New Scientist
August Royal Society special open access edition 'Food security: Feeding the world in 2050' (and as part of the UK Foresight Programme) provides a variety of contributions, from those confident of producing enough food from the same amount of land, through those who consider that a radical rethink is needed to reduce the dependence on oil (for70% energy input), to those who are worried that seven “companies are accumulating intellectual property to an extent that...represents a threat to the global commons in agricultural technology”. Walmart with EDF have produced a Supplier GHG Innovation Program: Guidance Document following their commitment in February of 2010: "to reducing 20 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e) from its products’ lifecycles and supply chains between calendar year 2010 and 2015" (= emissions from 3.8 million cars). Nature special edition "Can science feed the world" says: "What is needed is a second green revolution — an approach that Britain's Royal Society aptly describes as the 'sustainable intensification of global agriculture'. Such a revolution will require a wholesale realignment of priorities in agricultural research."
July Our Life new web site "Talking Food, Taking Action" says that, of their work in North West: "By linking the problems people have with food and diet to the wider food supply system, it will help us all to identify which issues cause the most concern." DEFRA Draft Structural Reform Plan (pdf) is to "1) Support and develop British farming and encourage sustainable food production 2) Help to enhance the environment and biodiversity to improve quality of life 3) Support a strong and sustainable green economy, resilient to climate change" - all manly through voluntary action. Keep an eye on what Coalition is doing to Food n Farming Tim Lang in Guardian article "Food Standards Agency What a Carve Up" says "The last government ...was trying to steer the FSA to be lead body on creating integrated advice to consumers. The coalition is ditching this idea. It now would need to turn to three bodies even to start talking to itself!"
World Development Movement in The Great Hunger Lottery has compiled "extensive evidence establishing the role of food commodity derivatives in destabilising and driving up food prices around the world. This in turn, has led to food prices becoming unaffordable for low-income families around the world, particularly in developing countries highly reliant on food imports." New Scientist in "What the beef with meat?" imagines "what would happen if the whole world decided to eliminate meat, milk and eggs from its diet, then traces the effects as they ripple throughout agriculture, the environment and society. The result may surprise you."
Centre for Alternative Technology ZeroCarbonBritain2030 Chap 7 says "the land use sector can completely decarbonise itself, mop up the residual emissions from the rest of the UK economy, and at the same time deliver improved food security, healthier diets and enhanced biodiversity." June EU Committee on Agriculture & Rural Development (Rapporteur George Lyon) Report on the future of the Common Agricultural Policy after 2013 says "the new CAP will have to face new and demanding challenges with a view not merely to meeting the food consumption needs of European citizens with adequate quality products, addressing the difficulties relating to world food security, ensuring the functioning of the agricultural markets and supporting the income of the agricultural sector but also preserving the environment in all parts of Europe and responding to climate change" National Institute for Health and Clinical Exellence (NICE) new public health guidance says that "up to 40,000 deaths from heart disease and stroke could be prevented each year by reducing the levels of salt and saturated fat in our food" and regrets that "the EU has voted to go for the guideline dietary amount scheme instead of the traffic lights". MEP's decision on GDA v Traffic lights (also includes extension of origin labelling). May Lang & Clutterbuck argue in online Guardian article Food can help cut Fiscal Deficit what better way to "save £6bn this year rising to £10bn per year next year and ever after – with no public sector cuts or increases in taxes? And, what if this also boosted the green economy, creating jobs? And met consumer demand? And helped improve health?" than grow more of our own food - at present responsible for £15b deficit. Science Magazine Pest munches China Crops as GM crop sprays halt "a once minor pest (mirid) has ravaged fruit orchards and cotton fields in China after farmers stopped spraying insecticide in crops of a genetically-modified type of cotton resistant to bollworms". Jeremy Harding in London Review of Books What we are about to receive says "Scientists, policy analysts, nutritionists, campaigners – call them the food observatory...has warned us we’ll have to countenance a change in the way we eat – and so will the next government. Drifting into uncharted waters on a raft of voluntary codes with a sail rigged for propitious trade winds seems like a form of madness." 3D Exploring the Global Food Supply Chain. Markets, Companies, Systems (pdf) Find out, what is the level of market concentration in the global agrifood industry, and how countries around the globe are responding to the homogeneisation of plant variety protection brought about by the TRIPS agreement. April Food Ethics Council Ethics: A toolkit for Businesses "helps businesses get to grips with daily dilemmas about where their products come from, and who or what is affected by them, and introduces key ideas in ethics, and provides a framework for decision-making." Election "Food is as political as ever" says Food Ethics Council's What's on the menu for polling day?. "The parties are divided over the future for farming and envirornmental protection. But do any of the parties go far enough in supplying a food system that is fair to people and the planet?". Details in pdf. The EU Commission has launched a Consultation for CAP post 2013 that invites all EU citzens and organisations to take part in the debate. "The Common Agricultural Policy is for all of society. It is your policy, not just for farmers. European agriculture is about food security, but also about landscapes, employment, environment, climate change." See what we say According to Eurobarometer 336 (pdf), the European public consider "the main priority for the CAP should be ensuring agricultural products that are of good quality, healthy and safe (59%). Ensuring reasonable food prices (49%), protecting the environment and ensuring a fair standard of living for farmers (both 41%) are also given a high position on the public agenda." What we say about CAP. March Institute for Social and Educational Research (ISER) Working Paper Healthy school meals and Educational Outcomes "uses the "Jamie Oliver Feed Me Better" campaign to evaluate the impact of healthy school meals on educational outcomes" and "finds evidence that healthy school meals did improve educational outcomes, in particular in English and Science". See our News for Jamie in USA Food Standards Agency, working with more than 40 major UK caterers, has new web page of Health Catering requirements that sets out "activities of each company captured in a commitments document, which has sections on procurement, menu planning, kitchen practice and consumer information. The commitments vary according to the type of business and food served and provide an overview of what each company is doing to support the Agency’s priorities to reduce salt, saturated fat and energy intake; to promote healthier options and to provide consumers with more information". Welsh Assembly Government Land Use Climate Change Report's "emphasis is on maintaining intensive dairy, sheep and beef sectors while diversifying and increasing vegetable crops. In the longer term, the report recommends development of a more radical approach where much of the cattle herd is housed and methane emissions are captured." Equality & Human Rights Commission (EHRC) Inquiry into the employment & recruitment in Meat and Poultry Processing Sector (pdf) found "there are significant challenges facing the industry if it is to uphold ethical standards and effectively promote equality and inclusion. We found evidence of widespread poor treatment of agency workers, particularly migrant and pregnant workers, both by agencies and in the meat processing factories." In the same week, Unite the Union and ASDA sealed a deal to treat all their agency workers the same as permanent staff. Look out in next few weeks for Tesco, M&S, Co-op and Waitrose to launch their online Ethical Growers Handbook - produced by guess who? EP@W Ltd! Countryside Survey of Great Britain contradicts that soils have lost carbon across England and Wales 1978-2003 of about 100mt according to the National Soil Inventory examined by P.Bellamy et al, Nature, Vol 437, 8.9.2005 (complete pdf). So an independent inquiry is in place (see Observer article March 2010). Our verdict: This is far to important to be left to a couple of statisticians..lets have an open debate. February DEFRA's new Evidence Investment Strategy 2010-13 says "modest reorientation of priorities from such areas as animal welfare and pesticides towards areas such as water, biodiversity, soils and climate change would improve both the overall impact of our investments on the delivery of Defra’s strategic objectives and our ability to respond to the big evidence challenges."
IUF launch website McJobs carrying stories of what it is like to work for the world's biggest hamburger comapany, including details of an agreement that McDonalds has reached with labour and environmental organisations in the states, "to survey its U.S. potato suppliers, compile a list of best practices in pesticide reduction and recommend those best practices to its global suppliers. It also will share its findings with investors and include the findings in its annual corporate social responsibility report.". Sceince publishes Special Online Collection: Food Security that "examines the obstacles to achieving global food security and some promising solutions. News articles introduce farmers and researchers who are finding ways to boost harvests, especially in the developing world." "We have perhaps 40 years to radically transform agriculture, work out how to grow more food without exacerbating environmental problems, and simultaneously cope with climate change." Global Environmental Change publishes The Story of Phosphorus: Global food security and food for thought."Current global reserves may be depleted in 50–100 years. While phosphorus demand is projected to increase, the expected global peak in phosphorus production is predicted to occur around 2030. The exact timing of peak phosphorus production might be disputed....This paper puts forward the case for including long-term phosphorus scarcity on the priority agenda for global food security." RELU asks What is Land for? saying "Use of land is one of the principal drivers of global environmental change, and, in turn, environmental change, particularly climate change, will increasingly influence the use made of land as communities strive to adapt to, and mitigate, the effects of a changing climate." and " Gordon Brown stressed the ‘core responsibility’ of British farmers to ‘grow and produce the majority of food consumed by the British people’, alongside a ‘front line’ role adapting and reacting to the challenges and opportunities of climate change and exploiting the potential of farmers to become ‘energy exporters’. Farmers and their advisors have been quick to embrace the ‘new productivism’". January Food Standards Agency Integrated Advice to Comsumers (IAC) discusses the research "undertaken to gauge consumer attitudes and reactions to the concept of a website providing integrated government advice for consumers in relation to food safety, healthy eating and environmental and wider sustainability issues." Recommendations pdf All Party Parliamentary Group Why No Thought for Food? asks "why has the (UK) Government consciously and deliberately run down its support for agriculture in international development when it once led the world – why no thought for food?" Lifeworth Consulting Capitalism in Question describes "how politicians and even business leaders are calling for more critical assessment of what kind of economic system we need for a fair and sustainable future" and reviews the main books that "seek to do something that previously seemed neither necessary or interesting − to defend capitalism.” Dan Morgan (he of "Merchants of Grain") for the German Marshall Fund of the US, in The Farm Bill and Beyond explains "At the White House, President Obama has proposed cutting some key subsidies, and he has signaled interest in aligning himself - at least symbolically - with a grass roots movement that supports "sustainable agriculture" and "healthy foods." These developments have moved long-standing tensions over agriculture policy to center stage". Meanwhile 1 in 8 Americans now use Food Coupons. FCRN & WWF-UK How Low Can We Go found that the usual account for the food chain is around 20% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. "However, this newly published report finds that, once food related land use change impacts are included in the calculation, the contribution from food rises to 30% of the UK total." It then goes on to look at scenarios for reducing this by 70% by 2050 in line with all government targets. Corinna Hawkes edits Trade, F sayingood, Diet and Health: Perspectives and Policy Options that "examines the role global food trade has played in the rise in diet-related chronic illness, looking carefully at how the trade of food across national borders, international and regional trade agreements, the process of trade and investment liberalization, and the growth of transnational food corporations affects what people eat and, by implication, their health."
Heinrich Boll Foundation Climate Change and the Right to Food study "proposes concrete methods by which institutions can address climate change problems and realize the right to food (see - de Schutter in November 09) symbiotically, in compliance with the principles of systemic integration under international law." 2009 Reports, 2008 Reports, 2007 Reports, 2006 Reports Our other News feeds..
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