UK food policy is in drastic need of an
overhaul, according to a report by four independent specialists in food,
science, agriculture and health. The recent BSE crisis has brought wider
attention to what insiders have known for a long time, that major reform
of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) is over-due. An
examination of MAFF's performance reveals that a loss of public confidence has
dogged the Ministry's management of BSE and other crises since the 1980s.
The authors argue that the function of sponsoring the food
industry and commerce needs to be separated from that of regulation and
monitoring. They call for a national debate on food policy and set out clear
objectives and mechanisms for a food supply in which the nation can have
confidence. Debates of this nature should be fostered at the UK conference for
the World Food Summit Menu for the Millennium (see page24).
Tim Lang, Eirk Millstone, Hugh Raven, and
Mike Rayner, Modernising UK food policy: The case for reforming the Ministry of
Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Discussion paper 1, Centre for Food Policy,
Thames Valley University, 32-38 Uxbridge Road, London, W5 2BS, £5 (50p
p&p), 43pp.
[This
article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 33, September 1996,
page 27]