Sustain welcomes the government announcement that work to involve stakeholders is about to start on the long-awaited Food Strategy as a national Food Strategy Advisory Board is appointed.
The government has announced the Food Strategy advisory board, which will have its first meeting on 26 March 2025.
Sustain is delighted to see Anna Taylor, Executive Director of the Food Foundation – a respected and influential Sustain alliance member – appointed to this advisory board. However, it is disappointing to see so little representation from civil society, public health, environment, nature-friendly farmers, food partnerships and pioneers of local and regional action that will be so integral to a national Food Strategy's success. Government will need to ensure that the wider process includes civil society and public interest groups in an inclusive and meaningful way.
Kath Dalmeny, Chief Executive of the Sustain food and farming alliance, said:
“The Food Strategy is welcome and long overdue, to help build a food and farming system fit to feed everyone, restore nature and be resilient to disruption. We want to see an unequivocal focus on improving public health that overcomes the shocking inequalities in our food system arising from low incomes, poor access to healthy, fresh and affordable food, and ubiquitous unhealthy food marketing. This must go hand-in-hand with driving the accelerated transition to agroecological farming and land use, making it easier for farmers to grow the ingredients of a healthy, balanced diet, and find diverse and profitable routes to market, supported by local infrastructure and farmer-focused trading.”
We expect government to manage any conflicts of interest that may arise from representation on the advisory board from mainstream retailers, foodservice companies, intensive meat producers and processed food manufacturers.
Glen Tarman, Director of Policy and Advocacy for Sustain, who commented on an earlier Food Strategy announcement in December 2024, said:
“A good Food Strategy will need widespread support, but the policies needed will not please everyone in the food industry. Too often we have seen measures to build a better food system undermined by lobbying by vested interests, especially from companies producing sugary drinks, factory-farmed meat and highly processed unhealthy foods. They may be resistant to national action to reduce consumption of their products and take decisive action to shift the market to healthier options. Corporate capture of government policy is a real risk. The Food Strategy must be developed wholly in the public interest.”
The government announcement included a commitment to “a more joined-up approach to food policy across government”. It signals that a first meeting has already been held of a new Ministerial Food Strategy Group, chaired by the Defra Secretary of State and including Ministers from the Department for Business and Trade, Department of Health and Social Care, Department for Education, and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. The government said, “This new Ministerial group will provide clear political leadership to drive forward the food strategy agenda and will complement structures at official level to ensure a joined-up approach.”
In Sustain’s long experience of supporting many food strategies at Mayoral and local authority level, and supporting several earlier iterations of nascent national food strategies -- and learning from food strategy work in other countries -- we know that this joined-up, cross-departmental approach is vital to successful adoption and implementation of key food and farming policies. Sustain will be pleased to offer expertise, insights and solutions from our extensive networks across food, nature-friendly farming, public health, local food partnerships, environmental groups and civil society.
The government has promised a wide "engagement strategy which will continue to ensure and demonstrate the joined-up and system-wide approach for the food system, including roundtables with key academics, and planned citizen engagement sessions". Details on what the opportunities for stakeholder engagement are to be made known soon.
The previous government commissioned an independent National Food Strategy review led by Henry Dimbleby, to which Sustain and our alliance members contributed extensively. However, the Conservative government of the time did not follow through with most of the recommendations, cherry-picking a limited number for its own 'strategy' in 2022, which Sustain described as a "feeble to-do list that may or may not be ticked".
Sustain: Sustain The alliance for better food and farming advocates food and agriculture policies and practices that enhance the health and welfare of people and animals, improve the working and living environment, enrich society and culture and promote equity.
