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See below for our recent press releases. Please contact LWApress@riseup.net with any questions. We are always happy to help with stories, articles, films and interviews relating to our work.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has recently started drawing up a long-term strategy for food and farming. While the Landworker’s Alliance (LWA) agrees that a strategic approach is needed to address the challenges facing food and farming, we are extremely concerned that small-scale and family farmers have been excluded from the process. It is essential that Defra recognise the central role that small-scale and family farmers play in UK food and farming, and responds directly to their needs.
The LWA argues that we cannot create a sustainable future for food within the industrial framework that Defra is currently strengthening. Instead we need a National Food Policy based on food sovereignty principles, that puts power into the hands of people to create a more just and equitable food system. The strategy must focus on providing farmers with viable livelihoods and achieving self sufficiency in food while addressing the key challenges of climate change, soil degradation, an ageing farming population and a lack of access to land and training for new entrants.
The current milk crisis highlights the contradictory approach this food strategy seems to be taking. Milk prices are well below the cost of production and falling further, dairy farmers are being forced out of the industry and Defra are focussing on exports rather than securing viable livelihoods for farmers! The primary aim of agriculture in Britain must be to feed our population with a healthy, balanced diet and you can’t do that without farmers. At a time when 45% of our vegetables and 90% of our fruit are imported it is crazy to focus on developing export strategies rather than increasing domestic production.
LWA and Defra do share common goals. Providing more opportunities for young people to develop farming skills and increasing procurement of British produce in schools and hospitals are two examples. What sets LWA apart is its commitment to putting the needs of people above the desire for profit.
We call on Defra to engage with the LWA as official representatives of small-scale and family farmers in the UK. Defra has the opportunity to show that it is not the puppet of industry, but committed to a democratic debate about the future of our food system.
The LWA is an official member of the international peasant farming movement La Via Campesina that represents 200 million small-scale producers around the world. We campaign for the rights of small-scale producers and lobby the UK government and European Parliament for policies that support the infrastructure and markets central to our livelihoods.
In the UK: Landworkers’ Alliance Press Contact: 07951 060 409
(Overseas + 44 7951 060 409)
For information on LWA and an overview of our Policy Demands, download ‘Feeding the Future’ from our website: http://landworkersalliance.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/feeding-future.jpg
On the eve of the elections, The Landworkers’ Alliance (LWA) condemns the lack of vision in farming manifestos and demands that all political parties address the serious issues facing food and farming in the UK. Among other policy recommendations, the Landworkers’ Alliance asks all parties to commit to drawing up a National Food Policy based on food sovereignty principles, and to pulling out of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
A national food policy must level the playing-field for small-scale producers, improve the supply of high-quality healthy food, increase employment in agriculture, support new entrants to farming and improve UK food security by investing in local production. Political parties must also take stronger positions to protect the ecological basis for UK farming by implementing a comprehensive ban on GM and working to restore our soils.
Sarah Walters, a LWA member said, “It’s saddening that the main parities farming manifestos are so short sighted. We need a government that will commit to addressing the challenge of ensuring UK food sovereignty in the face of climate change, an aging farming population and retail monopolies. We need parties to offer real opportunities for new entrants, and more support for local, ecological production. This is the time for real change, not more of the business as usual approach we are seeing with these manifestos”.
The LWA has published a booklet explaining these policy requests that can be downloaded here: http://landworkersalliance.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Feeding-the-Future-Landworkers-Alliance-A4-low-res.pdf
Last week, the LWA marched outside the British Sugar factory to draw attention to the unfair advantage given to industrial agriculture through UK government policy. Over 50 supporters, joined by Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping, highlighted the need to focus our food policies on people rather than profits.
The LWA is an official member of the international peasant farming movement La Via Campesina that represents 200 million small-scale producers around the world. We campaign for the rights of small-scale producers and lobby the UK government and European Parliament for policies that support the infrastructure and markets central to our livelihoods.
In the UK: Landworkers’ Alliance Press Contact: 07951 060 409
(Overseas + 44 7951 060 409)
For information on LWA and an overview of our Policy Demands, download ‘Feeding the Future’ from our website: http://landworkersalliance.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/feeding-future.jpg
Starts:
The Landworkers’ Alliance (LWA) will be marching from Bury St Edmunds train station to the local British Sugar factory on April 29th at 1pm. Farmers and growers from across the UK will be joined by New York based performance artists Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping to oppose the government’s biased and shortsighted focus on industrial farming. Reverend Billy, Robin Grey and others will give short speeches and performances from 2pm.
British Sugar PLC is a symbol of how broken our current food system is. It is a subsidiary of Associated British Foods, a company worth £12.9 billion that controls all of the sugar beet processing in the UK. Changes to agricultural policy, intensified under the coalition government, have resulted in less support for small-scale producers and a distorted subsidy system that encourages production on large-scale industrial farms.
Bob Sheppard, an LWA member from Sussex, says, “We want to see a subsidy system that supports farmers to get away from big industrial monocultures. The future of farming is in local, healthy, sustainable agriculture and not in the sort of monopoly that British Sugar represents. You can’t grow organic sugar beet in this country and get it processed, and for the beet that is grown, all the profits end up with ABF shareholders anyway. We want the profits to go to local communities”.
At present 90% of fruit and 45% of vegetables consumed in the UK are imported. Small producers are in a strong position to increase domestic production of fruit and vegetables. £3 billion in EU CAP subsidies go to UK ‘agriculture’, and yet farms of under 5 hectares get no subsidies at all. Small scale, ecological farmers provide healthy fruit and veg, grass fed meat and dairy products, arable crops, carbon sequestration, more biodiversity and more employment. That’s what we should be supporting.
The LWA is an official member of the international peasant farming movement La Via Campesina that represents 200 million small-scale producers around the world. We campaign for the rights of small-scale producers and lobby the UK government and European Parliament for policies that support the infrastructure and markets central to our livelihoods.
