Cymraeg Since 1996, April 17th has been a day of resistance and solidarity with peasant struggles worldwide. For this year’s ‘International Day of Peasant Struggles’, and ahead of next Saturday’s ‘Food In Our Hands’ march, LWA’s Jyoti Fernandes explains why now is a crucial time for collective action towards food sovereignty in the UK.
It’s been a dry and sunny spring, beautiful as the blossom bursts on the apple trees. From the farm, it feels tranquil as we cultivate and sow seeds. It feels hard to tear myself away to London, but I will go, and bring a bus of people, and we will have a great time painting placards, making costumes and thinking up slogans.
Farmers across the UK have been discontent with taxes and policies being implemented and turning up in tractors to protest against the removal of Inheritance Tax relief. It’s been exciting to see farmers mobilising at this scale. What has been disturbing to see, however, is Reform UK turning up at the demos, waving their signs in front of tractors and letting spokespeople like Jeremy Clarkson weaponise our countryside, our farmers and our food system to whip up anti-immigration sentiment.
We can’t let these fools divert us from protecting our domestic food security and demanding the right policies to guarantee healthy, affordable, sustainable food for all. For now, and for future generations. This is what we mean when we say we are marching for the Right to Food.
A Right to Food means that all farmers, farmworkers and food producers are guaranteed a decent livelihood for providing for our basic human right to good food for all.
All farmers, farmworkers, growers, food processors and sellers know that getting good food to the people is hard – but they do it – through all kinds of weather and never really knowing if they will get decent financial security for their work.
There are policies which can work together – as a package – to regulate land use and markets for agricultural products so that we get both – affordable food for all and a decent income for farm workers.
These policies range from protectionist trade policies, subsidies (which can also be based on production or labour price, including price support for key food products), land use strategies, support for collective marketing and processing infrastructure, regulation of buyer contracts (supermarkets regularly pay less than the cost of production to farmers), and public procurement.
In the last few decades, the global food system has changed drastically. It used to be normal and important for countries to protect their domestic food supply, and the providers of that food supply, because food security was considered core national infrastructure.
This began to change as food became a part of the global market system and countries were encouraged, or in many cases, forced to remove the policies they had in place to protect farmers. The World Trade Organisation has forced the removal of important Right to Food policies. Domestic policies adopted so that countries can enter into free trade agreements have also made it harder to use right to food policies.
Most of this change has been driven by large food corporations wanting to profit from our food system. This corporate controlled globalised food system is who we should be fighting, yet the right wing wants us to blame migrants for the problem.This is the point where we say “Don’t kick down, kick up” it’s time to change the system!
Food has steadily become subject to the whims of the volatile global market, a trend that has made it incredibly difficult, if not impossible, for farmers to get a fair price for what they produce. Farmers are frustrated, and we have seen that much of this frustration has been directed towards those most vulnerable in our food system. It’s the removal of fundamental Right to Food policies that have caused this mess.
We are not advocating for the sorts of tariffs advocated for by Donald Trump, those are designed to consolidate power for American corporations. When we talk about ‘protectionist’ policies, we mean policies which prevent imports of food products which can be produced here to high animal welfare and environmental standards. If lower standards products come into the UK at a lower price it undercuts the vision we have for a sustainable and fair food system.
We are at a point in history where, because of climate change, it is becoming harder and riskier to produce than ever before. This means that it is more important now than ever for the Government to recognise food sovereignty as core national infrastructure, and implement Right to Food policies appropriate for this era.
This Government is in the process of creating a land use framework, a roadmap for British farming and a strategy for national food security. It’s a huge opportunity to make our voices heard as the future of our food system in the UK moves forward. Across the UK, we can have policies which support our independent, agroecological farms as the backbone of our food supply, in a way that all farmworkers are paid and treated fairly, we can have healthy food accessible and affordable to all, no matter where you live or how much money you have at the same time. But in order to make this happen we need to take back control of our food system.
Anyone who grows, distributes, prepares or eats food – together all of us have a stake in the food system. Whether you are a worker in the food system, parents wanting affordable, nutritious food for your children, or you want to support farming that produces good food and works in harmony with the earth; this is a critical time for us all to come together.
We need to come together, to know we exist as a strong and vibrant and diverse movement, to share ideas and visions for a food system based on food sovereignty and the Right to Food. And we need to act collectively towards implementation of these policies.
It won’t be easy, we are fighting a powerful global economic trajectory, but together we can fill the cracks emerging as the system breaks apart, with seeds, joy and knowledge that together we can create, not just a better food system, but a vibrant, regenerative future.
Join us next Saturday in London for ‘Food In Our Hands’ to raise our voices in unison, and demand the systemic transformation of our food system underpinned by a Right to Food for all.
When?
Saturday April 26th @ 1pm
Where?
Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, London
Then marching on Defra via the Home Office
Find out more here.
Header image: Joel Davies
