In an open letter, Soil Association’s Chief Executive Helen Browning calls on Liz Truss, UK’s new Prime Minister to back the Association’s vision of a future where everyone has access to affordable, healthy and nutritious diets, underpinned by a resilient food system that protects nature and climate.
Browning called on the new PM to commit to continuing the rollout and development of the Environmental Land Management Schemes and Sustainable Farming Incentives with funding for protecting soils and a farmer-led tree revolution.
To build a better future, we must get food right; it underpins our health and wellbeing and that of the planet. Yet, as highlighted by Henry Dimbleby’s National Food Strategy, poverty is on the rise, food choices are not simple and our diets, short of fresh vegetables and fruits but high in ultra-processed foods, are undermining our health. It may not be the job of Government to tell people what to eat – but that does not mean you cannot act. Making good food the easy choice will help to tackle ill health and reduce the financial and physical burden on the NHS. Good health underpins prosperity and lowers health care costs. You have the opportunity and responsibility to ensure that everyone can enjoy and reap the benefits of good food.
One easy and popular way to do this is through public sector procurement whereby you can provide millions of people with healthy, local and sustainable food. Our public sector caterers, many of whom are struggling so much right now, hold the keys to unlock this opportunity, and must remain fully supported with adequate funding. Government has made a step in the right direction by consulting on a target for 50% of public food spend to be on food produced locally or certified to higher environmental production standards, such as organic. To deliver on this bold ambition, action will be needed to ensure the viability of the catering service over the months ahead.
The letter pointed out that with the global food system in crisis, British farmers will need to become increasingly resilient. Economic and environmental shocks are now so commonplace, it cannot be business as usual. This year’s rising input costs coupled with drought conditions, as devastating as they’ve been, are symptoms of the disrupted climatic and political environment that are unlikely to stabilise and farmers are going to need help to adapt, and then thrive.
This means nurturing a resilient and diverse agricultural sector, one underpinned by the principles of agroecology which allows us to move away from the use of toxic agrichemicals and synthetic nitrogen inputs. Setting ambitious pesticide and nitrogen reduction targets in law would send a bold signal about the direction of travel in this regard.
The Environment Land Management Scheme (ELMS) concept of public money for public goods is therefore the right one, and a necessary precondition to securing our future food security. It is essential to build on the commitments of support for a transition to whole farm agroecological systems rather than risk an ineffective piecemeal approach. Recent research, commissioned by the Food Farming and Countryside Commission has demonstrated how a wholesale uptake of agroecology in the UK, with an accompanying shift in diets, can generate significant benefits for our health, biodiversity and climate, whilst also enhancing our food security.
“Furthermore, we’ve shown recently that agroecology is a good business choice provided that farmers are properly rewarded for the public goods they deliver across the farm. Our newest initiative, Soil Association Exchange, is tackling this head on by monitoring the outcomes of farming systems which will assist Government and the private sector in evaluating and rewarding land managers for the public goods they provide,” said Browning.
She added that at the core of this whole farm approach we need a ‘farmer-led tree revolution’. By offering the right advice, alongside financial support and investing in markets and supply chains, Government could increase and revitalise farm woodland and agroforestry on farms across the UK. “We’ve recently calculated that it would be possible to deliver 355,000 hectares of farm woodland and agroforestry cover in England alone, with little impact on food production, whilst also improving farm business resilience. If we don’t get food and farming right, we’ll fail on all our other ambitions too. Promoting the right solutions is an investment in the health of our nation and the future of the natural world on which humanity depends. As millions across the country struggle with the cost-of-living crisis, this investment has never been more crucial,” she said in the letter.
