The Government has promised to take steps to tackle labour issues in the food supply chain, as part of its new Food Strategy.
The long-awaited strategy recognises the importance of ‘maintaining and boosting our food security, including plans to strengthen the resilience of our supply chains and boost domestic production to help protect against future economic shocks and crises’.
The strategy commits to ‘broadly maintaining’ the current level of food that we produce domestically and boosting production in sectors where there are the biggest opportunities, such as horticulture and seafood.
It is, however, largely underwhelming in terms of detailed policy initiatives to underpin this and has received a mixed response from within the industry and environmental and food campaign groups.
You can view the strategy HERE
In terms of pig sector interest, there are commitments on addressing the labour shortages that have crippled the pig industry over the past year or so.
The document acknowledges that it is ‘essential that there is a sufficient, qualified, and well-paid workforce to support every food and drink business, dispersed around the whole country’.
To address short-term need, the government will release the additional provision of 10,000 visas under the Seasonal Worker Visa Route, including 2,000 for the poultry sector, meaning that in total 40,000 visas will be made available for seasonal workers this year.
Possibly more relevant for the pig sector, the Government is promising to work with industry to support the upcoming Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) review of the Shortage Occupation List. The industry has repeatedly called for butchers to be added to that list.
In addition, the Government will commission an independent review to ‘assess and ensure the quantity and quality of the food sector workforce’. This will encompass the roles of automation, domestic employment and migration routes.
The strategy sets out plans to create a new professional body for the farming and growing industry to step up professional training and develop clear career pathways, equipping people and businesses with the skills needed to run sustainable and profitable businesses.
“Ensuring our agri-food industry workforce has the necessary skills to take advantage of new and emerging innovations will help drive greater efficiency and production,” the document states.
“We will work with industry to review existing skills programmes, identify improvements, and tackle barriers that currently prevent uptake.”
Innovation
The strategy also includes plans to ‘drive innovation and harness pioneering technology in farming’, with £270 million will be invested across farming innovation funding programmes until 2029, to ‘unlock technologies to drive sustainable farming techniques which will help increase productivity and profitability and the sector’s long-term resilience’.
The Government commits to consult on how to improve on and expand animal welfare labelling, ‘to help consumers identify when products meet or exceed our high UK animal welfare standards’.
On future trade deals, the Government says it will publish a statement ‘setting out requirements for those wishing to access the UK market to objectively demonstrate they deliver an equivalent level of health protection to our high domestic standards’.
The strategy also includes plans to:
- Consult on an ambition for 50% of public sector expenditure on food procurement to be on food either produced locally or to higher standards
- Incentivise the sector to use surplus heat and CO2 from industrial processes, and renewable sources of energy to increase domestic horticultural production
- Consult on food waste reporting for larger businesses over a certain size
- Explore how to make the most of innovative feed additives that can reduce methane emissions from livestock, to support sustainable farming
- Launch a new partnership between the public and private sector to provide consumers with more information about the food they eat while incentivising industry to produce healthier, more ethical and sustainable goods.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “Our Food Strategy sets out a blueprint for how we will back farmers, boost British industry and help protect people against the impacts of future economic shocks by safeguarding our food security.”
Defra Secretary George Eustice said: “The food industry is bigger than the automotive and aerospace industries combined, offering employment opportunities, apprenticeships and investment in research and development.
The strategy we are setting out today will increase the focus on skills in the food sector, and the roles and career pathways available. In particular, we will seek to boost our horticulture industry and ensure the expertise needed to develop the sector here in the UK.”
The strategy is a response to the independent review of the food system by Henry Dimbleby last year, which set out an analysis of the challenges facing the food system.
Reaction
Reaction has been mixed, with Mr Dimbleby, himself, complaining that the strategy does not do justice to the review published by his group. He told the BBC the policy document was not detailed enough to be called a strategy.
“They’ve now implemented more than 50% of what I recommended, but it hasn’t been done with one vision across the whole system,” he said.
NFU President Minette Batters said: “The National Food Strategy represents a clear milestone with the government recognising the importance of domestic food production, maintaining our productive capacity and growing more food in this country, particularly at a time when the war in Ukraine has focused attention on the importance and fragility of our global food security. Food production will always be core to a nation’s resilience and I’m pleased the government has recognised this.
“We now need to see this strategy develop into clear delivery and investment to capitalise on the benefits food and farming delivers for the country, such as our world-leading standards of animal welfare, environmental protection and food safety.”
NFU Scotland director of policy, Jonnie Hall said: “The Strategy recognises that, given world events are dominated by the tragic war in Ukraine, the context for a food strategy has changed, leading to a renewed focus on both self-sufficiency and food security, and the vital role the primary producer has in sustainable food production.
“Any strategy must address the ‘here and now’ of the impact on our ability to produce food from unprecedented increases in the costs of feed, fuel and fertiliser, and the major constraints imposed on the entire food and drink supply chain by a shortfall in both a permanent and seasonal workforce.”
The Association of Independent Meat Suppliers noted the launch of an independent review to tackle labour shortages in the food supply chain.
“This of course doesn’t tackle the immediate problem that many of our members are facing with the recruitment and retention of staff, and we again call on Government to work with us on a short-term solution in respect to English language skills for meat and poultry sector workers.”
Country Land and Business Association (CLA) President, Mark Tufnell, said: “It is encouraging to see that the National Food Strategy has a significant focus on the agricultural sector.
“New data transparency measures, the aim for 50% of public sector food spend to be from local producers or certified to higher standards, funding priorities for horticulture, regenerative farming and alternative proteins are some of the long-term examples of steps in the right direction. However, it’s not clear how any of this is going to be implemented, in addition to not knowing details of the various funding required at this stage.”
Rare Breeds Survival Trust Chief Executive Christopher Price said: “We welcome the Government’s continued vision for environmental sustainability alongside food production, and its recognition of the role of grazing livestock to benefit the environment. But there is a glaring omission of any plan to address the decline of the local abattoir network, which is one of the greatest barriers to the growth of high welfare, environmentally sustainable and nutritious production with native livestock breeds as part of local food networks.”
Sue Davies of consumer group, Which?, said the strategy lacked ambition and many of the recommendations had been ‘watered down, ignored or put off for further consultation’.
Conservation charity, The Wildlife Trusts, said the government had broken its promise to restore nature at scale.