Food strategy must bite soon

SIXTY years after Clement Atlee's government published a food strategy, his successors have finally produced another. The modern version contains many relevant and important ideas on farming, food production and nutrition but the fact it took more than half a century to appear is an indictment of the neglect of rural affairs by successive administrations.

So it must be within that context that Defra's document is judged. The strategy, launched by Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary and Leeds Central MP in Oxford today, sets out a detailed description of how the production and consumption of food can be transformed. Now Mr Benn's department has to show it can live up to these fine words.

Prominent among these is the commitment to "unambiguous" country of origin labelling. Domestic farmers have been forced to battle unfair competition, in which foreign meat can be passed off as produced in this country even if it has only been cured or treated here. This is an injustice which the Yorkshire Post's Clearly British campaign has long sought to end.

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Many of the other planned changes, although welcome, clearly reflect the political pressures the Government has faced. The drive for a more responsible promotion of food to children can be traced to the Jamie Oliver effect while the suggestion to sell smaller portions is a long overdue response to the culture of "super-sizing" and all-you-can-eat offers.

While Defra is right to want to reduce the food system's greenhouse gas emissions, this must be done without a drive to get people to adopt vegetarianism, as advocated by Lord Stern, the author of the 2006 review on the economic impact of climate change. Britain's farmers have had a hard enough time over the last decade without having to deal with influential experts undermining their work.

The pledge to cut the regulatory burden for farmers and food producers must be treated with similar caution. To achieve this goal would be a major improvement but it comes from a Government which, along with the EU, has presided over a heavy increase in red tape across several traditional British industries.

Mr Benn has produced some sensible ideas. If they are not put into practice, then his name will be remembered 60 years hence for the wrong reasons.

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