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Brexit: a chance to fix the food industry?

The EU Food & Farming policy for the last 30 years has been to subsidise farmers, and the industry, to provide all EU consumers with cheap and plentiful food.

This has resulted in cheaper food but a MAD Food industry where:
– farmers on average only get 9p in every £1 spent on food in the supermarket
– milk is cheaper than water in some shops
– some children think chips grow in trees
– many small farms have sold up and even the most efficient would lose money without the £2.9b annual CAP subsidies.
– most consumers are buying cheap meat from factory farms and wilfully ignoring the low animal welfare and dangers of antibiotic reliance.
– More than two-thirds of UK adults are considered to be overweight or obese

False teeth by the age of 12?

False teeth by the age of 12?

– millions of tonnes of food are wasted
– over half the staples (grain, soya, maize) that could be feeding us, go to cattle, pigs, and poultry. By 2050, on present trends, the world’s livestock will consume enough to feed four billion people.

Perhaps Brexit is a chance to fix our, UK, Food Industry.

So what do we want? And how can we change a £120b industry?

First, in simple terms, the objectives.

We need:

1. Farmers to get a higher percentage of every £1 spent on food. This will encourage them to grow food for local people, for flavour, and the environment
2. Consumers to be enthused about food and where their food comes from.
3. Consumers to make healthy and responsible choices. We need to build on the Jamie Oliver effect!
4. Government to legislate and subsidise correctly

Yes. Legislation and subsidies because we have gone a long way in the wrong direction. Consumers have been disconnected with where their food comes from with marketeers constantly telling them to make the wrong choices. And 5 million years of evolution mean our bodies, via hormones, tell us to eat the wrong food, like more sugar and carbohydrates.

Tasty. And really good for them.

Tasty. And really good for them.

So, how do we achieve the objectives?
1. We must start with schools. Our children must be educated about food all through the school curriculum. Including growing food in a veg patch & cooking. They need to be enthused about good healthy food and influence their parents to change. Please read more and sign our petition click here
2. Provide tax breaks and subsidies to encourage farmers to sell direct to consumers, or to collaborate and sell direct. Therefore reduce the supply chain to give producers a higher percentage of the retail price and allow consumers to trace where their food has come from.
3. Tax unhealthy foods like sugary drinks, trans fats and fast foods
4. Subsidise community agriculture and community food programmes
5. Increase animal welfare standards
6. Tax the use of antibiotics in factory farming
7. Provide a level playing field for organic and non organic farming so that hidden costs such as removing pesticides from water are charged to those responsible
8. Make sure funding is directed towards future UK food & agricultural needs. This includes rare breed livestock to add diverse animals, that can thrive solely on grass, if required. Plant breeding and research to offer an alternative to laboratory GM crops.
Fresh salad crop at rogersparkgardengroup.org

Fresh salad crop at rogersparkgardengroup.org

We welcome more suggestions to add to this list so please feedback below.

If this issue is not dealt with and the food industry gets even worse the nation will become even more unhealthy.

The Brexit battle bus suggested that the current EU funds should be redirected to the NHS. In our opinion if the food industry continues its current trend much more than £2.9b farm subsidy will be needed by the NHS to deal with a very unhealthy population. And if farming is not supported our countryside will suffer and the nation will become heavily reliant on imports.

80% of people say they want local food so let’s get our food from our green, pleasant and fertile land, not imports, factory farms, plastic packets and fast food delivery mopeds.

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