The Agriculture Bill, the first post-Brexit food and farming legislation, is doing the rounds of Parliament at the moment. The current bill requires the government measure and report on “food security” but this definition only relates to global food availability (such as supply chain resilience) and does not include household food insecurity.
Food and farming organisations and MPs are calling on government to include the measurement of household food insecurity as a legal commitment in the Agriculture Bill. Alongside Sustain, the Food Foundation, the Independent Food Aid Network, various academics and MPs, the Food Ethics Council supports this demand.
Dan Crossley said:
“We at the Food Ethics Council strongly support the need to measure household food insecurity on a consistent and regular basis. It’s important to enshrine this in law through the Agriculture Bill. This will allow everyone to track how many are food insecure and to hold the UK Government to account. We want everyone to be able to participate in shaping our food systems for the better, and everyone to have access to enough nutritious, culturally appropriate food.”
The full responses can be found here.