The last UK Government disappointed almost everyone with a food 'strategy' that failed to deliver meaningful change. It’s critical that we don’t let the same thing happen again.
In December last year, The Vegan Society joined hundreds of other organisations in a hastily arranged webinar by Steve Reed, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. At the event, the minister announced that the government would be developing a new food strategy, designed to meet four goals:
- achieve UK food security
- reduce impacts on climate and nature
- grow the economy
- ensure people can access, afford and eat healthy food
This was, in principle, welcome news. Our food system is broken. Poor diet drives illnesses costing hundreds of thousands of lives and billions in health service costs, our food and farming systems are pumping out emissions and pollution and devastating nature, and millions of people in one of the world’s richest countries cannot afford to eat. And, of course, our food system is responsible for the needless suffering and deaths of billions of animals every year.
If the government were to put its weight behind a transition away from animal-based foods towards healthy, sustainable plant-based foods, that would go a very long way towards fixing the system and meeting its goals. This isn’t just The Vegan Society’s view – in fact, almost every respected, independent health and environmental organisation in the UK thinks the same thing: when it comes to what we eat, more plants and less animals is the way forward.
Other governments are already acting to achieve that shift, including Denmark, and, just last week, Switzerland. While we can’t honestly expect any government to back a vegan diet at this point in time, we can and must ensure that the new food strategy delivers on plant-based.
The story so far
No one in the know was opening the champagne after the minister’s announcement, however, because we have been here before. The last government also promised a food strategy, and even commissioned an independent report to develop one. The resulting plan was almost universally welcomed when it was published in 2021 as a radical but practical and achievable roadmap to a better system. The government diverted, and came up with such a severely diluted version that it satisfied no one – our response called it “hard to swallow”.
Enthusiasm for the new strategy announcement was further tempered when the months following the announcement saw no developments whatsoever, with no indication of what the government intended to do in order to formulate a strategy or what timetable it was working to. How could organisations and the public be able to get involved in something so fundamentally important? Nobody knew.
In March we got our first indication, and it wasn’t a promising one. The government announced a Food Strategy Advisory Board to “advise on a clear vision and framework for change”. The problem? It was packed with food industry figures, with no environmental experts, only one person from a food charity, only one independent public health expert, no one representing horticulture and, scandalously, one of the biggest factory farming companies in the UK given a seat at the table. Even the fact that Cranswick’s planning application to build housing for three-quarters of a million chickens and 14,000 pigs on one farm in Norfolk had been greeted with more than 10,000 objections, didn’t deter the government from appointing its chair to the advisory board. (In very good news, the planning application was turned down on environmental grounds shortly after.) Very recently, horrific abuse of pigs and piglets has apparently been revealed by undercover investigators at a Cranswick pig farm – who nevertheless remain on the advisory board.
As the sole representative from a charity appointed to the board, Anna Taylor of The Food Foundation, diplomatically expressed it:
“it is far from ideal that more than half of [the board’s] members have vested interests in the very companies whose practices need to change to deliver a healthier and more sustainable food system. Members of the Board will have direct access to the Minister leading the strategy and many other key food system sectors are not represented at all.”
The Vegan Society amplified the howl of disappointment greeting the announcement – including from farmers – by working with friendly MPs to challenge the government through parliamentary questions. In response, the government has been at pains to claim there will be plenty of other opportunities for experts and organisations to get involved. In fact, The Vegan Society will be taking part in one of four government-sponsored workshops on 21 May, which is a strong vindication of our credibility with the government. However, beyond an as yet hazily defined promise of a Citizen’s Panel, how the general public, including TVS supporters, can get involved is still not clear.
Take action
Government support for a transition to more plant-based diets could be transformative and we must not let this critical opportunity go by. The Vegan Society is already working with colleagues in other organisations in preparation for the government’s next steps and as soon as we have information about how people can get contribute to the development of the strategy, we will let all our supporters know.
In the meantime, there are two things you can do.
First, please sign the parliamentary petition posted by Ecotricity founder and vegan campaigner, Dale Vince, calling for the government to back plant-based foods, not meat and dairy. Parliamentary petitions trigger a response from the government once they reach 10,000 signatures, and are considered for parliamentary debate if they reach 100,000. The petition is a powerful way to let the government know that people want plant-based.
Second, contact your MP. Many will be unaware of the food strategy and unaware of its importance. Please ask them to press the government to fully back plant-based foods in its strategy, as Denmark and Switzerland have already done. Share our policy manifesto with your MP – find out more about how to contact your MP
The views expressed by our bloggers are not necessarily the views of The Vegan Society.
