Food matters

If we are to improve the sustainability of food in the UK, we must employ solutions already at hand

On Monday, Hilary Benn made a rallying cry for the creation of a secure and sustainable food system in the UK. He was right to raise this important issue because we must produce and consume food in a more sustainable way if we are to beat climate change, guarantee world food security and maintain healthy lives in the immediate years to come. Benn’s rhetoric is welcome but, if we are to improve the sustainability of food in the UK, we must employ solutions already at hand.

The food system is pivotal to our way of life and not just because we need to eat in order to live. The food we eat, and the way that we produce it, plays a vital role in our individual health and well being and that of the environment. The link between us, our food and the environment is inextricable. As a result, by making improvements to the health and sustainability of our food, we reap multiple social, environmental and economic rewards.

For example, eating local and seasonal food not only minimises energy used in food production and transport, it also benefits local suppliers and rural economies. By limiting the use of farming systems that cause harm to our environment, we weaken our reliance on oil and improve the goodness of the food that we eat. Purchasing fish from sustainable stocks will protect endangered species and stocks, but it will also support the biodiversity of our oceans and enable sustainable fishing communities to continue trading beyond 2048 when some scientists fear that, under current conditions, most fish stocks may be pushed beyond their natural limits.

The call to change the food system is not new and many of the government’s recommendations on Monday were a carbon copy of the original ‘Food Matters’ report published by the Cabinet Office over a year ago. This report made clear that the food system had to change – not least because diet related ill health was causing 70,000 premature deaths a year and the food system contributing to approximately 20% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions.

If it is to define itself as the progressive force in food politics, this Labour government must take the lead by implementing practical solutions at its disposal.

That is why Sustain’s ‘Good Food for Our Money’ campaign is calling for mandatory rules for the purchase of public sector food. Introducing these rules would ensure that the £2bn of tax payers’ money that the government spends on food in public sector organisations each year is invested in healthy and sustainable food that supports our health and environment, opens new markets for sustainable produce, establishes new patterns of trade and, most importantly, leads by example.

Alex Jackson is from the Good Food for Our Money campaign, run by Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming

14 Aug 2009 17:31

 

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