The Introduction of thousands of tonnes of glyphosate in the food chain - an evaluation of glyphosate tolerant soybeans

Glyphosate-tolerant (GT) soybeans dominate the world soybean market. These plants have triggered increased use of, as well as increased residues of, glyphosate in soybean products. We present data that show farmers have doubled their glyphosate applications per season (from two to four) and that residues of late season spraying of glyphosate (at full bloom of the plant) result in much higher residues in the harvested plants and products. GT soybeans produced on commercial farms in the USA, Brazil and Argentina accumulate in total an estimated 2500–10,000 metric tonnes of glyphosate per year, which enter global food chains. We also review studies that have compared the quality of GT soybeans with conventional and organic soybeans. Feeding studies in Daphnia magna have shown dose-related adverse effects (mortality, reduced fecundity and delayed reproduction) of glyphosate residues in soybeans, even at glyphosate concentrations below allowed residue levels. We argue that GT soybeans need to be tested in fully representative and realistic contexts. However, the current risk assessment system has only required and received data from field trials with beans that were sprayed with much lower doses of glyphosate as compared to contemporary commercial farms. This has left knowledge gaps and a potentially serious underestimation of health risks to consumers.publishedVersio

Brexit food safety legislation and potential implications for UK trade: the devil in the details

The Government’s approach, as set out in the EU Withdrawal Act (2018), is to transfer EU law into UK law and address any ‘deficiencies’ in that law (such as references to EU institutions) by secondary legislation. • This has resulted in a large body of new food safety legislation that replaces EU legislative processes and institutions with those of the UK. • Detaching UK food safety regulation from EU bodies, while maintaining agricultural and food systems that are no less harmful to the environment and public health, is a challenging task. This is because the UK must develop capacities, competencies and procedures that have not been required or available domestically for many years.• It is thus implausible to suggest, as the Government argues, that new UK food safety laws constitute minor technical changes and avoid ‘new legal frameworks’.• Further, this new legislation gives ministers powers to change retained EU law without any primary legislation in the future. Only primary legislation provides Parliament with adequate time and opportunity to scrutinise and amend proposals; it also allows for wider consultation and public participation.• There is tension between the regulatory divergence that these Statutory Instruments (SIs) permit and the imperative to maintain open borders within the UK. Empowering devolved nations to change food safety legislation could complicate trade in agricultural and food products within the UK.• Devolved food safety standards could also undermine the UK’s ability to take a unified approach to external trade negotiations.• Powers for ministers to change retained EU law further weaken Parliament’s already tenuous ability to oversee external trade agreements

A food Brexit: time to get real

The implications of Brexit for food are potentially enormous. This verdict applies, whether there is a ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ Brexit. The UK food system, consumer tastes and prices have been thoroughly Europeanised. This will be impossible to cut out or back by March 2019 without enormous consequences. The UK food system faces real challenges on food security. This paper summarises 15 major issues on which Food Brexit has the potential to threaten UK food resilience and security: 1. Vision. What goals would any new post-EU food system have? Will these address the looming sustainability challenge which is a mix of ecosystems, social and public health challenges? 2. New food legislation will be needed. Will this be a transfer of EU legislation followed by the Secretary of State sitting with his or her 'delete’ button? 3. Food security. The UK’s home production has been steadily declining. The UK food system ought to be improving its resilience. It isn’t. It’s like the rabbit caught in the headlights – with no goals, no leadership, and eviscerated key ministries. 4. Sourcing. The UK derives much of the food vital for health – fruit and veg – from within the EU. The pound sterling has been dropping. Food price inflation is rising. 5. Public support. Clarifying and then aligning what British consumers say they want with what is negotiated by March 2019. 6. Food quality and standards. Brexit campaigners ignored the inbuilt reliance the UK has on pan-European institutions, to which we contribute. A vast array of institutions and scientific infrastructure keeps UK food fit to eat. Brexit campaigners did not inform consumers/voters that US agribusiness is salivating at the prospect of selling foods which have weaker standards, nor that foods derived on world markets use standards which are weaker than the EU’s and those of the USA. 7. Replacing the Common Agricultural Policy and Common Fisheries Policy. The CAP and CFP are core and old EU policies. They have been much attacked in the UK, often for good reason. Leaving CAP and the CFP exposes a vast policy vacuum. The new Secretary of State has made a statement about even tearing up the CFP predecessor the London Fisheries Convention from 1964! The Coalition and subsequent Conservative Governments provided no policy vision other than a belief that Agri-technology and an export drive will suffice for farming, and that reasserting a 200-mile exclusion will resolve unsustainable fish sourcing. They will not. What’s the point of farming and fishing? How can they mix food production and ecosystems services? These are vital issues for the era of climate change and ecosystem stresses. 8. Food labour. The entire UK food system is dependent on migrant labour. UK food manufacturing is our largest manufacturing sector but one third of its workforce is migrant. UK horticulture has massive dependency on migrants to pick ‘British’ food UK consumers say they want. Technology will not replace the vast army of migrant labour who work in food service. 9. Subsidies. HM Treasury and Defra have long been ideologically opposed to subsidies for farmers yet CAP/EU subsidies provide about half of UK farm incomes. The Conservative manifesto talked of maintaining subsidies until 2022. Then what? Defra and HM Treasury are committed to cutting ‘Pillar 1’, implying that if there are to be any subsidies, the base line for them would be the existing 20% that goes to Pillar 2. The subsidy question exposes the shameful inequalities within the UK food system. Primary growers get a tiny percentage of what consumers spend on food. 10. National and regional food policy. The UK has no food policy. Scotland and Wales have been developing their own visions; England is the problem. Seen collectively, the UK will have a dwindling mishmash of policies, once EU frameworks are removed. The UK has fairly consistently failed to contribute positively in EU debates, playing to the corporate gallery at home, arguing for cutting subsidies, rather than working hard inside for progressive policies. The world’s food system faces immense challenges. The drift in and after a Brexit is the worst policy situation imaginable. We have options. This paper explores some options mooted within and beyond government circles: a new imperialism (expecting others to feed us); reinvigorating UK food systems; commitment to sustainability; and more. 11. Relationships with neighbours. The wild talk before, during and since the Referendum ignores geography. The EU 27 member states are our neighbours. They are incredulous at the hostile, stupid talk from leading politicians. British negotiators must build bridges. Or does the UK really want hostility? This would be madness for a country which does not feed itself. 12. Divided Food Britain. The UK is a food divided country. The health gap between rich and poor is heavily associated with diet and food costs. Recent events underline how important it is to tackle these divisions. Merely promising ever cheaper prices or more food banks is not a reasoned policy response. 13. Institutions and infrastructure. The UK enters Brexit negotiations in a weak situation. The Food Standards Agency is a shadow of its former self. Defra has had years of cuts and suffers a serious staff shortage, just when the UK needs many of the best and brightest civil servants to negotiate the most important element of Europeanisation – our food. To leave the EU would sever the UK from many bodies which underpin food – from scientific advisory bodies to regulators, from research programmes to subsidies to regions. What is going to replace these? There is silence from Defra and the Government. 14. The negotiations. In 18 months or so, the most complex reconfiguration of the UK food system is to be completed. Analysts now realise that this is at best folly or at worst a recipe for chaos. Never has there been such a large body of thinking within the food system, from outside critics to inside track policy cognoscenti, that the UK ought to take a deep breath, reconsider and pursue a well-thought-out strategy. 15. The role of Big Food. The food system is already dominated by huge food companies. Brexit must not be an opportunity for further corporate capture of market power. The good news is that increasing numbers of food companies now recognise the seriousness of impending crises from health, ecosystems and social divisions. The UK public must ensure that what emerges ahead – whether the UK leaves or stays – the food system is more firmly shaped by values of justice and decency, as well as good quality. The realities of a Food Brexit are awesome. The British public has not been informed about its implications. Many people who voted for Brexit will be hardest hit by a ‘hard’ Brexit – people on low incomes, the elderly, farmers, people in the North of England. This paper urges politicians, civil society and academics who understand the food system to speak up and speak out. Brexit is a political construct. It should not be a recipe for food insecurity

Reforming the Global Food and Agriculture System: Towards a Questioning Agenda for the New Manifesto

In the face of the pressing challenges posed by hunger, malnutrition and the vulnerability of our food system, it is imperative that radical reforms to the food system are articulated and implemented. Questions about the governance of the current food system need to be posed and answered. Key issues that need to be addressed include the direction of innovation and technological choices, the distribution of costs and benefits amongst producers, consumers and our environment, and the diversity and characteristics of possible socio-technical pathways that could be lead to more sustainable and socially just food futures. This paper presents some ideas on what a comprehensive strategy for reforming the global food and agriculture system might look like, in light of those questions about directionality, distribution and diversity.ESR

Silver Bullets, Grand Challenges and the New Philanthropy

Whether generic ‘silver bullet’ solutions can address complex development problems has been debated for many years. The ‘grand challenge’ extends the idea of the silver bullet in ways that speak to a goal-driven, global development agenda and a new generation of private philanthropists – or ‘philanthro-capitalists’ seeking to apply business methods to ‘strategic’ giving. These developments raise new Sustainability challenges, explored in this paper, drawing on examples from the health and agriculture sectors. Biofortification research funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provides a detailed, illustrative case of how these ideas can reduce space to debate directionality and accountability. Imperatives towards rapid ‘scaling up’ infer homogenous populations and overlook patterns of diversity and distributional concerns; transforming complex and diverse needs into ’demand’ for pre-defined technical solutions. This paper asks if the potential exists for a reinvigorated philanthropic sector to play a different role, and turn its power and resources towards learning processes that recognise diversity and use this to reshape programme design.ESR

Destruction of the Union: too high a price to pay for a US trade agreement

The importance of EU rules to maintaining open borders within Ireland has been at the centre of UK and EU negotiations. Yet what is less appreciated is the significance of those rules for achieving frictionless trade between England, Scotland and Wales. As well as the possibility of new border trade barriers inside the UK, leaving the EU also opens up questions about how – and whether – the devolved nations will unite with England on external trade agreements. This is especially true with respect to the relationship between England and Scotland, for two reasons. First, a US trade negotiation would likely require changes to UK domestic legislation that Scotland, with its desire to maintain alignment with EU regulation, would oppose. Second, there is no overarching legal framework in place to preserve the UK internal market, and negotiations to achieve this have stalled. Thus a renewed effort is badly needed to establish effective collaboration between the administrations of the four nations, which includes at a minimum giving them a stronger role in trade negotiations, strengthening ongoing cooperation and providing legislative guarantees that environmental and consumer protections won’t be reduced if and when the UK leaves the EU

Environmental Change and Maize Innovation in Kenya: Exploring pathways in and out of maize

This paper summarises findings of the STEPS Environmental Change and Maize Innovation in Kenya project. Maize is an important staple crop in Kenya, socially, politically and economically. This project has taken maize as a window through which to explore differential responses to the combined and inter-related effects of climate change, market uncertainties and land use changes over time. It has traced innovations and responses of various actors – public agricultural research institutions, donors, development agencies, private companies and farmers. At issue is the way in which actors in different institutional, geographic and social locations understand and frame resilience – and how these framing assumptions shape agendas and steer solutions and resources in certain directions and not others.ESR

Transforming innovation for sustainability

The urgency of charting pathways to sustainability that keep human societies within a "safe operating space" has now been clarified. Crises in climate, food, biodiversity, and energy are already playing out across local and global scales and are set to increase as we approach critical thresholds. Drawing together recent work from the Stockholm Resilience Centre, the Tellus Institute, and the STEPS Centre, this commentary article argues that ambitious Sustainable Development Goals are now required along with major transformation, not only in policies and technologies, but in modes of innovation themselves, to meet them. As examples of dryland agriculture in East Africa and rural energy in Latin America illustrate, such "transformative innovation" needs to give far greater recognition and power to grassroots innovation actors and processes, involving them within an inclusive, multi-scale innovation politics. The three dimensions of direction, diversity, and distribution along with new forms of "sustainability brokering" can help guide the kinds of analysis and decision making now needed to safeguard our planet for current and future generations