The Agriculture Bill, that was debated and voted on in the House of Commons last month, is as significant as it is complex.
Basic Payments to Farmers
To oversimplify, farmers will lose their Basic Payments (paid against how much land they own) and be paid (much less) only for ‘non-market impacts’ – flood prevention and the environment. Currently about half a farmer’s income comes from Basic Payments.
The Bill will ‘encourage’ (no details yet) farmers to reduce their costs, retire as appropriate, and facilitate new entrants.
Cheap Imports
A main concern is vulnerability to cheap imports with lower food standards (chlorinated chicken, intensive livestock): the Bill does not cover these, leaving them to individual trade agreements.
Can Britain Feed Itself?
Increased food self-sufficiency also is not in the Bill.
Government prefers to rely on the trickle-down effect. As George Eustice (Secretary of State at Defra) says: “If you increase farm profitability then these things (self-sufficiency) will take care of themselves.”
Food as a Commodity and Agriculture as Separate
But there are two more fundamental flaws in the Bill. Food is still treated as a market commodity (Eustice: “the Bill has the purpose of ensuring farm profitability and growing export markets”) and not a basic human need and, secondly, agriculture remains divorced from the rest of the food system (processing, distribution, consumption).
Need for a Holistic Food Policy
Until a more holistic food policy embraces food as a human need within a whole food system, the big ‘non-market impacts’ of food, particularly food waste, obesity and food poverty, will never be properly addressed.
The Bill now passes to the House of Lords without key amendments that could have helped protect farmers, the environment and food security.
Read more about the Bill from the Soil Association.
The All Party Parliamentary Group on the National Food Strategy
The APPG on the National Food Strategy, chaired by Jo Gideon, MP for Stoke on Trent, had its fourth meeting on 25th May to consider the way in which part 2 of the National Food Strategy might embrace the development of urban food systems, the support for rural communities, and how ‘good food’ jobs might be developed. The LFP was there. ItContinue reading “The All Party Parliamentary Group on the National Food Strategy”
Food from the Other Side of the World?
The Tariff-free trade deal with Australia being offered at the end of May, split Cabinet over food. Environment Secretary George Eustice was concerned that because of scale of livestock farming in the Antipodes, UK farmers could be undercut. Whilst these differences have been patched up in Westminster, the National Farmers Union is concerned that hundredsContinue reading “Food from the Other Side of the World?”
The Future of Seed
Seed sovereignty is about growers being able to produce and have control of their seeds – by saving seed from the crops they grow, selecting the strongest and most suitable seeds for breeding, and exchanging seeds freely with others. Sounds simple, right? At the moment, almost all commercial seeds are F1 hybrids. The seeds thatContinue reading “The Future of Seed”
