National Food Strategy

Two stories this week which look at the backwash from the new National Food Strategy which has generated little direct interest – sadly. Prince Charles argues for family farms and less intensive agriculture. The report itself is more nuanced. Prince Charles identifies:

Letting small family farms go to the wall will “break the backbone of Britain’s rural communities”, Prince Charles has said.

The focus on producing plentiful and cheap food threatens the survival of the country’s smaller farms, he says.

If they go it will “rip the heart out of the British countryside”, he warns.

The government says it wants to support all farmers and “the choices that they take on their own holdings”.

It comes ahead of the publication of the National Food Strategy, the first major review of Britain’s food system in more than 70 years.

The strategy was commissioned by the government and is headed by Henry Dimbleby, the founder of the Leon restaurant chain.

Thursday’s report will explore the links between food production and environmental degradation including climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution and the sustainable use of resources.

It will include recommendations for the government, which has promised to respond with a White Paper within six months.

The first part of the strategy was published in July last year and highlighted the connection between obesity, poverty and the UK’s high Covid-19 death toll.

The Prince of Wales has been concerned with food and the environment for most of his adult life.

His latest intervention comes in the form of an essay for Radio 4’s Today programme.

In it, he condemns the super-efficient intensive agricultural system that produces much of the food we eat as a “dead end”.