The British government released a historic report this week on food policy, setting out the challenges for feeding the country more sustainably in the 21^st century.

‘Food Matters: Towards a Strategy for the 21^st Century' is a broad analysis of how food is produced and consumed, and covers agriculture, transport, retail, consumption and disposal, on both a national and international level. It is, it has to be said, a very impressive piece of work.

The issue from the report that hit the headlines was the issue of waste, which is only a small part of the research, but represents the easiest ‘everybody wins' soundbite. Consumers in the UK currently throw away around a third of the food we buy, a ridiculous statistic considering rising food prices, a global food crisis, the growing problem of landfill and the emissions from rotting waste. Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Monday on the way to the G8 meeting: "If we are to get food prices down, we must also do more to deal with unnecessary demand - such as all of us doing more to cut food waste which is costing the average household in Britain around £8 per week."

The report highlights the irony of complaints over rising prices: "widespread concern about higher prices sits awkwardly alongside evidence showing that consumers throw away 4.1 million tonnes of food that could have been eaten - worth an average of £420 per household - every year." Stopping this waste would have impacts right up the food chain, as a third less food would need to be grown, processed, stored and transported. In total, getting consumers to cut back their food wasting would be equivalent to taking one in five cars off the UK's roads.

Food waste is perhaps the simplest problem to solve in a hugely complex food system. Reading on through the environmental impacts of farming is an eye-opening experience. The food chain is responsible for 18% of the UK's greenhouse gas emissions. These emissions are concentrated at the production end of the food chain, in farming and processing, and then in transportation.

"Food is travelling an increasing distance to our plates," the report found, "because of consumer demand for non-seasonal and non-indigenous foods, as well as the complexity of supply chains." This internal transportation of food is ultimately much more important than the air-freighting of food, despite the higher profile of the latter, sucking up oil and generating 19 million tonnes of CO2 a year. Air freight is significant too of course. Only 1% of food in the UK is flown in, but that accounts for a disproportionate 11% of emissions. It is unfortunately a growing sector.

Not that local food is straightforward - support of farmer's markets and local produce is on the rise, and the report remarks that "the local food movement can play a part in reconnecting consumers with food producers, providing new market opportunities for farmers and small-scale food manufacturers." On the other hand, "'food miles' are a poor indicator of the environmental impact of food products and small-scale production is not necessarily resource-efficient or low-impact." The report reminds us that driving to the supermarket can be just as bad as buying green beans from Kenya, and that tomatoes from Spain are ultimately better than hothouse tomatoes grown out of season in the UK. In fact, the biggest contributor to agricultural emissions is heating for greenhouses.

There's plenty more in the report that's worth mentioning, like the importance of reducing meat and dairy consumption for a more sustainable diet; that there are serious inequalities in access to good food, and that the poor pay proportionally more. It notes that two thirds of the UK's food is sold through four major retailers. It mentions the fact that UK farmers receive £3 billion in subsidies every year. Campaigners have been talking for years about issues surrounding meat consumption, supermarkets, inequality, and subsidies, so it is encouraging to see them formally recognised by the government.

The question now of course, is what the outcomes will be in real policy. Here the conclusions are mixed. One encouraging teaser is the government's role as an example. The public sector serves over a billion meals a year, in hospitals, prisons, cafeterias and so on, and the government has a real opportunity to lead by example, the report suggests. That kind of buying power going toward healthier, more sustainable food could prompt a major shift in demand.  

In more positive news, the report reconsiders biofuels. As explored on Celsias previously, 5% of UK forecourt petrol is now biofuels, with that due to rise to 10% by 2010. Recent developments may force a review of that, and Gordon Brown has already raised the issue with the G8 this week.

Less encouraging however is the government's apparent ongoing commitment to the market. The global market has categorically failed to feed the world. In fact, it has massively undermined the world's ability to feed itself, through the subsidized surpluses of the US and the EU. The trend has been towards larger industrial farms, centralized distribution, and monoculture. In the face of a global food crisis, the future lies in the opposite direction. Building local markets and encouraging greater self-sufficiency, especially in the developing world, is increasingly important. Subsidies could be refocused to support organic farming, seasonal food could be promoted, tariffs levied on air-freighted food and so on. Unfortunately, free trade is still considered an end in itself, and so we continue to push globally for global solutions even while our globalized food chain has so far produced twin epidemics of obesity for some and starvation for others.

Despite its failings, ‘Food Matters' is a ground breaking study, and it deserves greater attention. The report comes from the Strategy Unit of the Cabinet Office, in cooperation with the Department for Health, the Food Standards Authority, and the Department for the Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs. You can read it here. (pdf)

Further Reading:

• How to Slash Your Grocery Bill and Feed the Hungry
• Gallagher Report Slams First Generation Biofuels
• Agricultural Research Funds Dry Up as Hunger Re-Emerges
• Are Biofuels to Blame?
• The Face of Hunger: The Global Food Crises and its Impact on Children
• Bush Aid Package Pushing GMOs
• Orchestrating Famine: A Must Read Backgrounder on the Food Crisis
• World Facing Huge New Challenge on Food Front