Food - Getting it Right

Food is a fundamental issue for Wales. For thousands of years farming has shaped the lives of rural communities as well as the landscape.

The food system has changed greatly in this time and a debate on the key issues is rightly running, and more questions are now being asked about the entire food system – from farming to fishing, processing to retail, logistics to catering.

What is grown, where and how? How and where is it processed and marketed? What is a fair price? What are its true social and environmental costs?

Supermarkets, as most people’s gate-keepers to the food system today, are realising that their power brings responsibility and exposure. Although supermarkets are beginning to respond to customer demand, our conclusion is that government needs to use its power to make supermarkets do more, faster.

The supermarkets and stakeholders in our research agree that what is required is a clearer ‘direction of travel’.

The tasks ahead require serious action and the case for change is strong. ‘Old’ issues like food security, planning, fishing, farming and health now jostle for attention alongside ‘newer’ issues such as and climate change, car dependency, fair trade and localism. Issues which used to be seen as single issues are gradually being recognised as elements of an entire sustainable development jigsaw.

These issues have to be addressed, without recourse to bland rhetoric such as ‘consumer choice’ or ‘letting markets decide’. As the report shows, government is not nearly as hands-off in this respect as either it or others might sometimes think.

Wales needs to take a long view. For the last 60 years since the 1947 Agriculture Act, the overarching tenet of UK food policy has been to ensure that enough food is available, affordable and accessible.

Today in the era of climate change, oil dependency, looming global water shortage, fish-stock crises, biodiversity and public health challenges, to aim purely for quantity of supply or cheapness at all costs is hopelessly inadequate.

Government or supermarkets alone cannot resolve the challenges ahead, like climate change - only concerted action from government, business and people together will achieve the necessary changes for all our futures.