Food System Review Led By Some Random Chap?

[teslacoils]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48781564

I don't like posting links to other places, but why is some restaurant owner qualified to lead a field to fork review of english food production? Is he the best minor celebrity they could find to do it?

Citizens forums? This county....what a joke.

 

[delilah]

It is what it is. He has the gig now, no point asking how good or bad that is.

More usefully, someone on here who knows him - and there will be someone - could send him the links to the threads on here showing how a mixed UK agriculture that includes livestock is the most sustainable food system he could hope to see.

 

[Werzle]

Couldnt make it up

 

[Bogweevil]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48781564

I don't like posting links to other places, but why is some restaurant owner qualified to lead a field to fork review of english food production? Is he the best minor celebrity they could find to do it?

Citizens forums? This county....what a joke.

The National Food Strategy will build on the work underway in the Agriculture Bill, the Environment Bill, the Fisheries Bill, the Industrial Strategy and the Childhood Obesity Plan. It is intended to be an overarching strategy for government, designed to ensure that our food system:

• delivers safe, healthy, affordable food; regardless of where people live or how much they earn
• is robust in the face of future shocks
• restores and enhances the natural environment for the next generation in this country
• is built upon a resilient, sustainable and humane agriculture sector
• is a thriving contributor to our urban and rural economies, delivering well paid jobs and supporting innovative producers and manufacturers across the country
• delivers all this in an efficient and cost effective way

We have a moral, as well as practical, responsibility to consider the role and impacts of the food system. The purpose of the National Food Strategy is to set out a vision for the kind of food system we should be building for the future, and a plan for how to achieve that vision.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...gy-independent-review-2019-terms-of-reference

According to Professor Wikipedia Mr Dimbleby is one of the elite:

Dimbleby was born to David Dimbleby and his cookery writer wife, Josceline Dimbleby in May 1970. His sister Kate Dimbleby is a cabaret singer. He was educated at Eton College, where he was a Newcastle scholar and a contemporary of Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg.[3] Later, he attended the University of Oxford where he read Physics and Philosophy.[4] In 1984 he played Tom Dudgeon in the TV series Swallows and Amazons Forever![5]

Career
Dimbleby began his career with Michelin-starred chef, Bruno Loubet, before joining The Daily Telegraph as a food columnist.[6] He then worked for management consultants Bain & Co for seven years from 1995 to 2002. During his time there, he met John Vincent, and together they formulated the idea of Leon Restaurants.[7] Leon Restaurants was subsequently co-founded by Vincent and Dimbleby with chef Allegra McEvedy.[8][9][10][11]

Dimbleby co-founded the Sustainable Restaurants Association in 2009, and The London Union, which controls some of London’s biggest street food markets.

Dimbleby is a regular cookery columnist for The Guardian,[12] and has appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Kitchen Cabinet and BBC One’s Saturday Kitchen.

 

[teslacoils]

Ah, if only I had known all that! Tbh sounds like a slightly better connected Jamie Oliver then.

I'll file that on the "were f**ked" pile.

 

[DaveGrohl]

Just reading that article, my eyes are spinning round in my head at the sheer number of things that they reckon this is going to encompass. Trying to include everything that has anything remotely to do with food, farming, env, health, wealth, etc, etc, etc means it's going to be a complete and utter waste of everyone's time and money.

The sheer number of single issue pressure groups that will want their say (shouting loudly about their pet "facts) will make it unworkable in any meaningful sense of coming to a sensible and satisfactory conclusion.

 

[Adeptandy]

The Guardian association is a concern

 

[yellowbelly]

The National Food Strategy will build on the work underway in the Agriculture Bill, the Environment Bill, the Fisheries Bill, the Industrial Strategy and the Childhood Obesity Plan. It is intended to be an overarching strategy for government, designed to ensure that our food system:

• delivers safe, healthy, affordable food; regardless of where people live or how much they earn
• is robust in the face of future shocks
• restores and enhances the natural environment for the next generation in this country
• is built upon a resilient, sustainable and humane agriculture sector
• is a thriving contributor to our urban and rural economies, delivering well paid jobs and supporting innovative producers and manufacturers across the country
• delivers all this in an efficient and cost effective way

We have a moral, as well as practical, responsibility to consider the role and impacts of the food system. The purpose of the National Food Strategy is to set out a vision for the kind of food system we should be building for the future, and a plan for how to achieve that vision.

All the above is very commendable, UK governments are great at spending money on reports like this but will they pay the price required for us to produce the food (and I'm sure we, in the UK, can) that meets all their requirements?

All the best intentions of schemes like this soon get their throats cut on the altar of cheap food.

 

[Cowabunga]

Oh Lord! It's that word 'sustainable' again! If there's one misused sounbite that gets my goat up, its that one. f**k 'em and their UK 'sustainable food' industry. Let them import cheap foreign muck and be damned.

 

[oil barron]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48781564

I don't like posting links to other places, but why is some restaurant owner qualified to lead a field to fork review of english food production? Is he the best minor celebrity they could find to do it?

Citizens forums? This county....what a joke.

Because he went to Eaton.

 

[Cowabunga]

Because he went to Eaton.

He worked at an axle factory? Is that the qualification for power and influence and wealth in the UK today?

 

[delilah]

Just reading that article, my eyes are spinning round in my head at the sheer number of things that they reckon this is going to encompass. Trying to include everything that has anything remotely to do with food, farming, env, health, wealth, etc, etc, etc means it's going to be a complete and utter waste of everyone's time and money.

The sheer number of single issue pressure groups that will want their say (shouting loudly about their pet "facts) will make it unworkable in any meaningful sense of coming to a sensible and satisfactory conclusion.

what you're saying - probably quite rightly - is that the only way it wont be a waste of time, will be if it can come up with some 'silver bullets' that produce benefit for the farming industry, the environmental movement, and the economy at large.

Legislation on market share in food retailing.

 

[Banana Bar]

I think he could be good news, we are going to have to change the way we operate like it or not.

 

[DrWazzock]

And if Mr Gove and Mr Dimbleby don't conduct this ever so important review, what will happen?

We will all just carry on growing stuff that people want to buy. The system is market driven. We don't need self appointed messiahs to tell people how it's going be. We will react to changing markets and climate as we see fit. Always have done, always will.

Mr Gove, the self appointed known it all and his cronies show a level of self importance and arrogance not seen since the time when Leonid Brezhnev thought he could build a model of the soviet economy with a network of hydraulic devices simulating money flows in the basement of the ministry of economics in Moscow. That ended up with a surplus of coffins and a shortage of beds.

Mr Gove, and his "Eton Mess" cronies, with their new found zeal for a command driven economy, risk the same embarrassment.

 

[Princess Pooper]

First interview I've heard is actually quite promising, points out that eg more veg from greenhouses means loss of landscape. Points out research showing that introducing grass into an arable rotation good for soils. Points out no simple solutions. Can't grow crops on grade 4 land etc etc so has at least a dose of common sense there.

 

[DrWazzock]

Trouble is if you ask the parish council whether they want veg or landscape they will say landscape every time and they aren't bothered about importing stuff. They don't give two hoots about our livelihoods or anybody's livelihoods but their own, which are usually state funded index linked pensions, so what hope is there for food production or any other rural enterprise that isn't completely invisible and silent?

 

[Cranman]

First interview I've heard is actually quite promising, points out that eg more veg from greenhouses means loss of landscape. Points out research showing that introducing grass into an arable rotation good for soils. Points out no simple solutions. Can't grow crops on grade 4 land etc etc so has at least a dose of common sense there.

Just heard him on radio 4's pm program, I thought the same, a dose of common sense.

 

[DrWazzock]

No, I am I a state of "frozen conflict" (I like that term) with most of the local non Ag community. They never have and never will have any empathy for food producers. So be it. I get on with my job and keep my head down.

 

[Tarw Coch]

. fudge 'em and their UK 'sustainable food' industry. Let them import cheap foreign muck and be damned.

I’d rather they didn’t but then again, if it leads to reduced profitability (it really needs to improve) or ties the job up in ever more red tape and bearecracy ( I’d like to see that reduced but that’s probably wishful thinking) then I’ll simply say fudge it. There may well be someone else who’s happy to take up the challenge..............but maybe not, feeding the nation ain’t my problem ( I didn’t get finished till 10.30 last night and was up again at 3.45 this morning and. Won’t get in for another hour or so tonight, not typical days but we do have them, without a reasonable return without too much hassle from outside influences there really is no point, I, we, don’t have to do this but the people have to eat.)

 

[Cowabunga]

I’d rather they didn’t but then again, if it leads to reduced profitability (it really needs to improve) or ties the job up in ever more red tape and bearecracy ( I’d like to see that reduced but that’s probably wishful thinking) then I’ll simply say fudge it. There may well be someone else who’s happy to take up the challenge..............but maybe not, feeding the nation ain’t my problem ( I didn’t get finished till 10.30 last night and was up again at 3.45 this morning and. Won’t get in for another hour or so tonight, not typical days but we do have them, without a reasonable return without too much hassle from outside influences there really is no point, I, we, don’t have to do this but the people have to eat.)

Exactly right. I've been planning for an exit strategy for a while and it would take very little more shite to get me out of the job. There is little future for most ruminant livestock production. The writing is well and truly on the wall in great big print.

EMISSIONS

ENVIRONMENT

ZERO CARBON

TREE PLANTING RATHER THAN LIVESTOCK

REWILDING

STRICTLY [REDUCED] ENVIRONMENTAL PAYMENTS RATHER THAN ANY OTHER SUBSIDY

SLURRY SPREADING RESTRICTIONS

NITROGEN NVZ

PHOSPHATE TESTING AND FURTHER RESTRICTIONS

EXTENDED SLURRY STORAGE AND DESIGNATED SHORT INTERVAL SPREADING WINDOWS

GAS RECOVERY AND UTILISATION COST THROUGH COVERING SEALED MUCH STORAGE FACILITIES

CONTINUED PRICE PRESSURE

EVEN MORE BUREAUCRACY

INCREASED MARKET VOLATILITY

PROBABLE LOWER GENERAL FOOD PRICES AS PROMISED BY THE LIAR JOHNSON AND CRONIES

NEED TO REINVEST MASSIVELY APART FROM THE ABOVE

RISK FACTORS MENTIONED ABOVE PLUS TB AND GENERAL SERIOUS ANIMAL HEALTH RISKS SUCH AS FOOT AND MOUTH DISEASE SIGNAL BORROWING HEAVILY TO BE ILL-ADVISED AND UNACCEPTABLY RISKY IN CURRENT CLIMATE

Basially there is far more to life than growing food for masses who make it as difficult and unprofitable as they can for us. We are bloody fools for thinking that there is a real future in the UK for ruminant livestock. It is a business that will be a fraction of the size in ten years time as it is currently and will have virtually disappeared from our shores within twenty, to be replaced by imports.