New Common Wealth report finds concentrated ownership and
corporate power in the food system reinforce inequalities and
environmental degradation, demonstrating why bold interventions
are needed.
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Common Wealth analysis out today shines a light on the
extent to which a few large multinational companies dominate
the food supply chain.
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The urgent need to make agriculture more sustainable
provides an opportunity for these companies to tighten their
grip on supply chains by controlling research and development,
intellectual property and data.
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A Green New Deal for agriculture is required to
reimagine ownership of research and development and
agricultural data to create a new agricultural system rooted in
sustainable, equitable and democratic production.
The Common Wealth report, authored by food systems researcher Rob
Booth, argues the current food system fuels inequalities.
The pandemic has only exacerbated food insecurity in the UK, with
the number of people reporting they were unable to access healthy
or nutritious food rising from 3.2% in April 2020 to 16.3%
in July 2020.[1] UK agriculture accounts for around 10% of total
greenhouse gas emissions.[2]
The need for change is recognised by governments, as demonstrated
by recent UK legislation around net zero, environmental targets
and agricultural subsidies.
The report highlights three processes integral to food systems
change:
- Research and Development (R&D) towards new agricultural
methods and technologies
- The production, analysis, and ownership of agricultural
data
- Agricultural Knowledge and Information Systems (AKIS)
intended to popularise and develop food systems
practices.
The report makes the following policy recommendations to change
food systems as part of a Green New Deal:
- Reorientation of public R&D spending
towards organic and agroecological farming and alternative food
networks.
- Action on Intellectual Property (IP) rights to
ensure ideas developed to help transform agriculture are shared
rather than enclosed.
- Consultation and legislation on rights to
agricultural data that recognises, as with other sectors, the
need to prevent data, knowledge and power accumulating in the
hands of a small number of corporations.
- Publicly funded, free-to-use
agri-environmental benchmarking services for farmers to ensure
that agri-environmental data vital to improving farming systems
is used for the common good, helping to deliver a just
transition.
- A strategy that pushes for greater
transparency in land ownership and subsidy data, using
agri-environmental data to help develop planning and policy that
promotes agricultural diversity, access to land and resilient
regional food systems.
- Land reform that facilitates agricultural
research, extension, and transformation by taking measures to
bring parts of massive land holdings into public hands. This land
should be redistributed as county farms, agricultural research
centres and community land trusts. Equally, where land is already
in public hands putting it to agricultural use should be
incentivised, including in urban or peri-urban areas.
- Regional delivery bodies for research and
extension that provide institutional capacity to deliver these
changes whilst facilitating participatory processes that bring
together and strengthen networks of farmers, citizens, and civil
society organisations.
- International investment and advocacy to
ensure the capacity for socially just global agricultural change
is possible. This includes working to dismantle the existing
regime of trade and IP. It is also essential that the UK offer
financial and technological support, in line with its historic
climate debt, to help communities worldwide adapt to and mitigate
climate change through agriculture.
Rob Booth, report author and food systems researcher,
said:
The UK’s departure from the EU and the environmental
transition together offer a historic opportunity to develop
resilient and ecologically just ways of feeding communities which
leave people empowered. Social and environmental injustice can be
tackled together but to do so the UK needs food systems change.
To make this a reality the UK needs to reform land ownership, to
shift public spending on R&D toward agroecological farming
and action on intellectual property rights, so that agricultural
data is shared for the common good.
Miriam Brett, Director of Research and Advocacy at Common
Wealth, said:
The status quo on ownership of research and development and
intellectual property in food systems holds back the green
transition and compounds inequalities. A new approach to
agricultural land ownership, food R&D and agricultural data
can help to ensure communities are in the driving seat as part of
a just transition - supporting the UK to meet the
challenges of the 21st century.
[1] Official Statistics: Agri-climate report 2021, Department for
Food, Environment and Rural Affairs (2021) Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/agri-climate-report-2021/agri-climate-report-2021#section-1-uk-agriculture-estimated-greenhouse-gas-emissions
[2] The Lancet (2021). Food-related hardships by socioeconomic
and demographic groups during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK: A
longitudinal panel study. Available at: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7762(21)00102-2/fulltext
