Scotland

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Scotlands Food System at a Crossroads

• David Atkinson
• Food and Drink Leadership Forum
• ACTS Rural Committee

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Food Sovereignty What is It?

• Food at the heart of Policy
• A clear view of where our food will come from
  now and in the future i.e. Climate change type
  issues are embedded, leading to food security.
• An appropriate infrastructure which makes food
  accessible and affordable to all.
• It does NOT require all food to be home produced
  or a production and distribution network under
  state control

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Chatham House Pressures

• Population Increase demand from a rapidly rising
  world population
• Diet The effect of nutrition translation.
• Energy Energy dependence of current systems.
• Land The potential to increase the amount of
  land available to agriculture is limited
• Water Increase in global stresses on available
  water.
• Climate Change Predicted that world agricultural
  GDP output will decline by 16 by 2020.
• Labour a decreased rural population able to
  produce primary produce.

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Chatham House Predictions

• The absolute level of food production worldwide
  is rising.
• Despite this, food prices have been rising
• Although absolute food production is rising,
  world population growth is outstripping the
  increase.
• Measured in terms of days of consumption, world
  grain stocks have now fallen to half the levels
  of the mid-1980s
• In the short run food prices may well fall or be
  volatile, but the underlying supply shortfall
  must be confronted
• Systemic change will eventually be necessary

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The Importance of Scottish Food production

• Food prices have been affected by government
  actions for most of recent history
• The gap between increasing world production and
  world population growth is decreasing
• An approach to the proportion of our food which
  we produce based only on economic factors would
  be unwise
• The aim of producing approaching two thirds of
  our food from our own resources would seem to be
  prudent

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Climate change and Food security

• The impact of agriculture on GHG production
• The impact of land management
• The effects of our choice of agricultural types
• Options for changing resource use and
  externalities
• Home verses overseas production
• Impact on the post farm gate equation

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CO2
Methane
Food
Ruminant Animals
Nitrous Oxide
CO2
Carbon containing inputs
Grassland
Soil Carbon Storage
Fertiliser
CO2
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Scottish Dietary Targets
Fruit vegetables Intake to double to more than 400grams per day

Bread Intake to increase by 45 from present daily intake of 106 grams, mainly using wholemeal and brown breads.

Breakfast Cereals Average intake to double from the present intake of 17 grams per day

Fats Average intake of total fat to reduce from 40.7 to no more than 35.Average intake of saturated fatty acids to reduce from 16.6 to no more than 11
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Meeting dietary targets by home production
Inc. person. per year (kg) Amount for Scotland Th.tonnes inc on current production
Fruit Veg 73 371 117
Bread 174 884 125 (Wheat)
Breakfast cereals 6 32 30 (Oats)
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Are Genetically Modified Crops the Solution to
Current Food Security Problems?
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GM Crop Performance

• The performance of GM crops has varied greatly
  between farms , farmers, crop varieties, regions,
  seasons.
• Institutional factors have a major impact
• Poor farmers have generally not done well from GM
• It isnt the silver bullet some hoped for.

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Some disadvantages of Climate Change genes

• Pleiotropy The ability of a single gene to cause
  unintended physiological changes throughout the
  plant which resulting impact on yield and
  quality. The yield losses of bad years are
  experienced in all years
• Many of the gene patent applications cover a wide
  range of crops e.g. BASF ( US 7,161,063
  environmental stresses in 32 crops

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The biological fixation of N2 is accompanied by
the energetically wasteful reduction of protons
to H2 this represents a wasting of at least 25
of photosynthesis which is used for the fixation
process Minchin, Gordon and Witty (1996)
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Share of UK household expenditure spent on food
and non-alcoholic beverages 2005/2006
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The Contribution of the Supermarkets

• The supermarkets currently dominate the food
  supply market and so are key players in any
  attempt to reduce the price of food or to
  maintain it in periods of market failure. They
  also have a pivotal role in any approach to
  promoting of healthy eating.
• More affluent and better educated groups are more
  likely to use multiple supermarkets and less
  affluent groups more likely to use discount
  supermarkets

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Significant Tensions

• The proportion of the food consumed in Scotland
  which should be produced from our own resources.
• The amount of our land area which should be
  devoted to food production
• The methods which should be employed for food
  production
• The potential for the expansion of organic
  production
• Whether genetic modification has any role in the
  food we produce or import.
• The appropriate level of control exercised by the
  Supermarket sector.
• The future development of electronic food
  marketing relative to the maintenance of
  convenience food stores