Pop into the Hub to take action for sustainable food:
The Bad News:
Our current food system is geared towards factory farming, which tries to get maximum food from minimum land-space. This approach is causing problems of diease control amongst animals, poor animal welfare, wasting of resources and environmental damage. Not only is the UK supporting this approach at home, we are forcing it upon the countries we give aid to. Meanwhile, we are wasting huge amounts of the food that we do produce – throwing around a third of all food away without eating it.
The Good News:
Agroecology provides a different, sustainable approach to food production based on small-scale farms in which farmers know the land and their animals, and take good care of them. At the moment, supporting this type of farming is a ‘consumer choice’, which not everyone can afford: a government approach to agroecology could move subsidies to encourage small-scale farmers and shorter food chains, in the UK and internationally.
What Can You Do?
Pop into Peace Hub any weekday to find out more over a friendly chat and a cuppa, and to take action. We’ve got a template letter to write to your MP, asking them to:
- Support an Agroecology Bill;
- Sign Early Day Motion 66 on using waste food from supermarkets;
- Ask International Development Secretary Grant Shapps, to support food soveriegnty in Africa.
Simply sign our template letter, or use it as a guide to write your own message.
Or if you prefer to email your MP, you can send them a message via Write to Them, using our letter as a guide:
Dear MP,
I am writing to ask you to support a positive approach to agroecology and the development of a sustainable and resilient food and farming system.
Our current food production system is not resilient: supply chains are too long and lack transparency and the agricultural practices we have adopted are damaging our soils, wildlife and the environment, reflecting on the nation’s health.
In the long-term, I would like you as my MP to support the development of an Agroecology Bill, along the lines proposed by the Agroecology Alliance (please see www.campaignforrealfarming.org/agroecologybill/). In support of this approach, I bring to your attention the work of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Agroecology.
In the short-term, I ask you to take two actions to support sustainable food practices at home and internationally:
- Firstly to support EDM 66 on compelling supermarkets to make food that would otherwise be wasted available to charities and food banks, including amendment A2, which puts this in a broader context of sustainable food supply-chains,
- Secondly to write to the International Development Secretary, Grant Shapps on my behalf, asking him to stop the UK’s support for the G7 New Alliance, which is channelling UK aid to Africa into corporate investment, instead of small-scale sustainable agroeocology. In particular, please bring to his attention this statement from international civil society: globaljustice.org.uk/civilsocietystatement
Thank you for taking the time to listen to my concerns, I look forward to hearing from you.
Yours sincerely,