UK: The inconvenient truth about food

Food and farming will be in crisis unless governments take global action to create secure ‘food plans’, according to new research launched at the Soil Association’s conference in Bristol. The report, An inconvenient Truth about Food, based on research by City University London, states that the current UK food and farming system is ‘not fit for purpose to meet the challenges of climate change, costlier oil, or for providing a foundation for people’s health’.

Director of the Soil Association, Patrick Holden (picture), is calling for a national campaign to develop a UK food plan, based on sustainable production rather than industrial models based on rapidly depleting and increasingly expensive fossil fuels. The Soil Association are proposing a six-point action-plan to secure sustainable and affordable food supplies of staple foods - sourced from the UK as much as possible. Key points of the plan include soils, energy, sustainable farming, food processing and distribution, diet and health as well as education. The report is available here:

http://www.soilassociation.org