The BDA Trade Union believes in the necessity of ensuring food security and sustainability. Please find below the motion that we successfully passed at TUC Congress regarding Food Security and Sustainability.
Congress is concerned that the UK has no food policy and that the health gap between rich and poor is heavily associated with diet and food costs. Cheaper prices and more food banks is not a reasoned policy response.
Food security combines the politics of population growth, diet, the globalisation of food production and distribution with the limitations of soil, water, land use availability and climate change. Nearly 800 million people across the world are undernourished and about two billion are deficient in key micro nutrients. There is an increasing demand for food from a growing population, and a challenged food system that is already stressed by the degradation of global ecosystems.
Congress believes:
i. The food system is already dominated by huge food companies and Brexit must not be an opportunity for further corporate capture of market power.
ii. The UK must ensure that whatever the outcome of Brexit the food system is firmly shaped by values of justice and decency, good quality and safety.
iii. Our global industrial food system should no longer be entirely dependent on the use of cheap external inputs. Particularly petrol, pesticides, fertilisers and cheap labour.
Congress calls on the General Council to campaign for global access to sustainable diets that:
a. minimise environmental impact
b. ensure food and nutrient security
c. promote health for present and future generations
d. protect biodiversity and ecosystems
e. are culturally acceptable and affordable
f. are nutritionally adequate, safe and healthy.