Food system revolution...who’s hungry?

One of the most striking things about
the obesity report that the Foresight team produced in 2007 was the fiendishly detailed ‘systems map’ developed by the research team. For me, one of the most striking things about  the launch of the latest Foresight report was the admission that the project team had found it nigh-on impossible to produce a similar mapping of this particular system, such is its inherent, mind-boggling complexity!
  
That’s not a criticism. I think it simply demonstrates how even the cleverest minds in academia find it difficult to fully explain how things are currently working. The challenge is to accept that business as usual is no longer good enough. 

The speakers at the event spoke eloquently about the five key challenges facing the system as a whole – balancing supply and demand; stable food prices; ending hunger; climate change; and biodiversity.

But it was fascinating how so much of the discussion at the launch event focused back on international development and the need to end hunger. That’s perfectly understandable; it is shameful that almost one billion people still go hungry in a world of plenty. And it is relatively easy to identify actions to repair parts of what was described as ‘a broken global food system’.

It seems to me that where things always become more problematic – in both policy and strategy terms – is when we chunk the high-level debate down to the UK level. We can all understand why and (possibly) how we need to support farmers in, say, West Africa in the medium term; but what does any of this mean in the long term for dairy farmers in the South West of England? An unenviable conundrum...

So, what will this report actually do?

Well, it was reassuring to hear from Defra Secretary of State Caroline Spelman that
Ministers will use the report to influence discussions on global food security at the forthcoming G20 meeting. Perhaps more importantly it will be used to shape the forthcoming deliberations about the Common Agricultural Policy and the Common Fisheries Policy. The Food and Drink Federation agrees with the emerging view within Defra that we need to move away from CAP to develop a long-term ‘Common Sustainable Food Policy’ for Europe. Spelman also made clear that the Foresight evidence base would play a role in shaping the Government’s response to difficult debates such as that around GM crops.

In any debate about the UK’s ongoing food security we should not lose sight of the fact that food manufacturing is a major customer of British agriculture – buying up to two-thirds of what farmers produce. We are the key link in the food chain and it’s clear that we will play a vital role in any efforts to produce more food, more sustainably – in the UK.

So from our perspective the challenge is pretty clear: what should food and drink manufacturers be doing to maintain the nation’s future food security against the combined effects of climate change, higher global demand for agricultural products and increasing pressure on finite resources?

To help us answer that question, we commissioned a futures report last year from the Institute for Manufacturing at the University of Cambridge which provides some interesting thoughts about what needs to be done – it’s also worth a read!

The Foresight report supports our view that the way ahead for UK business will require more leadership from Government and industry; genuine partnerships being created between the food sector and Whitehall departments; and more efforts to accelerate the good work that is already underway.

Let’s hope Foresight – with its political clout – can be catalyst for ensuring that does become a reality. And from the buzz in the room at the launch event there certainly seems to be an appetite for making that happen.

Julian Hunt is the Communications Director at the Food and Drink Federation.