We are urgently developing research requirements with other European laboratories to make sure we understand and the disease (Schmallenberg) better.OFC '10: Benn unveils Government food strategy
DEFRA Secretary Hilary Benn has unveiled a Government blueprint for food policy that will present significant opportunities and challenges for farmers over the next two decades.
Launching the Government’s long-awaited ‘Food 2030’ strategy at the Oxford Farming Conference this morning (Tuesday, January 5), Mr Benn said things can no longer carry on as they are.
The way food is produced, consumed and disposed of will all have to change over the next 20 years in response to a future in which climate change, global demand for food and competition for natural resources all become increasingly important.
Food 2030 focuses on six key challenges for the food system:
- Encouraging people to eat a healthy, sustainable diet;
- Ensuring a resilient, profitable and competitive food system;
- Increasing food production sustainably;
- Reducing the food system’s greenhouse gas emissions;
- Reducing, reusing and reprocessing waste; and
- Increasing the impact of skills, knowledge, research and technology.
It sets out a vision for 2030 in which Government works with farmers and the food chain to meet these challenges and where consumer purchasing power is a major driver of change.
The strategy does not go into detailed policy proposals but sets out goals that contain significant messages for farmers.
The main one is the need for British farmers to produce more food but with fewer resources and less environmental impact.
It commits the Government to supporting this aim through investment in research and development and helping the farming industry and food chain improve training and skills.
There is a commitment to reducing the regulatory burden for the food and farming sectors by opting for voluntary agreements rather than regulation ‘where possible’.
The strategy also includes plans to improve food labelling and for the Government to prepare a national infrastructure to help the industry withstand potential shocks, like extreme weather.
Speaking at the conference today (Tuesday, January 5) Mr Benn said: “Food security is as important to this country’s future wellbeing – and the world’s - as energy security.
“We need to produce more food. We need to do it sustainably. And we need to make sure that what we eat safeguards our health.
“We know that the consequences of the way we produce and consume our food are unsustainable to our planet and to ourselves. There are challenges for everyone involved in the food system, from production right through to managing food waste.”
Mr Benn called on farmers to play their part by continuing to reduce their environmental impact, while managing natural resources and biodiversity and adapting to climate change by, for example, reducing emissions and producing renewable energy.
He asked consumers to take responsibility, too, by demanding more sustainably and seasonally produced food and clearer information on origin, nutrition and welfare on food labels.
The strategy, largely inspired by the events of 2008 when soaring food prices caused unrest throughout the world, is also intended to bring about more coherent policies on food across Government.
In the foreword to the document, Prime Minister Gordon Brown says: “We need to think differently about food. We can’t carry on just as we are.”
He adds that by working together, Government and industry can make Britain ‘a world leader in food policy and production’ and ‘help to ensure that everybody has the chance to eat safe, healthy, affordable and sustainable food, now and in the future’.
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Readers' comments (15)
cyberdoyle | 5 January 2010 9:23 am
what we really need is a few farmers running defra, not a load of suits who know nothing. They talk a load of rubbish and burden the farmers with masses of useless expensive junk mail which serves no purpose. The legacy of Margaret Bek lives on. Until the real experts have a voice the policy makers will continue to blunder and impede food production, and the govt will allow imports produced to lower standards because they are cheap. The world is mad.
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S Hunter | 5 January 2010 2:25 pm
Farmers can't run their own affairs never mind them running Defra. Imports to lower standards mean cheaper prices which is what the public wants get real Cyberdoyle! Study a bit of marketing, listen a bit more to the suits and think whats goos for you!
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JAN PRINCE | 5 January 2010 2:59 pm
thanks S Hunter, but farmers have been running their businesses efficently despite the Govt, EU and the public wanting to despise them at every opportunity. Now you want the food I produce? Sorry too late average age of farmers is 58yrs, not enough investment in research or encouraging youngsters to join the industry, so those of us still here might just baracade the gates and watch the rest of you all starve!!!
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K Wiggins | 5 January 2010 3:12 pm
You obviously have no idea what you are talking about, S Hunter! If all people want is cheap food, then why do we have animal welfare standards in this country? Abolish these and you will have very cheap food on your door step. You will also have unhealthy animals giving rise to unhealthy food on your plate. Is this what you want? How do you know if that tasty looking beef steak you bought that comes from Uruguay has been fed with hormones? Or maybe you just don't care as long as it's cheap. I'll bet you would be the first person to call the RSPCA if you saw a sick animal in a field - another opportunity to slag off the farmers! I think you are the one who needs to study a little more!! Idiot!
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K Wiggins | 5 January 2010 3:31 pm
Well said, Jan Prince. Food has been too cheap for too long. It is not respected anymore. It is always there on the supermarket shelf 24 hrs a day. Very few people (including S Hunter) actually think about how it got there in the first place (and I'm not just talking about the lorry from the packing plant). It will only earn respect again when people go to the shops and it's not there anymore, but by then it will be too late. Luckily for us farmers, we will have made sure that we have enough food on our farms for our own families. What a shame about the rest of the public. They will have to write to the South American government to see if they can have some of theirs, after all it is cheaper!!
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Mike Lewis | 5 January 2010 4:57 pm
Fantastic isn't it ?. We have our precious farming industry, once the envy of the world. Systematically being run into the ground by successive governments. Then at the eleventh hour, when all hope is lost. The distress flare goes up and " Hey boys pull your finger out, we've dropped a clanger " I so heartily wish that we could keep politicians away from industires they know nothing about.
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Einion | 5 January 2010 7:42 pm
I consider myself a very rare specim, 36, professional producer of food (Milk). Give me the freedom to farm and we will feed the world!. Mr Hunter knows didly about what it meens to be a 21st centuary farmer... Pay day is coming and Mr Hunter will have to hunt for food if he is to survive!!!! or start rowing to south america now!
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MB, County Durham | 5 January 2010 8:21 pm
Why is Mr Benn worried about food security now - his predecessor Mr Milliband said he was not worried about it and he now runs our nations foreign policies...
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TLP | 5 January 2010 8:38 pm
Aside from the circus that is the RPA, why is everyone whinging about the Government? The SFP keeps half of farmers in the U.K in business to the detriment of producers abroad. Farmers in the UK/EU should be very grateful.
The harsh reality is, if there's cheap food people will buy it. Why not accept that the world is moving towards a more global market and allow developing nations the chance to move out of poverty through food exports? Global tracability systems and food standards are crucial for this to be sustainable. Yet I strongly believe the benefits of freer trade are too large to justify the excessive amounts of funding given to EU farmers.
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Anonymous | 5 January 2010 10:22 pm
I am dissapointed that soon after I left university, they seemed to close all the colleges. Back then, when we had 'food mountains' we should have been investing in the technology to convert the 'surplusses' into energy. Now the cupboards are looking a little more bare- I think it is a bit late to say that research is what is needed- it takes a whole generation to set up a college system with experienced lecturers, not just 5 minutes!
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