Last week's Programme for Government announcement reflected the lack of commitment to a Good Food Nation Bill that the Scottish Government has been promising for years. Vicki Swales, RSPB Scotland's Head of Land Use Policy, explores the reasons why new food legislation is crucial.
Why nothing less than a new food law will do
For the past two years the Scottish Government has been promising to bring forward a new law to drive change in our food system – a Good Food Nation Bill. So far, we’ve seen little progress. Last week’s Programme for Government said only that a Good Food Nation Programme will be published this autumn and will seek views on ‘…what legislative measures might be required’. This is far from a firm commitment.
It is difficult to see why Government is on such a go-slow when there is so much to be gained from introducing what could be a truly ground-breaking piece of legislation. Get it right, and there’s a real opportunity to tackle obesity and other diet related ill health and ensure everyone in Scotland has access to enough nutritious, healthy food. The wages and working conditions of those working in the food sector, including farmers and farm workers, could be much improved. And the environmental impacts of our food system - from declines in wildlife to climate warming greenhouse gas emissions – could be greatly reduced.
It’s those environmental effects of our food system that brought RSPB Scotland to the Good Food Nation table. But we know that the environmental challenges around food can’t be addressed in isolation. Food is at the heart of so many of today’s great societal challenges – but also offers a solution to them – and we need to work together in common cause. That’s why RSPB Scotland has been working with the Scottish Food Coalition* for the last few years, calling for an overhaul of our food system and setting out how a new law could drive the changes we so desperately need.
Safeguarding our natural environment must be central to any new law. In many parts of Scotland, High Nature Value farming is still commonplace and needs supporting to enable it to continue. But such farming is under increasing pressure and elsewhere more intensive forms of agriculture are dominant. Modern farming methods such as the use of pesticides and fertilisers and intensive livestock rearing and crop production methods can have significant impacts on wildlife and landscapes and on our climate. At the same time, food production itself is already being challenged by climate change, as witnessed during this summer’s hot weather and drought. We need wildlife and climate friendly farming - including organic and other agro-ecological farming methods - to become the norm and a clear definition of sustainable agriculture to be adopted.
Beyond the farmgate, processors and retailers ensure we have greater food choices than were imaginable fifty years ago. But these choices come at an environmental cost and often entail energy and water intensive processes and the increasing transportation of food from one end of the country to the other and beyond. Most shocking of all is that throughout the food chain, from farms to households, approximately 30% of all the food produced is wasted. In Scotland that amounts to 630,000 tonnes of waste each year from households alone. This is expensive, increases the amount of land we need to grow food, and creates harmful greenhouse gases.
In the face of so many problems, it can seem daunting. But the good news is that we already know very many of the solutions. If we can adopt them at scale so that green farming becomes the norm, food processing and distribution is localised and diversified, and we are helped to make less impactful choices as consumers, we can make real progress. Everyone can act but we need Government to show leadership and drive the changes needed, legislating to stop bad practices and incentivising good practices. A Good Food Nation means so much more than a narrow aspiration to grow food and drink exports or protect products of defined origin, as valuable as those are. That’s why we need a far-reaching food law – bring on the Good Food Nation Bill and do it now.
*The Scottish Food Coalition is a civil society coalition working for food justice. We want to transform our food system in Scotland so that it contributes to everyone's health and wellbeing, values the work to put food on our plate, supports high animal welfare, and sustains our wildlife, natural resources and environment for generations to come.