Fix the food chain …

… for planet-friendly meat and dairy

Brazil’s soy harvest March 2008

Food Chain: making the links

Meat and dairy farming

• Livestock farming has many benefits

• Food production

• Jobs and skills

• Wildlife and landscape

• Farming is at heart of rural communities and is vital for our future food security

• Friends of the Earth has been campaigning for a fairer deal for farmers for over 8 years – leading the call for a Supermarket Watchdog

• But evidence is growing of the negative impacts of intensive meat and dairy production

Impacts on the environment and people

• One of the main drivers of biodiversity loss in forests & other habitats - to make way for soy monocultures and pasture

• 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions

• For communities overseas - loss of land and livelihoods, pesticide poisoning, labour abuses, soil and water pollution

Factory farming – dependant on soy

• Soy provides cheap source of protein for animal feed

• The EU is the biggest market for South American soymeal

• Much soy grown in South America and imported into Europe is GM

• UK farmers affected by commodity price volatility

The UK’s role

• UK imported 1.7 MT soymeal; 650,000T soybeans from South America in 2007

• From an area of 1.2 million hectares = larger than Cornwall and Devon

Friends of the Earth’s Food Chain campaign

• Solutions in producing and consuming countries

• A campaign for UK political action to measure and reduce the impacts of intensive meat and dairy while maintaining a thriving and sustainable UK livestock sector and ensuring a fairer deal for farmers

• We are working with partners in South America to support community resistance to soy expansion and alternative small-scale models of agriculture

Our solutions• Shift subsidies- including CAP -

away from intensive systems to planet-friendly including hill farming, and home-grown feeds

• Ensure public money is spent on less but better meat for our schools and hospitals (£2.2 billion per year spent public sector food)

• Fund research into alternative feeds, breeds, crop varieties and cropping systems

• A fairer deal for farmers

How will we achieve it?• A ‘Sustainable Livestock Bill’

for a new law to measure and put in place action to reduce the impacts of meat and dairy

• Reform of the Common Agricultural Policy to support small-scale planet-friendly farming eg using home-grown feeds, grass-fed

• A tough supermarket watchdog to enforce fairer trade

Working with the farming community

for solutions

Farmer Case studies

100% grass-fed (grass silage in Winter) beef, Lincolnshire

Organic mixed farm, Worcestershire - grazed cattle with home-grown cereal

Use some soy for chickens but want to avoid it

What does our campaign mean for farmers?

• CAP reform will support planet friendly farmers (including support for struggling upland farmers)

• Opportunities for new feed crops such as peas and beans

• Supermarket watchdog

• Research into breeds and alternative feeds

• A market from schools, hospitals and public sector

• Consumers will choose less but better quality meat and farmers will get a fair price

New report shows benefits to farmers

Key findings

• 50 per cent of soy meal currently used for animal feed in the UK could be replaced by home-grown alternatives.

• would require 8 % of UK arable land.• many alternative animal feed crops that

would meet the requirements of UK livestock.

• Eg lucern, oilseed, dried pea, bean linseed, dried grass, lupin

continued

• Reliance on soy could be reduced further if meat and dairy consumption reduced in line with healthy eating guidelines.

• Obstacles to alternatives include price of soy so low; loss of UK protein premium in 2012; lack of R&D and incentives to grow alternatives; lack of infrastructure (milling capacity etc); lack of knowledge

What needs to happen

• Continuation of protein crop premium (eg for pea growers) after 2012.

• more to support environmentally friendly and mixed farming –

• switch the huge amount of taxpayers’ money that goes into intensive livestock production to sustainable farming.

• there will be specific requirements for infrastructure, advice and further research to help the transformation.

• The Government urgently needs to set out a strategy for reducing the global impacts of livestock production. It must ensure that it does not simply export problems elsewhere.

We need the Sustainable Livestock Bill

And we need farmer support

• to create a stronger campaign; • to ensure our solutions work nationally

and for local needs;• to give credibility; and to • Reach the parts other partners can not..

What to do

• build a relationship with 2 to 3 farmers (and 1 other organisation) in your area

• work with them to gain a number of political asks – eg a letter to an MP, a press story or letter to the editor or a joint event or public meeting.

• Achieve their public support for the 2nd reading of the sustainable Livestock Bill in November.

• keep us in the loop – let us know who you are working with and how it’s going. We will need to coordinate our farmer engagement work around key moments like the second reading.

The farmer engagement work

• Materials to use including leaflet, background and power point presentation

• Building alliances with Farmers - A guide for local groups

• Contacts and worksheets• Ideas for working with groups and farmers • ‘Pastures New’ shows we are about

solutions

Some work so far

• One groups ran sheep into town as a stunt• One is liaising with Farmers at market stalls• One farmer is now campaigning for the Bill

off his market stall• Farmers convincing other farmers of

Farringdon to write to their MP at the local veg bottling day

• What other experiences are there?

What you can do

• Encourage farmers to learn about FoE’s issues and the campaign and the Bill

• Get their feedback eg on Pastures New• Follow the ideas and contacts etc in the

farmer engagement materials • Let us know how you are getting on with

local farmers• other ideas:

– support for second reading

– Next stages