We can’t only deal with problems that suit whims of businesses and politicians, says Tim Lang
In Brussels this week I listened to a debate about the Europe-wide failings on food and health policy. Slowly, across political divides, a new critique and vision is emerging: the Common Agricultural Policy pays farmers for environmental goods when they ought to be producing sustainable food.
The fact that Europe is churning out ever-more products with little nutritional value doesn't help, nor does poor labelling. Junk food is increasingly sophisticated but it is still junk.
The new reality is complex and no single issue provides 'the answer'. Some say this turns policy-making into a chaos of competing interests where the loudest voices win. There are good reasons to worry about food's threat from biodiversity loss, climate change, water, energy and public health, but what matters is how to create food systems that face all these issues rather than a pick'n'mix approach to suit business or political or consumer whims.
That's also the message from a forthcoming sober 3,000-year history of food systems I've been reading [Empires of Food, Fraser EDG, Rimas A]. Political cultures wobble if they forget to nurture food systems.
Ancient Rome, medieval Europe, Victorian Britain, Mayan, modern US, all set out on the path to transnational sway but got complacent over foodways. They forgot to nurture the biological basis on which they depended, exhausting their soil, or relying on distant lands or military might.
So where's the good news? Despite fiscal pressures and political cuts, the case for re-orienting the food system remains strong. Objective realities haven't changed with the political hue of the government. Just when we ought to be expanding home production, building new food-based skills and charting a route to a more sustainable food system, some political eyes are returning to old belt-tightening territory. This is dangerous nonsense; We need to debate different routes.
Choices loom for the government. Do we continue with wasteful supply chains, based on non-renewable oil or begin to chart a sustainable diet from sustainable food supply chains?
Price signals have a poor track record as indicators of the full environmental and health costs. Cuts at Defra, the FSA or Department of Health won't remove those facts. Indeed, they will become ever more stark.
In Brussels this week I listened to a debate about the Europe-wide failings on food and health policy. Slowly, across political divides, a new critique and vision is emerging: the Common Agricultural Policy pays farmers for environmental goods when they ought to be producing sustainable food.
The fact that Europe is churning out ever-more products with little nutritional value doesn't help, nor does poor labelling. Junk food is increasingly sophisticated but it is still junk.
The new reality is complex and no single issue provides 'the answer'. Some say this turns policy-making into a chaos of competing interests where the loudest voices win. There are good reasons to worry about food's threat from biodiversity loss, climate change, water, energy and public health, but what matters is how to create food systems that face all these issues rather than a pick'n'mix approach to suit business or political or consumer whims.
That's also the message from a forthcoming sober 3,000-year history of food systems I've been reading [Empires of Food, Fraser EDG, Rimas A]. Political cultures wobble if they forget to nurture food systems.
Ancient Rome, medieval Europe, Victorian Britain, Mayan, modern US, all set out on the path to transnational sway but got complacent over foodways. They forgot to nurture the biological basis on which they depended, exhausting their soil, or relying on distant lands or military might.
So where's the good news? Despite fiscal pressures and political cuts, the case for re-orienting the food system remains strong. Objective realities haven't changed with the political hue of the government. Just when we ought to be expanding home production, building new food-based skills and charting a route to a more sustainable food system, some political eyes are returning to old belt-tightening territory. This is dangerous nonsense; We need to debate different routes.
Choices loom for the government. Do we continue with wasteful supply chains, based on non-renewable oil or begin to chart a sustainable diet from sustainable food supply chains?
Price signals have a poor track record as indicators of the full environmental and health costs. Cuts at Defra, the FSA or Department of Health won't remove those facts. Indeed, they will become ever more stark.
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