Food systems are key...

Many people understand that there is a crisis with our climate and our food system that can only be solved when we change how we manage the natural environment and conserve the resources at our disposal. It is clear that our food economy and the ecology on which it depends are tightly bound together.

Reports that have surfaced in recent times on different ways to model global warming and our food system only go to underline the facts – that significant environmental degradation and social degradation through avoidable dietary disease are two sides of the same coin.

For us to truly create a resilient and enduring food system we must address multiple challenges simultaneously – we have to adopt a systems approach by addressing food waste both in terms of food discarded but also in terms of nutritionally poor food offers. We also need to move to a net carbon output from human activities and conserve our increasingly limited resources while protecting and fostering biological diversity.

At OF&G we know that organic farming is a systems-based approach to producing good food. It is not the only system available, but it is a proven model of successful food production that can sustain soils and biodiversity, mitigate against global warming, protect water resources and deliver excellent animal welfare while supporting farmers’ livelihoods.

Organic farming is a method for producing food with ecology at its core. We need more farmers to produce food by cycling nutrients and building resilience.

When it comes to eating meat we support a good food economy based on a whole system approach and not prescriptive solutions. All farms are different but grazing livestock holds the key to soil health and climate change. Whether you choose to eat them is an individual choice, but we need them on our fields!

OF&G will continue to press for joined-up policies that address the simultaneous challenges of delivering a food system for future generations within the confines of a finite world.

We will stay true to our organic aims and we are prepared to put in the hard yards to show people that the future can be much better, not just less bad.