Say no to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (#TTIP) urges War on Want executive director John Hilary

For the proponents of ‘free trade’, cheaper jeans and beef, as a headline in an article in the Times today suggests, are enough to justify the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and the various other such partnerships across the Pacific and between the EU and Canada in the pipeline.

Not so, argues John Hilary, executive director of War on Want, who was speaking at Hebden Bridge Trades Club on Valentine’s day. I went along to hear him argue that far from a consumer cornucopia arising from such deals, their secretive, undemocratic negotiations are all for the benefit of big business on both sides of the Atlantic. Their agenda is about deregulation, privatisation and giving companies the ability to sue governments seeking to enact health, food and environmental legislation and threaten hard fought for food standards in Europe amongst many other things. Here’s what he had to say:

After his talk, he discussed a wide range of questions. Here are his answers on a wide range of issues that were brought up: Fracking, time frames, the NHS, food, strategic geo-politics, the co-op movement, media coverage, core labour standards and race to bottom, internationalism and vision of world we want, the 1% against the 99%, people power, politics and trade unions and local councils.

It is not just in the UK and Europe that opposition to TTIP is growing but in the US too, as a new video “Fast Track to an Empty Basket”, from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, shows. The trade agreements, say IATP, allow agribusiness and other global corporations to undermine food safety standards, local food efforts such as Farm to School and GMO labelling.

Smallholder innovation for resilience in the face of climate change – reports from China, India, Kenya and Peru.

“Understanding the coping and risk-management strategies of farmers who are already facing extreme climatic stresses and variation will be useful in developing strategies that can be adopted by other farmers who will face similar challenges in the future” according to a new report – Coping with Climate Change: The Roles of Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture launched last month (download here) from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). The report launch coincided with the 15^th session of the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (CGRFA-15) in January 2015.

I was in Rome for that meeting and a side event that gave examples from four countries – China, India, Kenya, and Peru – of just how some farmers are being innovative in response to just such challenges. The speakers were presenting their findings at the halfway point in an EU-financed project “Smallholder Innovation for Resilience: Strengthening innovation systems for food security in the face of climate change” (SIFOR).

Krystyna Swiderska introduced the session with a brief overview of the project.

You can see her slides here

Ajay Ratogi talked of their findings on biocultural innovation in the central and eastern Himalaya in India, including the farmer who bred a large variety of radish – in picture

You can see his slides here

Alejandro Argumedo examined the responses to global challenges in the Potato Park in Peru

You can see his slides here

Yiching Song, whose project areas I’ve had the chance to visit and discussed in earlier blogs, discussed the major findings and action in community-based genetic resources conservation and management in SW China, including the creation of a new farmer seed network.

You can see her slides here

Unlike the other project areas in China, India and Peru, the work in Kenya is located near the coast. Chemuku Wekesa described the adaptations to climate change being made by the Mijikenda community.

You can see his slides here

After the presentations there was a chance for questions from the audience at the well-attended side event and you can hear them (but not quite from the start) here:

Food Security Governance – Empowering communities, regulating corporations. A new book by Nora McKeon

While I was in Rome this week I met Nora McKeon who’s just published a new book on how we manage our food systems. I took the chance to ask her to outline the key aims of the book and you can hear her here:

As she says in the introduction to the book:

“Food is the most basic of human needs. Maintaining a proper supply of it is essentially what food governance is about, and failure to do so provokes serious consequences. One to which governments are particularly sensitive is that of insurrection. The Roman historian Suetonius reports that it was the unpleasant experience of being pelted with bread crusts by an angry mob in the forum in 51 AD that prompted the Emperor Claudius to institute the most comprehensive food supply system the Roman empire ever knew, ranging from bread distribution to more complex measures like offering inducements to ship owners to fill their vessels with grain and planning a new port for Rome. Unsustainable – and often iniquitous – food systems are said to have contributed to the fall of a host of illustrious societies. The Sumerian civilization succumbed to a combination of technical problems (soil salinity caused by poorly drained irrigated soils) and political issues (the growing power of the priestly caste, who vested in themselves ownership of previously common land). The opening act of the uprisings that toppled the French Ancien Régime was the women’s march on Versailles on 5 October 1789 sparked by the high prices of bread in themarket places. In a positive vein, three centuries of stability in the far-flung Chinese Empire of the Great Qing, embracing the same period as the French Revolution, can be attributed at least in part to deliberate policies aimed at keeping rural producers on the land and ensuring food distribution when needed through a vast network of locally-supported granaries.”

She says that “Now is the time to focus on food governance not only because we are getting very close to the absolute ecological, socio-economic and political limits of today’s unsustainable and inequitable food system, but also because there are alternatives out there. If we have the courage to say “no” to the dominant food system we are not jumping off a cliff into a pollyana dream world of pre-capitalist pastoral utopia. Over the past three decades a robust, diversified and increasingly articulated network of different ways of going about food provision have sprung up, rooted in territories and cultures throughout the world. Sometimes they are not “alternative” at all, since they constitute the main avenue through which peoples’ food needs are met, as in the case of the “invisible” food webs composed of family farmers and local markets in Africa. These solutions are practiced and advocated by increasingly authoritative organizations of peasant farmers, artisanal fisher folk, pastoralists, Indigenous Peoples, urban poor and other constituencies most affected by food insecurity. They are mobilizing around their experiences and their claims at all levels, up to the global. Many of them identify with what has become known as the food sovereignty movement. This book will tell their story, along with that of the dominant food system.”

Incredible Edible Todmorden celebrates with French guest who offers a five step method for starting your own Incredible Edible

It’s changed lives, is changing education and is spreading round the world with remarkable speed. Especially when you consider it was just an idea in a little town in the South Pennines just over seven years ago. It’s Incredible Edible Todmorden. A citizen action led project to rebuild communities and create jobs by working through food.

Food that grows in public and private spaces around towns and cities, where you can just come and take what you like when you need to. Something, as the initially sceptical policeman addressing this celebration of their achievements, said was pretty amazing. You could go outside the police station, pick and take away fruit and vegetables that didn’t belong to you and even be encouraged to do so by the police inside.

Listen to  the various people involved talk about what’s been going on, including the sceptical policeman:

Many of those involved in the project gather in what Pam Warhurst, a co-founder with Mary Clear, described as a greenhouse at the back of the high school. It is actually far more than a greenhouse. As well as providing a place where students from the school come to grow things it is the home to a social enterprise that developed out of the initial project called the Aquaponics Lab.

This Lab is a cross between a fish farm and greenhouse growing plants without soil using hydroponics. Moreover, this research and development project, which attracted over half a million pounds in funding, is being done in an open source manner, sharing all the lessons, good and bad, with others as it goes along. Just as the open source computer community does. Take a tour round the lab – Aquaponics for the common good – with Paulo:

The special guest for the evening, Catherine Simon, had come over from France where she is the national coordinator for the over 400 Incredible Edible communities in France and the international coordinator for Incredible Edibles that now exist in around 25 countries. She describes the five step plan they share with anyone wanting to start one where they are – in under 2 minutes:

Making crops use water more effectively and making life better for farmers – twin goals for Prof J Zhang

In 2008, the journal Nature called him one of the five crop researchers who could change the world. His name is Jianhua Zhang, and today he is Professor of Plant Biology in the School of Life Sciences and Director of State Key Laboratory of Agrobiotechnology at The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

His office is a long way from both his origins and where his research finds application. When I met him there, we discussed both his work on how plants use water and ways to make them grow with less water as well as what drives him personally to do the kind of work he does.

Water is a key issue in China – with shortages in some parts of the country resulting in desertification and a surfeit in others where floods would happen if they did not grow rice. Using water wisely, then, is a crucial challenge – in rice it involves an alternate wetting and drying system but in the drylands of the Northwest partial root zone irrigation is key. Things have changed greatly during his lifetime, as he explains, from the famine and hunger during the Cultural Revolution to today. In this first part of the interview he focuses on the science he has been involved with.

In this second part of the interview he talks more personally about what lies behind his passion for this work, drawing on the history of his family and their experiences over the last 50 years or so, when during his childhood an estimated 30-50 million people died of starvation. He then reflects on what he’ll do in the future, the need to make farming greener, the role of food imports, the constraints on production in China and meat consumption.

See also my earlier China vignette blogs.

Hear the launch of #FeedingBritain report by the All-Party Inquiry into Hunger in the UK

After a blaze of publicity yesterday and in front of TV cameras today, the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Hunger in the United Kingdom was launched this morning in Parliament. You can hear a full recording of the launch event here:

Copies of the report and evidence are now available on their website. They are strongly critical of the poverty premium, whereby poor people pay more for basic services such as gas and electricity. They also criticise the way benefits and claimants are treated and low wages for those in work.  One of their most controversial conclusions calls for institutionalising the growing number of food banks.

Elizabeth Dowler, Professor of Food & Social Policy, Department of Sociology, University of Warwick, who gave evidence to the Fabian Commission on Food and Poverty, which I chair (#foodandpoverty), while welcoming publication of the APPG report commented that:

“The creation of a new institution (‘Feeding Britain Network’) whose task is ‘tackling hunger’ through giving people ‘food waste’ is deeply questionable, on efficacy, democratic and social justice grounds. The strong evidence cited by the report of stigma, distress and shame among those having to ask for food and other help, and the equally important needs of those with disabilities, special dietary needs or other conditions, are ignored in the proposed response.

The proposals essentially use one of society’s food problems (a food system which relies on surplus production – aka ‘waste’) to address another (people cannot afford to buy enough food because of inadequate or uncertain pay and/or social security benefits).

We must not lose sight of justice: ‘food waste’ cannot and must not be seen as the solution to ‘food poverty’.”

Leading Canadian researcher, Prof Graham Riches, argued strongly against seeing food banks as any solution to dealing with food and poverty, in an interview I did with him recently. He urged governments to fulfil their obligations under international law to respect, protect and fulfil the right to food.

At the non-party, independent Fabian Commission, we are looking more broadly from a food system perspective at the relations between food and poverty – see also my blog. Our first hearing in November covered money and affordability, and the second, tomorrow Dec 9^th, covers context and access. Further hearings in early 2015 will cover health, environment, the supply chain and society. We will be drawing on the evidence gathered by the APPG but very much welcome the submission of further evidence.

In the Fabian Commission, we are also working with a group of people in Manchester directly affected by food poverty throughout the life of the Commission and connecting with their and others’ lived experiences of the links between food and poverty.

Brazil’s latest dietary guidelines aim to tackle both under and over nutrition and warn of dangers of ultra processed foods and advertising

“The main diseases that currently affect the Brazilians are no longer acute but chronic”, according to the Ministry of Health’s introduction to the recently published 2^nd edition of the ‘Dietary Guidelines for the Brazilian Population”.

“Despite the impressive decrease in malnutrition in children, micronutrient deficiencies and chronic malnutrition are still prevalent in vulnerable population groups, such as Indians, Maroons, and children and women living in vulnerable areas. At the same time, Brazil is experiencing a significant increase of overweight and obesity in all age groups and chronic diseases are the leading cause of death among adults. Now, one in two adults and one in three Brazilian children are overweight,” says the Ministry.

The guidelines, which were developed after extensive public consultation, are built around five key principles:

1. Diet is more than intake of nutrients
2. Dietary recommendations need to be tuned to their times
3. Healthy diets derive from socially and environmentally sustainable food systems
4. Different sources of knowledge inform sound dietary advice
5. Dietary guidelines broaden autonomy in food choices

Some of the key messages in the guidelines are:

• Make natural or minimally processed foods the basis of your diet.
• Use oils, fats, salt, and sugar in small amounts for seasoning and cooking foods and to create culinary preparations
• Limit the use of processed foods, consuming them in small amounts as ingredients in culinary preparations or as part of meals based on natural or minimally processed foods.
• Avoid ultra-processed foods—such as packaged snacks, soft drinks, and instant noodles.

They propose a golden rule: “Always prefer natural or minimally processed foods and freshly made dishes and meals to ultra-processed foods”

As well as talking about how foods come together into meals the guidelines also talk about the best ways make the most of food:

“Eating regularly and carefully – Always when possible, eat daily meals at similar times. Avoid ‘snacking’ between meals. Eat slowly, with full attention, and enjoy eating without engaging in another activity.

Eating in appropriate environments – Always prefer to eat in clean, comfortable, and quiet places, and where there is no stimulus to consume unlimited amounts of food.

Eating in company – Prefer eating with family, friends, or colleagues. At home, share in acquisition, preparation, cooking, and arrangements before and after eating.”

The recommendations are “based on the actual diets of a substantial proportion of Brazilian families, whose diets are based on natural or minimally processed foods and dishes and meals made with these foods”.

Even so, the last of the five chapters recognizes following the recommendations may not be easy and identifies six general obstacles to doing so:

1. scarcity of reliable information,
2. problems of supply of healthy foods,
3. the relatively high cost of some perishable foods,
4. the loss of culinary skills,
5. lack of time, and
6. incessant advertising and promotion of ultra processed foods, especially to children and young people.

The last of the 10 tips they close on links to that final point:

“BE WARY OF FOOD ADVERTISING AND MARKETING

The purpose of advertising is to increase product sales, and not to inform or educate people. Be critical and teach children to be critical of all forms of food advertising and marketing.”