U.K. government issues a 20-year food-and-farming vision report

of the U.K.’s “moral responsibility” to ensure that its consumption does not depend on depleting finite resources in other parts of the world, in its prolific use of palm oil from rainforest countries for example.

Lawrence notes that there are omissions and fudges. The most significant hole in this vision for future food is that it makes no attempt to address the concentrated power structures that determine global food production and thereby the nature of what we eat. She writes that the Conservatives have managed to steal a march on Labor here, pledging to introduce the supermarket ombudsman called for by the Competition Commission two years ago to tackle the unequal power between farmers, suppliers, and the big retailers.

Despite recognizing the critical nature of national food supply, the 2030 strategy commits the government only to limited direct intervention, saying it favors instead voluntary-led approaches. The rhetoric remains that of “consumer choice” when many, even in the industry, now believe that consumers will have to get used to less choice. There are many soothing passages for industry, including a pledge to reduce the burden of regulation on business. The burden instead is to fall considerably on consumers who should waste less food and change their eating habits.

The strategy also fudges the issue of emissions from our high meat consumption, noting it but saying says there is not enough evidence for the government to act further. This contradicts the government’s own adviser, the Sustainable Development Commission, which concluded only last month that the United Kingdom should cut its consumption of meat and dairy from intensive grain-fed systems. The SDC also stressed the need to cut consumption of junk food.

Lawrence writes that the food and farming vision has the government leading by example, which currently looks more of a wish than reality, given how far behind it has fallen in its targets for making public procurement of food more sustainable.

Development charities will be irritated, too, by the emphasis on further liberalization of agricultural markets globally, which they argue often damages food security in developing countries. The strategy does also commit government to the removal of Europe’s own market, distorting Common agriculture policy, but even there some experts are calling for a rethink, saying food is so critical that CAP should not be abolished but recast as a sustainable and secure food policy.

So far here the government is still treading lightly on another controversial area: the greater use of genetic modification. The report sets the goal of getting the public to accept new food science but without spelling out role of GM, which the chief scientist, Sir John Beddington, is instead expected to address in a speech tomorrow at the Oxford Farming Conference.