DEFRA secretary of state Hilary Benn was bombarded with calls to change the way food is produced in the UK when he addressed the Soil Association’s conference in Bristol on Tuesday.
Benn assured delegates, via a video link from Brussels, that the government has placed sustainability and the Soil Association’s ethics at the top of its priorities, despite the credit crunch. He said: “Some people say, can’t we just put off sustainability, as if it is a luxury we can consider in the good times. Our answer is no… We see food security becoming more important and we have got to be sustainable.
“In 1900, we had eight acres of land per person on the planet, today it is just two acres and the population is set to rise another 2.5 billion - the equivalent of two Chinas - in just over 40 years. In meeting our goal to make nutritional food available for all, we need to think much more carefully about the way we produce our food.
“It is the government’s job to provide enough food to eat and to make sure it is sustainable for the environment. We share your passion for sustainability and these principles need to be applied at ground level,” he added.
But Benn failed to impress the 400-strong audience at the conference, entitled ‘Transition: Food and Farming in 21st century Britain’. London Food Authority’s Rosie Boycott, who chaired the event, said that the MP “talked a good story but didn’t come up with a single piece of action”.
Boycott asked what the government was doing about recreating farming and claimed that the UK still runs under the policies of the major retailers. She said: “It is not a great sustainable system, when 75 per cent of the grain coming into this country is in the hands of five [supermarkets]. We are going to see the same situation as we have just seen with the banks happen to the food industry.”
Benn also avoided giving a straight answer when asked if the government was moving towards allowing GM food into the country. He said: “I am genuinely open-minded on this question. We need to increase food production. We have an enormous task on our hands.”
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