This is not a horsemeat blog - lets transform our food system

Vicki Hird

13 February 2013

I confess I've been here before. Back in 2000 I wrote a book called Perfectly Safe to Eat? which looked at topical food scares like salmonella and mad cow disease, and additional problems associated with the UK food system. The book's publication coincided with the creation of the shiny new Food Standards Agency (FSA).

Being a hardened doom-monger, I suggested the FSA may not be fit for purpose if it wasn't tough enough on bad practice or able to address the drivers causing our increasingly broken food system. These included the over-dominant food retail sector, poor deals for farmers and a lack of control over junk food marketing.

Clearly, and depressingly, it's done neither - despite oh so many meetings, roundtables and expert reports on what needs to change.

But maybe we are now on the cusp of a real transformation, given how much the horsemeat saga is revealing about our complex and uncontrollable food chains. Across the board - from political leaders to ordinary consumers - we've had enough. We're asking why this keeps happening. And the wider, deeper problems in the food system are getting a valuable airing.

The spotlight on the deal for low-income consumers is long overdue. People struggling to cope with higher food prices may now be wondering if what they are buying is really food at all.

And it's likely to get worse - the impact of climate change on the price of food has already made the headlines. Food production we rely on, both here and overseas, may be increasingly affected by unpredictable or extreme weather and competing demands for crops for biofuels and animal feed.

Conservative voices are being raised about food prices and fraud - Laura Sandys MP, who started the Smarter Consumer Commission, says "the Coalition must ensure that the consumers are protected from sharp operators, have a stronger voice in policy development and are being provided with the information that enables them to make the smart choices."

Yes. And those smarter choices should be geared towards a truly sustainable diet - one which is good for people and planet overall.  It's not an impossible demand. There has been a upsurge in interest in food quality and many communities have been investing in good food. For example, the 20% of schools who know where their food comes from, thanks to the Soil Association's Food for Life Catering Mark which ensures increasingly sustainable menus in the schools; local initiatives such as the Fife Diet and Growing Communities to name but a few. Such initiatives need support. They put the right value on fresh ingredients and quality food that's not necessarily pricey on you or the planet.

Clearly the Government must stamp out fraud. And that means better resourced food monitoring and enforcement. But these problems will just keep coming back unless we address the drivers and shift the system towards one which is based on shorter supply chains, a fair deal for good producers and sustainable production.

Consumers too need Government support to help them to choose more sustainable and affordable meals and be more resilient to food price hikes. That means starting a shift away from high-meat consumption towards sustainable diets. As a start, existing official healthy eating and environmental behaviour guidelines should be modified to include the benefits of eating less meat.

The Government also needs to engineer a transition in the food industry - by carrot or stick - to ensure they deliver fair, sustainable and affordable and accessible food choices for all.

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