, and an estimated over eight million people now in a state of such financial precarity they can’t afford to eat.

“Just last week, Unicef released a report ‘Building the Future’, with evidence that the UK has some of the highest levels of child hunger and deprivation among the world’s richest nations, with one in five children under 15 years old currently food insecure.”