Food Ethics Council

A new discussion paper from the Food Ethics Council spells out some of the stickiest questions facing farm policy in the run up to further CAP reforms. We want to know your answers.

When David Miliband became Secretary of State at Defra earlier this year, he called upon farmers and the food sector to embrace the concept of ‘one planet farming’. “We are living as if we had three planets’ worth of resources to live with,"he said, "rather than just one. So if we are to build a sustainable future... we need to cut by about two thirds our ecological footprint.”
As climate change, international development and further reform of the European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) rise up the agenda, his call for a 'one planet' perspective is a timely reminder that to make UK farming and food truly sustainable we need to see beyond national borders: if we tackle problems in the UK without seeing the global picture, we risk simply outsourcing them to other parts of the world. Yet, the task is not just to ‘think global’, but to do so at the same time as we address other issues, locally, regionally and nationally. Key among these is the role of agriculture as a land use within the UK.
In this new discussion paper we explore some of the challenges that come with taking a global perspective on sustainable farming and food. We focus on six that we consider especially important and difficult:

• Farming the land – What role does agriculture have in the UK in light of competition from other land uses?
• Global climate – How can farming and the food sector meet the challenge of climate change without exposing the UK food supply to other environmental and economic shocks?
• Biodiversity and animal welfare – How far can we protect biodiversity and improve the animal health and welfare standards of our food, wherever it is produced, within the terms of our international trade commitments?
• International development – How can our international trade in food best support the wellbeing of people, animals and the environment in poor countries, within the UK and globally?
• Consumers and public health – How can agriculture promote the wellbeing of both people and the environment in the UK and internationally?
• Governance – How can we address the big challenges in sustainable farming and food, yet also give communities, regions and nations greater freedom to pursue their distinctive priorities?

In each case, we discuss whether several problems can be solved at once – capturing ‘win-wins’ – or whether we need to make trade-offs. While these challenges affect us all, we focus in this paper on the pivotal role of Government in shaping the rules and frameworks that can enable farmers, food businesses and citizens to take action.
Once you have read the paper, we would encourage you to respond. You are welcome to email us directly, but we would urge you first of all to contribute to a discussion forum that the Sustainable Development Commission are running. Our paper is contributes to that debate. You can read contributions to the forum and submit your own comments here.
The paper carries a forward by Jonathon Porritt, Chairman of the UK Sustainable Development Commission. Its publication was welcomed by Sir Don Curry, Chair of the UK Sustainable Farming and Food Strategy Delivery Group. Both statements are reproduced in the press release announcing the report.