First, the good news. Gordon Brown, having previously shown little interest in food and farming issues, commissioned his Strategy Unit (PMSU) to look at the area. The unit’s analysis, published last week, shows why food policy merits the prime minister’s attention. Here are just a few facts from its 113 pages.
The food and drink industry accounts for 7 per cent of national output and provides 3.7m jobs. Spending on food is estimated to be worth £121bn a year. Food and farming contributes to around a fifth of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions, especially livestock production. Each year, there are 70,000 premature deaths – from heart disease, strokes and some cancers – resulting from poor diet.
In short, if government gets it right, the food and farming system could benefit all three pillars of sustainable development: the environment, society and the economy.
The bad news is that, at the moment, government is getting it wrong. Until now, the economic damage of bad food policy has fallen principally on the farming community – not a traditional Labour constituency. But the obesity and climate change crises have huge financial costs for us all.
If government is going to make any significant progress in this vital but complex area, Sustain would hope to see the following recommendations emerge from the PMSU’s findings.
First, introduce legal protection for children from all junk food marketing. Sustain’s Children’s Food Campaign (www.childrensfoodcampaign.org.uk) has already persuaded Ofcom to ban junk food ads from children’s TV. But most children watch evening programmes like Coronation Street and X Factor, so a 9pm watershed is what is really needed. Encouragingly, Brown has already shown he is not afraid of the ‘nanny state’ argument, by invoking the 9 o’clock watershed to protect children from exposure to ads for gambling. He should also close the ‘non-broadcast’ loophole, to prevent the marketing money accelerating into ads on websites, via mobile phones and into sports and pop sponsorship – arguably more insidious ways of targeting children than TV.
Second, the government should use the £2bn public procurement budget to buy only sustainable and healthy food. While the Jamie Oliver-inspired changes to school food are very welcome, it should not need another celebrity chef to tackle the disgraceful quality of – and environmental damage caused by – much of the food in hospitals and care homes. Given the massive contribution food production and transportation makes to greenhouse gas emissions, food considerations should be integrated into the forthcoming climate change bill, for starters.
Third, we must invest serious money in the domestic fruit and vegetable industry. While most people know we should be eating at least five portions a day, we eat barely half that amount. If, tomorrow, we doubled our consumption, this would suck in even more imports, causing more environmental damage from long-distance transport and providing no benefit to Britain’s rural communities. The PMSU report noted that our biggest trade gap by far is in fruit and vegetables – importing around 10 times as much as we export. In a food-insecure world, this cannot continue.
These policies, while popular with many, will be very unpopular among transnational food companies, with deep pockets and teams of lobbyists. Brown will need to be brave – the kiss of death for any policy, according to the incomparable Yes Minister. Gordon, surely, is made of sterner stuff than minister Hacker.