The government has vehemently defended its new overarching food strategy amid criticisms that it is not incisive and is “Soviet” in style.
DEFRA secretary Hilary Benn unveiled the state’s new 2030 plan, which maps out the challenges and objectives for the food industry for the next two decades, this week as the government many feel will have fallen from power within five months looks to stamps it authority on future food policy.
The plan is centred on the now widespread goal of maximising food production with minimal impact on the environment. The strategy looks at key issues such as food safety, natural resources, social elements in rural communities worldwide as well as demanding a “low carbon food system”.
It has been described as too vague and lacking focus, attacked as a “Soviet style plan” that need to back up its vision with action by DEFRA shadow Nick Herbert, but was defended by National Farmers’ Union president Peter Kendall who sees it as a mandate.
In launching Food 2030 at the Oxford Farming Conference on Tuesday, Benn said: “We need once again as a nation to see why food production matters.
“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.”
Benn cited early progress made by his Fruit and Vegetable Task Force as well as Change4Life’s Convenience Store Project as examples of a foundation on which to build the plan, which he defended as “very practical”.
Dr Tom MacMillan, executive director at the Food Ethics Council, said the move “will have wide appeal, but the ways it hopes to get there aren’t up to the job” and that “there’s a lot about helping the market and consumers to be more efficient, but not much about people, power or politics”.
Jeanette Longfield MBE, co-ordinator of lobby group Sustain, slammed the move: “The government’s ‘Food Vision' is hardly worthy of the name. The document proposes a series of minor tweaks to our fundamentally unsustainable food system and ignores obvious ideas to help British farmers, like improving the food that government itself buys.”
Sue Davies, chief policy adviser at Which?, called for a focus on setting robust food standards for public institutions and ensuring that people are not misled by health or green claims on foods.
But Kendall said the plan sets out a guideline which is far more positive for the food industry than under former DEFRA minister Margaret Beckett, where he claims there was no priority for British food.
He told freshinfo: “This plan won’t immediately affect farmers day to day but is very important politically. It has put a stake in the ground about the importance of productive agriculture.
“The treasury will be looking to make budget cuts in areas such as taxation and immigration and this document means we have a robust government argument for food on issues such as the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme.”
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