Civil Society and farm groups have joined together to come up with a roadmap towards a food system which benefits people and the environment.

The People’s Food Policy has been drawn up by Global Justice Now (formally the World Development Movement), the Landworkers Alliance, the Permaculture Association and the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience, based at Coventry University. The central groups said they took advice and analysis from over 150 food and farming initiatives and grassroots groups to develop the policy document, which was released on Monday to coincide with the government’s Brexit negotiations.

Starting from the same position as larger industry groups, who have also capitalised on sense of upheaval surrounding Brexit to highlight their policy preferences, the organisations behind the People’s Food Policy note that agriculture is possibly the sector which will be affected most acutely by the changes Britain’s withdrawal from the EU will bring. Changes to immigration law (and the fall in value of the pound) will make it harder for farmers to access labour from overseas, changes to trade rules could have impacts on crop choices, future markets and food prices, and the government has yet to set out its priorities for domestic agriculture policy and farm support after Brexit.

The People’s Food Policy calls for policy-makers to work cross-sector to deliver a holistic plan that “integrates the compartmentalised policy realms of food production, health, labour rights, land use and planning, trade, the environment, democratic participation and community wellbeing.”

The report’s authors recommend switching from a market-based to a rights-based approach to food, with greater democratic input into food issues; this more modern look at policy is gaining traction around the world, and the UN’s special rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier de Schutter, provides a foreword for the manifesto.

Releasing the paper, the coalition of groups noted that Scotland is already in the process of adopting more sustainable national food policies and is currently developing a ‘Good Food Nation Bill’, while England has yet to make any progress. They also praised Scotland’s Land Reform Act.

The report is split into nine different sections, each of which contain policy proposals. Some of the major proposals the coalition puts forward include:

• Creation of a Fair Food Act for England, based on the principles of agroecology and the right to food
• Establishment of democratic structures to increase participation in food policy decision-making, including People’s Food Councils, and statutory Food Partnerships in England’s regions
• Promotion of agroecology, through an agroecology bill and legislative support for the rights to seeds and biological diversity
• Introduction of measures to increase local and small-scale food growing and consumption, including small-scale farming and market gardening on greenbelt land, more funding for community growing projects and locally-minded procurement policies for schools, hospitals and local government institutions
• Introduction of legal measures to improve animal welfare and reduce the impact of livestock farming on the environment (including measures to drastically reduce antibiotics use, via setting targets and banning prophylactic treatment)
• Development of legislation to address public health contradictions in the agricultural subsidy system, redirecting subsidies that support the production of unhealthy foods
• Introduction of new measures to improve access to healthy food for children and older people in particular
• Development of measures to reduce the influence of powerful lobby groups on food policy
• Establishment of a Land Commission for England, based on the idea that land should be used as a common good for all people
• Strengthened rights for tenant farmers, and communities’ rights of land ownership and management
• Adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas, and guaranteed living wage for all workers in the food and farming sector
• Creation of more training opportunities and apprenticeships in farming, including moves to improve demographic representation and opportunities in agriculture and the introduction of a Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme open to all nationalities

On the report’s release, Global Justice campaigner Heidi Chow commented, “From the increasing corporate control of agriculture in the UK, to the price of basic food stuffs outstripping the rises in real wages, through to small farmers being aggressively squeezed out of the market, with over 33,000 small to medium farms closing down in the past decade – the UK is witnessing a series of crises in how we produce, distribute and sell food. The government’s approach to addressing these problems is at best piece-meal and at worst non-existent.
 
“The new Environment Secretary, Michael Gove commented last week that the UK can have both cheaper and higher quality food after Brexit. But the experience of many UK farmers and growers suggests that cheaper food prices must be paid for through lowering environmental and social standards across the farming sector. Instead we need to see greater regulation of the food retail sector to ensure farmers everywhere are paid a fair price for their produce.’’
 
Dee Butterly, a tenant farmer, member of the Landworkers’ Alliance and coordinator of the report, added, “The lack of a coherent, joined-up food policy framework in England is becoming increasingly problematic. In this country we have shameful levels of food insecurity, with food bank usage rising year on year, and an estimated over eight million people now in a state of such financial precarity they can’t afford to eat. Just last week, Unicef released a report ‘Building the Future’, with evidence that the UK has some of the highest levels of child hunger and deprivation among the world’s richest nations, with one in five children under 15 years old currently food insecure.
 
“The way our food system functions and is governed needs to radically change. We need to develop a national food policy in the coming years that transforms our food systems and that puts equality, resilience and justice at the forefront. As Brexit negotiations begin, we urge politicians to seriously consider this blueprint for a progressive national food policy which supports a food system where everybody, regardless of income, status or background, has secure access to enough good food at all times, without compromising on the wellbeing of people, the health of the environment, and the ability of future generations to provide for themselves.”
 
The full report can be read here.