English In our third blog in the series, Bella Thompson and Humphrey Lloyd take a look at the UK supermarket system in light of the India farmer strikes.
Since November 2020, Indian farmers have been on strike in one of the biggest demonstrations in decades. Their opposition centres around three agricultural bills that will deregulate supply chains and allow corporations to enter a fragmented and liberalised market, where they can dictate prices and deals with farmers. The impact of these new laws will play out over generations, and those on strike fear the shift of power and control away from the field and farmers towards processors, buyers and retailers.
A move from a localised, peasant food web to a centralised distribution system is in the making. As we look at the momentous display of social resistance in India, we can reflect on our model of food distribution in the UK. Our food system is dominated by the powerful players that are central to most food supply chains in developed countries: the supermarkets.
Arguments as to whether we should regulate our food supply chains began with the pivotal debates around the corn laws in the mid 19th century, which ultimately saw the victory of the capitalist market place over the long-established feudal system. As a result, the following two centuries have seen a steady move towards a freer and freer market, in which corporations have become increasingly powerful. In the area of retail, it is supermarkets who have come out on top.
Just eight highstreet supermarkets now control around 90% of food retail in the UK, which has allowed them to lower farm gate prices. This means farmers are compelled to work their soils and livestock hard to make ends meet, which inevitably leads to a number of negative environmental consequences. Farming is an expensive business, with constant upkeep costs for land and infrastructure, and producers often end up caught between debt and reduced farm gate prices. This removes their autonomy and burdens them with stress, with more than one farmer a week dying by suicide.
There’s also a cultural dimension to this system of corporate control. As supermarkets lengthen supply chains, consumers become removed from the social and spiritual importance of their food. This leads to a loss in consumer knowledge about what they’re eating, which diminishes their autonomy and undermines their ability to make informed choices. Whilst food on supermarket shelves is cheap and abundant, it masks serious issues. Through the covid crisis, a large national survey carried out by Loopstra found that 16% of the UK population was suffering from some form of food poverty. The cheapest food on offer largely correlates with unhealthy food, which means poverty corresponds with bad diet; our health is impacted by the supermarket’s choice to squeeze supply and control chains.
Although our UK farmers may not have taken to the streets in massive numbers like the producers in India, there is a growing movement seeding itself for the long-term. The movement aims to decentralise our food systems and support small scale food production and local distribution, ensuring access to healthy, affordable food for all. If this past year has shown us anything it is the central role of food and farming to our society: food is an integral part of our daily lives, and our food systems have the power to create communities or cripple them.
In India, entire communities built around small scale farming systems will suffer the same fate as we have in the UK if the government’s agricultural bills are passed, and the market becomes deregulated and dominated by corporations. India’s producers are protesting to protect their farming communities. We should all follow suit: supporting local farming should be central to our global economy because it is what sustains us all.
