Weakening UK food law enforcement: a risky tactic in Brexit

The UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) is beginning to roll out a far-reaching programme of regulatory change called Regulating Our Future (ROF). This Briefing Paper argues that ROF risks: - Making the UK’s food supply less safe by further weakening systems that are already too weak; - Undermining the ability of UK food producers to export to the EU after Brexit; - Creating irreconcilable conflicts of interests, because rather than having public officials inspect food businesses, the food businesses will be able to choose who ‘marks their homework’. Professors Erik Millstone (University of Sussex) and Tim Lang (City, University of London) provide a detailed and powerful critique of the Food Standards Agency’s proposals. They conclude that ROF represents a fundamental and detrimental shift in the role, approach and public responsibilities of the FSA and the local authority officers who are the bedrock of food safety in the UK. They also show why these unwelcome proposals are especially unwise in the context of negotiations over Brexit, when the public needs a strong, vigilant and effective FSA. The authors call for ROF to be halted pending further review by a special Parliamentary Joint Select Committee of the Health and Environment, Food & Rural Affairs Committees

Hormone-treated beef: Should Britain accept it after Brexit?

This Briefing explains why the use of synthetic, industrially-manufactured hormones in beef production, and the threat of importing hormone-produced beef after Brexit, matter for UK consumers. There is robust scientific evidence showing that meat produced using one key hormone (17β-oestradiol) increases the cancer risk to consumers, while for the rest the available evidence is insufficient to show that their use is acceptably safe. The Briefing outlines the basis of the scientific and policy disputes over the use of supplementary hormones in beef cattle production. It shows that, although the USA is most associated with hormone-reared beef, other countries that want to export their beef to the UK, post Brexit, either allow hormones to be used, or are suspected of doing so. The EU has been reasonably vigilant on consumers’ behalf on this issue, and it has robust scientific grounds for its ban on their use. The risk from beef hormones is one of many issues on which UK consumers have benefited from the EU’s measures to protect public and environmental health. Chlorine-washed chicken is another example

Feeding Britain: Food Security after Brexit

This Food Brexit Briefing brings together three interlinked issues that demand policy attention as the clock ticks towards Brexit: 1. The question of whether the Government is paying enough attention to agri-food in the negotiating process, given its central role in both public wellbeing and the national economy. 2. The threat a careless Brexit poses to the UK’s short-term food security – and any long-term attempt to develop a genuinely sustainable food strategy for the whole of the UK. 3. The risk generated to the UK’s status as a potential trading partner of the EU by the Food Standards Agency’s decision to press ahead with major reform of UK food safety regulation, at a time when regulatory stability and clarity have never been more important. The report was written by FRC’s Professor Tim Lang, with Professor Erik Millstone (Sussex), Tony Lewis (Head of Policy at Chartered Institute for Environmental Health) and Professor Terry Marsden (Cardiff). It takes stock of ‘food Brexit’ and argues that a hard Brexit or no-deal Brexit (and retreat to WTO rules) would imperil the sustainability and security of Britain’s food supply. The report recommends that the Government should: - Maintain a clear and explicit focus on the potential adverse effects of Brexit on food security in the UK, while negotiating the UK’s future trading relationships with the EU and other jurisdictions. - Publish Brexit impact studies on the UK’s agricultural and food system for the White Paper and Chequers Statement and any subsequent proposals. - Ensure that high food standards remain at the heart of any future trade deals. - Provide clarity on its proposed migration policy, taking account of the contributions that non-UK citizens of the EU are making to the quantity and quality of the UK’s food supply and services. - Avoid a hard Food Brexit at all costs.The UK must not retreat to a WTO-rules-based regime. The EU would then categorise the UK as a ‘3rd Country’, which could be a recipe for chaos. - Create a new Sustainable Food Security Strategy. This would engage with the complexities of the food system and the multiple criteria by which it should be evaluated; and identify clear priorities and pathways for progress. The report also calls on the Food Standards Agency to: - Address the calls for clarification and evidence posed in the paper in respect of its Regulating Our Future (ROF) Where such clarification or evidence is not available, then the Agency should modify or suspend the introduction of its proposals, at least until after Brexit

Why Local Authorities should prepare Food Brexit Plans

The UK’s food supply will be affected by Brexit whatever the outcome of the Parliamentary vote on the Draft Withdrawal Agreement. As the 29 March 2019 date for leaving the EU approaches, preparations to ensure we maintain a safe, adequate and sustainable food supply need to start urgently. Local Authorities (LAs) have a vital part to play in these preparations. More guidance, paying attention to the food specifics, is felt to be needed. LAs have a key role in the UK’s food system, with responsibilities including the enforcement of food safety and standards regulation, the control of imported food at ports and airports and the certification of foods for export. They also have unique knowledge of relevant local professionals, institutions, businesses and networks. This briefing aims to help Local Authorities prepare for Food Brexit. It shows why LAs should prepare Food Brexit Plans, and outlines five courses of action they could consider. The briefing recommends that Local Authorities: • Create Food Resilience Teams • Anticipate and reduce the impact of Food Brexit, particularly on SMEs • Narrow the information gap and treat the public openly and fairly • Prepare for public engagement • Be a local food voice so that central government knows the local realities

A Food Brexit: time to get real – A Brexit Briefing

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 16 major issues on which Food Brexit has the potential to threaten UK food resilience and security: o 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? o 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? o 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 o 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. o Public support. Clarifying and then aligning what British consumers say they want with what is negotiated by March 2019. o 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. o 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. o 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 which works in food service. o 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 Treasure 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. o 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. The 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. o 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. o 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. o 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. o 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. o 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 how serious impending crises from health, ecosystems and social divisions are. 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. The paper gives specific recommendations in each section, centred on how to enhance food security in the UK. Our overall view is that this will require HM Government to: o give a policy commitment to a modern, low impact, health-oriented UK food system, and set out how that will be achieved, with or without Food Brexit; o create a new statutory framework for UK food, which we term ‘One Nation Food’; o link this new statutory UK food framework to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the 2015 Paris Climate Change agreements (known as COP21); o set new clear targets for UK food security (food supply, quality, health and consumption) which go beyond mere quantity of supply by addressing ecosystems and social systems resilience; o create a new National Commission on Food and Agricultural to provide oversight and review, and to be a source of advice trusted by the public. o to make a clear and explicit commitment to address food matters in the Brexit negotiations which (bizarrely) has not been given; o include in the above a continued but reconstituted, co-operative set of arrangements with the EU food agencies with regard to regulatory synergies in food trade and standards; o develop an approach to food policy which is politically open and socially inclusive

Food brexit and chlorinated chicken: a microcosm of wider food problems

This paper situates food safety concerns raised in the Brexit debate since the referendum and suggests that, although the issue of chlorinated chicken entered public discourse, it represents wider concerns about food safety standards. Food safety has had high resonance in the UK since the 1980s, but Brexit shows how it connects to wider concerns also raised about Brexit, such as impacts on healthcare, the effects of austerity on food poverty, the limitations of low waged employment, concerns about migration and labour markets, and regional economic disparities. Brexit’s impact on the UK food system is immense because food has been highly integrated into EU governance. While food standards can be portrayed as a single narrow issue, the paper suggests it provides a useful lens with which to examine, interrogate and comprehend these wider Brexit politics. The complex realities of food politics and wider food system dynamics undermine any simplistic political narrative of ‘taking back control’

Developing national obesity policy in middle-income countries: a case study from North Africa

Background The prevalence of overweight and obesity is a rapidly growing threat to public health in both Morocco and Tunisia, where it is reaching similar proportions to high-income countries. Despite this, a national strategy for obesity does not exist in either country. The aim of this study was to explore the views of key stakeholders towards a range of policies to prevent obesity, and thus guide policy makers in their decision making on a national level. Methods Using Multicriteria Mapping, data were gathered from 82 stakeholders (from 33 categories in Morocco and 36 in Tunisia) who appraised 12 obesity policy options by reference to criteria of their own choosing. Results The feasibility of policies in practical or political terms and their cost were perceived as more important than how effective they would be in reducing obesity. There was most consensus and preference for options targeting individuals through health education, compared with options that aimed at changing the environment, i.e. modifying food supply and demand (providing healthier menus/changing food composition/food sold in schools); controlling information (advertising controls/mandatory labelling) or improving access to physical activity. In Tunisia, there was almost universal consensus that at least some environmental-level options are required, but in Morocco, participants highlighted the need to raise awareness within the population and policy makers that obesity is a public health problem, accompanied by improving literacy before such measures would be accepted. Conclusion Whilst there is broad interest in a range of policy options, those measures targeting behaviour change through education were most valued. The different socioeconomic, political and cultural contexts of countries need to be accounted for when prioritizing obesity policy. Obesity was not recognized as a major public health priority; therefore, convincing policy makers about the need to prioritize action to prevent obesity, particularly in Morocco, will be a crucial first step

Policy masquerading as science: an examination of non-state actor involvement in European risk assessment policy for genetically modified animals

In 2013, at the request of the European Commission, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) announced a new risk assessment policy: Guidance on the environmental risks of genetically modified (GM) animals (‘Guidance’). This policy specifies the issues to be addressed in future risk assessments for GM animals. EFSA is the European Commission's scientific arm, responsible for food-related risk assessment. EFSA relies heavily on independent experts and consults non-state actors. Employing expert interviews and documentary analysis, the article explores non-state actor involvement in a traditionally expert domain through a case study. Analysis of EFSA's consultation demonstrates the inability of non-state actors to influence policy. The article argues that despite international legal obligations to develop risk assessment policy, the European Commission failed to recognize the Guidance as policy. When policy masquerades as science, unjustified restrictions are placed on non-state actor involvement and value judgements are cloaked from public scrutiny

A "superstorm": When moral panic and new risk discourses converge in the media

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Health, Risk and Society, 15(6), 681-698, 2013, copyright Taylor & Francis, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/13698575.2013.851180.There has been a proliferation of risk discourses in recent decades but studies of these have been polarised, drawing either on moral panic or new risk frameworks to analyse journalistic discourses. This article opens the theoretical possibility that the two may co-exist and converge in the same scare. I do this by bringing together more recent developments in moral panic thesis, with new risk theory and the concept of media logic. I then apply this theoretical approach to an empirical analysis of how and with what consequences moral panic and new risk type discourses converged in the editorials of four newspaper campaigns against GM food policy in Britain in the late 1990s. The article analyses 112 editorials published between January 1998 and December 2000, supplemented with news stories where these were needed for contextual clarity. This analysis shows that not only did this novel food generate intense media and public reactions; these developed in the absence of the type of concrete details journalists usually look for in risk stories. Media logic is important in understanding how journalists were able to engage and hence how a major scare could be constructed around convergent moral panic and new risk type discourses. The result was a media ‘superstorm’ of sustained coverage in which both types of discourse converged in highly emotive mutually reinforcing ways that resonated in a highly sensitised context. The consequence was acute anxiety, social volatility and the potential for the disruption of policy and social change

Worldwide food recall patterns over an eleven month period: A country perspective.

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Following the World Health Organization Forum in November 2007, the Beijing Declaration recognized the importance of food safety along with the rights of all individuals to a safe and adequate diet. The aim of this study is to retrospectively analyze the patterns in food alert and recall by countries to identify the principal hazard generators and gatekeepers of food safety in the eleven months leading up to the Declaration.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The food recall data set was collected by the Laboratory of the Government Chemist (LGC, UK) over the period from January to November 2007. Statistics were computed with the focus reporting patterns by the 117 countries. The complexity of the recorded interrelations was depicted as a network constructed from structural properties contained in the data. The analysed network properties included degrees, weighted degrees, modularity and <it>k</it>-core decomposition. Network analyses of the reports, based on 'country making report' (<it>detector</it>) and 'country reported on' (<it>transgressor</it>), revealed that the network is organized around a dominant core.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Ten countries were reported for sixty per cent of all faulty products marketed, with the top 5 countries having received between 100 to 281 reports. Further analysis of the dominant core revealed that out of the top five transgressors three made no reports (in the order China > Turkey > Iran). The top ten detectors account for three quarters of reports with three > 300 (Italy: 406, Germany: 340, United Kingdom: 322).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Of the 117 countries studied, the vast majority of food reports are made by 10 countries, with EU countries predominating. The majority of the faulty foodstuffs originate in ten countries with four major producers making no reports. This pattern is very distant from that proposed by the Beijing Declaration which urges all countries to take responsibility for the provision of safe and adequate diets for their nationals.</p