NFU Vice President Gwyn Jones today pressed home the need for an integrated, cross-government Food Plan when he spoke to the Westminster Food and Nutrition forum.
Addressing the question What Future for UK Farming? Mr Jones explained that January’s Foresight report into food and farming demanded a completely new approach to food production.
He said: "If taken up by the Government, it should mean a less piecemeal, more integrated approach to food production. It should influence what the Chancellor announces in the budget and in his growth plan; what Greg Clark, the Communities Minister, includes in the national planning framework; how the Treasury manages tax simplification; how research councils target research and development funds and what the Government pushes for in Europe on GM feed, pesticide approvals and world trade rules.
"That’s how serious the implications of the Foresight report are. They mean the whole of Government looking at all policy through a ’food lens’. And that needs a food plan."
Looking at what that might mean for the Government, Mr Jones highlighted the need for the future of the CAP to be ’Foresight-proofed’.
"The strategic aims the European Commission has set out to fit the bill are to produce more, impact less and to find ways of mitigating and adapting to climate change. However, I am worried about how the Commission is proposing we meet those aims. Blanket ’greening’ measures, for example, could actually end up with us producing less to impact less. How ridiculous would that be at a time like this?" he added.
