Fair and Square - Ethical Shopping Matters is the final publication from the Fair and Square project, bringing together many of the themes which have been covered on this website and through the training sessions and events which have run over the last three years.

You can download a copy of the book here

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Introduction

Following on from the successful ‘Ethical Shopping at the Crossroads’ conference in 2007, ‘Ethical shopping: the producers’ perspective’ examined the extent to which consumers’ concerns over the ethical production of their food has impacted on commercial practices. It took place on December 4, 2008 at the British Library Conference Centre and addressed the following questions through six conference threads.

• At a time of rapidly rising prices and concerns over food security, has the ethical consumer movement made its voice heard down the supply chain?

• Are food producers, in the UK and abroad, heeding calls for more sustainable production?

• How can social and economic justice for small-scale farmers be achieved?

• How can we make their voice more effective in the future?

• How are communities on the ground taking action to respond to the desire for sustainable food?

The six conference threads were identified to reflect key trends in the discussion on ethical shopping, with especial reference to the perspective of producers’. The threads were designed to cover issues facing producers within the UK and the developing world and to find the common ground between them.

Community Action on Food: As consumers become more concerned about the provenance and the price of their food and become more disconnected from the land and the lives of those that produce what they eat, so communities themselves are taking the initiative. There are many inspiring grass roots initiatives across the UK. What works and why? And do they really make a difference?

Sustaining UK Farming Livelihoods: How can the British farmer provide us with our food, act as a custodian of the landscape and survive and compete? How can they ensure they and their workers are paid fairly? Within a world of rising food prices do we need farming policies that ensure a measure of food security in the UK?

Fair Miles: Increasing trade, particularly in agricultural produce, is widely recognised as one of the most effective ways of supporting development and reducing poverty. But is there a case for ending air-freighting of perishable food? How can we continue to support development through trade in agricultural produce, whilst reducing the GHG emission impact of food transport and the unsustainable leaching of resources from the developing world?

Future of Fair Trade: Fair Trade, one of the ethical success stories of the last decade - now faces the dilemma of satisfying demand for an ever-widening range and volume of products whilst ensuring that its aim of empowering small producers is maintained. How can the co-operative movement and others play a key role in enhancing producer support and providing market opportunities?

Developing World Livelihoods: Many initiatives to improve livelihoods in relation to rights and decent work tend to focus on 'top down' measures such as corporate social responsibility codes. Whilst this focus is relevant it does not encompass the entire scope of work needed to effect change. What are the real issues facing farmers and smallholders in the developing world?

Food Security and Sustainable Food: With a 40% rise in commodity prices over the last year, and global food reserves standing at the lowest for 30 years the food crisis is being felt right around the world. But the higher cost of food production is still failing to meet the bills that have been left unpaid in relation to social and environmental justice. How does our food system need to change if we are to feed the planet’s growing population?

The conference was chaired by Sheila Dillon; presenter of Radio 4’s The Food Programme. A diverse range of speakers took part in the three plenary sessions and workshops that reflected the above threads.

Programme

9.30 ARRIVAL – refreshments

10.00 PLENARY

Chair: Sheila Dillon, presenter of Radio 4’s The Food Programme.

• Initiatives in the Co-operative movement

Peter Marks, Chief Executive, Co-operative Group

• Community Action on Food

Carolyn Steel, author of Hungry City

• Sustaining UK Farming Livelihoods

Paul Temple, Vice-President, National Farmers Union

• Fair Miles

Bill Vorley, International Institute for Environment and Development

11.30 BREAK OUT GROUPS:

Community Action on Food

Chair: Jennifer Heim, Plunkett Foundation/Making Local Food Work

Contributors: Joy Carey, Head of Local Food Initiatives, Soil Association

Seb Peissel, Thames Valley Farmers Market

Sustaining UK Farming Livelihoods

Chair: Helen Seymour, Co-operativesUK

Contributors: James Graham, Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society Ltd

Charlie Clutterbuck, National Rural & Agricultural Workers Union (Unite)

Fair Miles

Chair: Laura Vickery, International Development Manager, Co-operative Group

Contributors: Tom MacMillan, Food Ethics Council

Anthony Pile, Chairman and Founder, Blue Skies Holdings

12.45 LUNCH

13.30 PLENARY

Chair: Sheila Dillon

• The Future of Fair Trade

Tomy Matthews, Fair Trade Alliance, Kerala, India

• Developing World Livelihoods

Kathini Maloba, General Secretary, Kenya Women Workers Organization

• Food Security and Sustainable Food

Anna Coote, New Economics Foundation

14.30 BREAK OUT GROUPS:

The Future of Fair Trade

Chair: David Croft, Conformance and Sustainability Director, Cadbury Schweppes

Contributors: Lucio Cavazzoni, President of Alce Nero Mielizia, Italy

Samantha Lacey, Co-operative College

Developing World Livelihoods

Chair: Rachel English, Women Working Worldwide

Contributors: Casildo Quispe, Coinacapa Brazil nut co-operative, Bolivia

Food Security and Sustainable Food

Chair: Charlie Clutterbuck, City University and Environmental Practice at Work

Contributors: Peter Harper, Centre for Alternative Technology

Kath Dalmeny, Head of Policy, SUSTAIN

 

15.45 TEA

16.00 PLENARY – Panel discussion

Chair: Sheila Dillon

Contributors: James Graham

Kath Dalmeny

Kathini Maloba

Tomy Matthews

Joy Carey

16.40 CLOSING ADDRESS The Way Forward

Professor Tim Lang, City University

17.00 CLOSE

Opening Plenary

Chair: Sheila Dillon, The Food Programme

Initiatives in the Co-operative Movement - Peter Marks, Chief Executive, Co-operative Group

There is speculation that ethical shopping may come to an end as the recession kicks in. However the current crisis reflects a failure of ethics in the economy. The Co-operative Bank’s Ethical Consumerism Report 2008 survey showed that ethical spending in 2008 increased by 15% to £35.56 billion. This means that there’s never been a better time for ethics in business and that customers want values with their value.

The consumer co-operative movement has been declining since 1965, but is no longer. Last year’s merger of United Co-operatives and the Co-operative Group and the purchase of Somerfield mean that 80% of co-operative trade in UK takes place through one business. The ‘big four’ food retailers will become the ‘big five’. With 3000 shops, 9% of market share and 20m customers per week, it is an opportunity to spread the co-operative way of doing business.

Fair Trade versus local produce is becoming a heated issue. The Co-operative Group is committed to Fair Trade and is looking to strengthen its position, but it is also committed to supplying regional produce whilst maintaining animal welfare standards, hence its commitment to free range eggs and Elmwood chickens. As the UK’s largest farmer, with over 70,000 acres, The Co-operative’s actions are influential.

The Group is also committed to using renewable energy. The Group’s greenhouse gases are down 40%, 90% of its electricity is generated by renewable technology and soon 15% of its energy will be sourced from its own wind farms. Additionally, the Co-operative Group uses a ‘sound sourcing’ code of practice for all areas of its business to ensure that its supply chain is ethical. However, the Group is unsure whether a supermarket watchdog for supplier relations, as proposed recently by the Competition Commission, is necessary.

“The tide of public opinion is flowing in our direction like never before.”

Community Action on Food - Carolyn Steel, author of Hungry City

Feeding cities has shaped them and our lives, but is not widely understood despite the obvious relationship between the city and countryside. London requires 30 million meals per day, which must be produced somewhere. People in cities romanticise the countryside and food growing and have a completely distanced view of food production. Industrialised food systems have turned food into a commodity rather than something to celebrate.

Historically, life in pre-industrial cities was dominated by food growing and distribution. Railways emancipated cities from having food at their core, as it could now be transported quickly and in bulk. The cultural meaning of food has since been lost, its social and community functions diminished.

So - we need ‘sitopia’ – a food place. How would this look?

• Market gardens.

• Reciprocity between city and country.

• People who cook and eat together.

• Big kitchens. • Common areas for growing.

• Waste disposal.

• Celebrations of food.

• Garden cities.

 To achieve this requires both bottom-up (consumers and communities) and top-down (policies and infrastructure) changes. Cuba has established a system of shared growing spaces and is creating sustainable relationships. Ultimately we need to link the people who live in cities with those who produce the food.

Sustaining UK Farming Livelihoods - Paul Temple, Vice President NFU

At the moment it seems that DEFRA cares more about birds than farmers. There has been little investment by the Government in rural affairs or farming. Indeed, the Government put in place restrictions on pig production higher than in the EU, meaning that 70% of pig products are now imported from outsides UK. Additionally, the government does not always procure by its own standards. 70% of imported pork would be illegal to produce in the UK.

The current economy has led to farmers being susceptible to changes made by buyers/supermarkets. In retail we are seeing intense pressures on farmers from large retailers, dropping lines that are grown to order, for example, or retailers issuing invoices to farmers saying they must pay if they wish to continue trading.

The NFU wants, amongst other things, to see a supermarket watchdog for supplier relations established by the Competition Commission. It need only be something small, but will be able to curb bad practices by large retailers.

Farming in the UK is on the front end of climate change. The cycles of food scarcity and plenty are repeated through the generations in farming communities. The farmer will become more important in the society of the future.

As the UK population rises, the security of our food supplies decrease. We need to plan for these changes, and the government needs to account for how our population of 61 million (and rising) will be fed. A better use of land in the UK is crucial as the population increases.

Farmers are ready to react to this challenge, but require regulatory help and an improved labour resource.

Fair Miles - Bill Vorley, International Institute for Environment and Development

Millions of livelihoods in Africa are reliant on trade with the North. In 2007 Tesco and Marks and Spencer started to label air-freighted food. In the UK, a quarter of all air-freighted food is from Africa, where 100,000 livelihoods are dependent on its trade.

UK policy is affecting the development of Africa. There are a number of problems in the current approach to these issues:

• Lazy behaviour by large food retailers when sourcing products.

• We are not hearing from small producers; kitemarks are not appropriate for smallholders.

• Blacklisting air freight is dangerous because of its impact on African farmers who have a small carbon footprint already.

• Carbon numbers are unhelpful.

• There is too much rhetoric without facts.

Key actions needed:

1. Retailers need to provide evidence of their development claims beyond Fairtrade sourcing, and create producer links with the consumer.

2. Core-business models need to be re-thought; the onus should no longer be on consumer choice.

3. Fair Trade should be a political movement, not just a brand.

4. We need to re-educate people on what ‘food-miles’ mean, not just demonise imports.

5. We need an economic policy that balances power in the markets.

6. The North needs to work with Africa, not for Africa. Ultimately, poverty reduction and environmental stewardship are one agenda, not two.

Break Out Groups

Community Action on Food

Chair: Jennifer Heim, Plunkett Foundation/Making Local Food Work

Presentation - Joy Carey, Soil Association

Sustainable local food systems aspire to build food production and trading systems based on principles of sustainability that are both locally controlled and genuinely benefit the communities they serve. Community Supported Agriculture is a holistic cycle of food production; an ethical trade between a federation of local food systems, balancing and closing the cycle of production, distribution, consumption and waste.

Sustainable local food initiatives include:

• The spectacular growth in the number of farmers’ markets from the first in Bath in 1997 to over 700 in 2008.

• The growth in vegetable box schemes to over 500.

• Vital distribution infrastructure developments, for example:

- Skye and Lochalsh Food Link.

- Newham Food Access partnership.

• Food co-operatives.

• Community catering, for example:

- Bridport Local Food Links.

• Community Supported Agriculture, for example:

- Stroud Community Agriculture, Swillington.

- Growing Communities, Hackney; a scheme that runs a box scheme and shop, grows high value crops, supports 40 farms, supplies 140 households and is supplied by Organic Lea, Walthamstow.

• Community Allotments.

• Country Markets.

• Community shops.

• Local food directories/websites.

• Food festivals.

The critical features of these sorts of projects are an awareness of the issues and a high degree of mutual support.

What difference do they make?

They promote trade approaches based on direct contact:

• Engage people and develop awareness.

• Build mutually supportive relationships.

• Encourage people to learn to cook and grow food.

• Support sustainable food and farming businesses.

Questions for discussion:

1. What kind of community food activity most inspires you?

2. What would motivate you to get involved?

Presentation - Seb Peissel, Thames Valley Farmers’ Market

As a primary producer and farmers’ market stallholder it is clear how important Farmers’ Markets are, and that many small producers could not survive without them.

The history of Thames Valley Farmers’ Markets co-operative:

• The group was set-up after the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak in response to a lack of commitment from local authorities on the promotion of farmers’ markets.

• It was set up by 40-50 farmers and producers spread over quite a large geographical area.

• The group was originally unincorporated as it was purely a marketing organisation.

• It became a resource for local authorities.

• The group then decided to take over the running of the markets and raise standards.

• It was incorporated as an Industrial and Provident Society, and a bona fide co-operative in 2004/5.

• It was incorporated to reduce personal liability of the membership and to employ staff.

• There are now over 120 members.

• The legal structure was chosen particularly to reflect the co-operative ethos of the existing organisation.

The pitfalls of operating like this include:

• Every producer/member has a vote, therefore it is not easy to achieve consensus.

• There is a lack of previous experience from other similar organisations.

For Thames Valley Farmers’ Markets:

• Accreditation is important, local provenance is guaranteed, with distinctions made for primary and secondary producers.

• Customer choice is important.

• A major benefit is that money is kept local and local jobs are protected.

• Farmers Markets are now a vast market overall within the food economy, the group is still relatively small but growing fast.

• The co-operative model has allowed them to sell direct to schools and get involved in local procurement.

 

Q & A Session:

Q: (For SP) How many acres do you farm?

SP: 120 acres as a tenant and I work in partnership with another producer who has 110 acres as an owner/occupier.

JH referred back to JC’s questions for discussion:

• What kind of community food activity most inspires you?

• What would motivate you to get involved?

Comment from audience: I’d like an allotment but I haven’t got the time, therefore I’m excited by the practical, feasible and educational aspects of Community Supported Agriculture. It offers a practical alternative to supermarkets.

Q from JH: Do we need that connection back to production and is it actually happening?

Comment from audience: From my experience these alternatives need to be easy and convenient for the consumer with limited time, with the option not to engage with the community aspect of the growing initiative.

SP: You must provide customers with what they want. One of the problems Thames Valley Farmers Markets have is that we do not have enough producers to hold more regular markets, so how do we connect with more customers? Internet box schemes?

JH: Values are important as a critical underlying base.

Q/Comment: I am interested in the holistic chart Joy showed and the recycling aspect. A lot of energy is now going to the recycling side almost to the exclusion of the others. Some people have lost sight of the whole picture.

JC: Yes it’s true but on the other hand I think that we do have a critical mass at the moment. It falls on us to encourage this holistic thinking and join up all the dots, the supermarkets do have a very important role to play, they have the infrastructure.

SP: In my experience there is an awful amount of lip service paid to buying local but people aren’t necessarily voting with their wallets. This is immensely frustrating as a producer.

Q: Does DEFRA have a role?

SP: I don’t think that DEFRA are particularly helpful. For years farmers have been told to diversify, which they have done but the government hasn’t really kept pace with what the farmers have achieved. They could be more help, often money is wasted.

Q: What would the benefit for the supermarkets be if they got involved?

JC: The supermarkets are at least paying lip service to local food and it’s about building awareness. Local food is being demanded, whatever ‘local’ means and supermarkets have an interest in supplying what the customer wants as with ethical and Fair Trade products. However supermarkets do not have the motivation to engage with the models we have talked about.

JH: There is also debate about what local actually means.

Comment from audience: We actually have a farmers’ market in our supermarket car park. We’d like to see more of it. Comment from audience: We must recognise that the food industry of recent years is all about convenience for the consumer and capturing value for the investors. Huge distribution centres are utterly incompatible with what’s been talked about here. Ultimately the message has to be “who is the business actually for?” This is where co-operatives and especially consumer co-operatives have an important role to play. The fundamentals of what we’re trying to achieve are opposed to where the bulk of the market sits. I don’t think that we’ll achieve the critical mass Joy refers to until a significant number of people understand the way the market really works. Then the market share of this model will grow at the expense of the industrial supermarkets.

Comment from audience: I’m a farmer and work with Sustain as part of the Making Local Food Work project. Community Supported Agriculture is nothing new, my grandfather’s farm supported the local community and it worked well. As farms have grown in size, community has become less important. I’m part of a co-operative of farmers, sharing equipment and labour, farming 4000 acres. My answer to ‘what inspires me to get involved in Community Supported Agriculture’ is all the things you have mentioned, but what would make me is a commercial opportunity to link that through. We would find it difficult to service local shops but we have created a hub to service local ASDA stores. They were keen to wave the local flag as a marketing tool. The amount of local lines is diminishing in these harder times. We need to create a sustainable farming brand that the customer can recognise.

JH: It does needs to be commercial, we are talking about sustainable businesses and we are still working on this but we will get there. There are already some regional brands/marks, but nothing joined up as yet.

SP: We’ve been doing some work with FARMA to see whether we can develop a brand and standard, but the problem is that there are already a large number of standards, schemes and brands, which are not easily recognised by the customer. Perhaps we need a clear-out before developing more.

Comment from audience: The farmers’ market brand already exists; people look at the market itself rather than the label. You don’t need a single mark.

Comment from audience: We need to point out that it is often cheaper to go to the farmers’ market, whereas it is often perceived as more expensive. We need to promote this. Buying groups exist because they are cheaper.

SP: Whatever is put in place has to be sustainable for the producer. Many producers cannot survive producing the unsustainably cheap food which the consumer has become used to. Consumers need to get used to spending a larger proportion of their income on food which is not easy to sell. Huge volatility in the markets doesn’t help make a sustainable food system either.

Q: Do we need more education around seasonality?

SP: Yes, 90% of my time on my stall is about education (mutton and asparagus) and it adds to the fun.

JH: As we engage with consumers this will come more naturally.

Sustaining UK Farming Livelihoods

Chair: Helen Seymour, Co-operativesUK

Presentation – James Graham, Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society Ltd

We have entered a new era of food supply and challenges of availability, affordability and ethics stem from it. Unless we manage these issues we cannot take food security for granted and rising costs of food could be a taste of what’s to come. In the UK we are inextricably engaged with the global situation but we need to look locally in order to fulfill our food related objectives. Current farming policies and existing food production and distribution channels may not be able to deliver society’s expectation for food.

UK farmers are under intense pressure to reduce costs and meet broader expectations, however production is declining and there is a growing imbalance between input costs and output values. Volatility is becoming normal in the industry and planning cycles are becoming shorter in order to manage business risks. This is the opposite of what is needed.

UK farming continues to be a major player in the global market but does ‘local’ have any value? And can it sustain farming livelihoods?

Community Partnerships in agriculture can be beneficial to farmers, so business does not need to be done with multinationals and multiple retailers. This creates opportunities to realise more value and make the farm more viable. It also contributes positively to the community and has more value to government and society as a whole.

In mainland Europe, the US, Australia and New Zealand, co-operation in farming is the norm. In contrast, the UK farming industry has little experience of co-operation. This is now beginning to change with the increase of machinery rings, marketing groups and shared labour schemes etc. There is at present an initiative by the SOAS (Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society) to reinvigorate farming by encouraging co-operation. It can be difficult to sell this idea to established family farmers as it involves multiple ownership, however a co-operative form may need to be adopted out of economic necessity.

Presentation – Charlie Clutterbuck, National Rural and Agricultural Workers Union (Unite)

There are problems facing farm workers in the UK. The farm is the most dangerous place to work in the UK due to the government cutting off funding for health and safety training and inspections. 25% of the farming workforce is over retirement age and half of the rest are migrant workers resulting in a problematic labour shortage in a growing sector. This problem could be tackled by the use of labour co-operatives and seasonal agriculture schemes, but also needs a massive input of money to build up capacity.

In order to address food security issues in the UK, we may need to change the way we produce and consume food. It has been suggested that production needs to shift from meat and dairy to cereals and fruit and vegetables. As a nation we don’t cook properly, leading us to consume and waste too much food. Young people need to be educated about ethical consumption and against processed food.

Economics may force us to accept the application of science in food production. There is no consensus on whether the use of GM food is a negative or a positive thing, but the information given to the public is inadequate and people should be made more aware so they can make informed choices. The more concerning issue is not GM itself, but whose hands it is in, and it should be back in the public arena.

In conclusion, ‘Sustaining UK Farming Livelihoods’ does not mean carrying on the way we are, but changing. Co-operation works in farming but communities cannot be the agents of change alone. An alliance between co-operative and state solutions is needed to bring about change. We cannot afford to be an island state; we need to look to Europe. In order to transform UK agriculture we need to embrace all the challenges and this must include carbon as a major issue. The current food crisis may be a product of the fact that despite the problems faced by the farming industry, the public still wants and demands cheap food. It may be time to admit that the era of cheap food is over and that we should be paying more for our food in order to guarantee future security.

Fair Miles

Chair: Laura Vickery, The Co-operative Group

Presentation – Tom MacMillan, Food Ethics Council

The Food Ethics Council (FEC) view of air-freight is similar to that of the Institute of Environment and Development. They have produced two reports on these issues (available from www.foodethicscouncil.org), which took the feedback from NGOs and civil society groups back to supermarket retailers. They concluded that the performance of retailers on air-freighting issues will be judged by clear and challenging benchmarks. Potential benchmarks to emerge from this consultation were:

• An environmental strategy that focuses actions on greater greenhouse gas hotspots than air-freight. There is a risk that focusing on air-freight (responsible for 0.3% UK’s food related emissions) detracts from tackling larger contributors to food-related emissions e.g. meat/dairy.

• Retailers must provide robust evidence for their development claims. They should explain how they are ‘partners for development’ and show how they are carrying the costs of the trade with the benefits going to the right people.

• There isn’t a simple checklist of what is ok to air-freight and what isn’t, and cutting back on air-freight is more controversial than limiting its further growth. Therefore tackling the aspects of air-freight that are most widely agreed to be a problem is a priority. These include increasing flight efficiency, limiting emergency top-up, and avoiding replacing air-freighted goods with more Greenhouse Gas (GHG) intensive substitutes.

• Retailers should take a strategic approach to the environment and development. They should be active and transparent in supporting government policies, penalties and incentives to drive better environmental and ethical behavior. There needs to be a trading framework that works for poverty reduction.

 

Presentation – Anthony Pile, Blue Skies Holdings

Partnership is the key to Blue Skies’ work, and their trade helping African economies. African farmers are bemused by what they perceive to be European/UK protectionism.

Blue Skies produce added value fruits, processed in the country of origin and that reach retailers within 36 hrs of harvest via air-freight in the holds of passenger flights. They have grown over 10 years to supply 12 European retailers and employ over 2,500 people in Brazil, Egypt, Ghana and South Africa.

They work with locals and farmers, not ex-pats, and use a Joint Effort Enterprise (JEE) model they have developed. This aims to build long-term relationships that meet regularly audited international standards. Blue Skies locates in communities of poverty and started in Ghana where they now employ over 1,000 people, support 150 small-holder farmers and are responsible for 1.5% of Ghana’s total exports, 30% of its pineapple and 70% of its mango exports.

Blue Skies currently faces several global challenges, the financial downturn, air-freight costs, climate change, trade policies and public opinion on ‘food miles’. They are very aware climate is a priority concern and have a sustainability policy which includes; measuring their emissions, meeting LEAF standards, 100% composting in Ghana, development of sea freight-able products. Blue Skies have also set up a joint community foundation which provides £100,000 per year for projects including education, water, health care and sanitation improvements.

Despite the uncertain future Blue Skies will continue its endeavours with its producers. Over the last decade Africa is the only continent that has got poorer. Adding value to African products is important to make the most of its raw materials. Africa wants to farm, we need to let it.

Q & A Session:

Q: How do you prove the development impacts of your trade?

AP: Blue Skies uses independent studies that monitor employment, social changes, economic position, energy, schooling and poverty indicators in the area they work. They compare these factors before and after the arrival of the company.

Q: How can consumers make the right decisions to buy products linked to poverty reduction?

AP: By putting direct links to producers on packaging. Blue Skies have links to internet resources where consumers can see the producers and their working conditions.

TM: It can be difficult to reach people with information on producers. There is some support for simpler labels or logos that are clearer about a products impact on development.

Q: What potential is there for someone to provide more information and resources for tracing the environmental and development impacts of products?

TM: This information is dependent on logistics. The FEC is not a public facing organisation, they deal with policy and businesses. There needs to be a consumer organisation like Which?, maybe working in partnership with FEC. For example in the Netherlands and Germany there is a web tool that ranks products according to many different criteria, a similar project focusing on the ethical provenance of a product would be useful. Changes in product supply chains would help create such a resource.

Q: Importing fruit from Africa is also importing their water supply. What are your views on this and would it be beneficial to export better irrigation systems?

AP: A fair criticism, but the benefits of trade outweigh the costs at present. In terms of irrigation, there are actually good modern techniques in use in many places in Africa.

Q: Has the food miles debate impacted the business of Blue Skies and what will Blue Skies do if forced out of air-freighting?

AP: Sugarloaf pineapple exports have fallen from their peak levels largely as a result of the air miles debate and the economic downturn. Blue Skies will avoid being forced out of air-freight at all costs; it aims to maintain its producer relationships but is also exploring other avenues e.g. sea-freighting.

Q: Where next for the fair miles debate?

TM: When air-freighting became the focus it was interpreted by the supermarkets as the food miles issue. People are anxious about seeming hypocritical so we need to address the claims made regarding air-freight and provide benchmarks for the debate. We also need to use the concern that’s around air-freight as a launch pad to tackle other issues.

AP: Sustainable fuels will become more important over the next 20-25 years. The Fair Trade movement has been important, but we also need to explore other avenues. There are issues with refrigeration of products that need to be addressed. The government has made some progress in recognising businesses with social and environmental policies with the Queens Award for Sustainability and FRICH projects, where products will have evidence of their benefits to Africa on their labels.

Second Plenary

Chair: Sheila Dillon, The Food Programme

The Future of Fair Trade – Tomy Mathews, Fair Trade Alliance

Kerala Producers have the greatest stake in Fair Trade, so we need to reassert trade justice as the heart of Fair Trade.

The challenges facing smallholder farmers make them the most vulnerable. Often they rely on the most predictable aspect of their lives, which is Fair Trade for many. We need to vindicate this trust and re-populate the Ethical High Street.

So… where next for Fair Trade?

Stakes in the South:

• Maintaining integrity with growth.

• Trade justice at the heart.

• Growing market opportunities.

• Widening the net: more producers, more products.

• Niche to mainstream.

There is a concern that by widening Fair Trade there has been some dilution in the trade justice component. A price linked to the costs of production needs to be reasserted.

Stakes in the North:

• The label – marketing ploy or justice in trade concerns? Fairwashing?

• The players – the steadfast vs. the fly by night, Alternative Trading Organisations (ATOs) the pioneer core and vanguard.

• The products – livelihood concerns or fashion statement?

Maintaining the integrity of the label.

The way forward:

• Producer at the heart of the system.

• Minimum commitments from any/all players.

• Gate-keeping no substitute for campaigns.

• Fair Trade as a tool in wider battle for fairness in global commodity commerce – trade justice.

• Fair Trade when the planet is in peril? Poverty is the biggest pollutant.

However, we need more than shopping bag politics. To change the ocean of trade one cup at a time is not enough.

The future, or Fair Trade +

• From Fair Trade products to Fair Trade businesses.

• Aligning bottom line compulsions with justice concerns.

• Preferential buying options that enhance the value of the Fairtrade label.

• Transparency further up the value chain and redistribution of Fairtrade brand equity eg Liberation Nuts, Cafedirect, Divine, Oke.

Liberation Nuts Story:

• Aim to empower and strengthen smallholder producer organisations in developing countries by bringing them higher up the supply chain, providing market access, establishing their own brand and helping them to maximize their returns.

• 42% owned by nut farmers in Latin America, Africa and Asia, the remainder owned by ethical investors.

• Over 20,000 farmers are part of Liberation, represented through an International Nut Producers Co-operative.

• They support smallholders through technical support, sustainable strategies, market access, supporting producer knowledge sharing, and raising awareness on trade issues.

• Liberation aims to be a visible and vocal catalyst for change.

FAIRTRADE: A global initiative to bridge the physical and emotional distance between the sensitive producer and the conscious consumer.

Developing World Livelihoods – Kathini Maloba, Kenya Women Workers Organisation

Kathini’s experiences have been in the workers movement, particularly with women. It is not possible to talk about development without governments.

To improve worker livelihoods:

• Invest in countries.

• They are vulnerable.

In Kenya campaigns to improve working conditions in the cut flower industry led to flower growing companies leaving. Therefore we need to call on businesses to adopt Fair Trading policies, the responsibility on them, not reliant on a policing system. This would help create livelihoods for everyone. Workers need to be involved in knowing what Fair Trade and other schemes are; they need to understand what they mean for them. Ultimately, we need to encourage investment, but that which is fair and sensitive to the rights of the workers.

Food Security and Sustainable Food – Anna Coote, New Economics Foundation

Food security means food that is available, accessible and affordable. DEFRA defines it as ‘Consumers having access at all times to sufficient, safe and nutritious food for an active and healthy life at affordable prices’.

There can be no food security without sustainable food and no sustainable food without social justice – social justice underpins everything.

A sustainable food system is made up of environmental stewardship, well being and social justice within resilient systems. A socially just food system is made up of workers in the food sector, ‘consumers’ and supply chain relationships.

Indicators of a socially just food system:

• Those working in the system earn a fair wage, work in a safe environment and are free to organise.

• Everyone is able to acquire and consume an adequate quality and sufficient quantity of food.

• All relations between producers, processors, manufacturers, suppliers and retailers are fair and free of coercion and intimidation.

Social injustice is endemic in the UK food system. We need an institutional analysis of food and social justice. The negative outcomes associated with economic activity, eg social injustice, are mainly a result of the institutional framework governing that activity. Social injustice in the UK food system includes:

• Labour exploitation.

• Food poverty.

• Unequal power.

These factors lead to a vicious circle where social injustice across the food system is reinforced by the distribution of risk in favour of powerful groups. The New Economics Foundation will be working on how to turn the vicious circle into a virtuous one, where equal opportunity across social groups leads to food security.

Break Out Groups

The Future of Fair Trade

Chair: David Croft, Cadbury Schweppes

Presentation – Lucio Cavazzoni, Alce Nero Mielizia, Italy

Fair Trade is a system there to help farms and local producers. By dealing with small producers rather than plantations it can help farmers develop. Plantations are too big and have nothing to do with sustainability.

Conapi is the largest bee-keeping co-operative in Europe. Created in 1978 as a youth co-operative it collects 2,600 tons honey a year, 25% of Italy’s total honey crop. In 1983 it undertook its first project to support a bee-keeping co-operative in Nicaragua. In 1999 they created Alce Nero, Mielizia and Libera Terra, a marketing and distribution company 75% owned by co-operatives and farmers, the rest by two financial institutions (Libera Terra and Co-operativas Sin Fronteras). Alce Nero’s main objective is to reach its producers and organise supply to the market. They directly produce, process and distribute so they don’t control the supply chain, they are the supply chain.

Co-operativas Sin Fronteras (CSF) is made up of 22 co-operatives and associations from 11 different countries. Their products are characteristically organic, Fair Trade and high quality. CSF has three main objectives; to corner local (Latin American) and international markets, to create relationships with processors and distributors and to be directly in touch with consumers.

Cornering local markets involves finding new strategies, stimulating the pride of farmers to produce good, clean and fair food, allowing co-operatives (at local, regional and national levels) to create a market structure. This will build up a strong, effective and authentic co-operative enterprise. Success is not just to fill containers for someone else to sell but to build up a strong co-operative business. The former leads to stagnation.

CSF is the natural development of Alce Nero’s Fair Trading experiences and its members believe corporate companies and plantations do not support the development of the Fair Trade system, since they fail to create new opportunities for co-operative enterprises. CSF currently operates in Latin America and Southern Italy (on ex-Mafia land and assets) but they plan to expand into Asia and Africa. They are also working to establish a specific fund to support Fair Trading co-operatives operating in different countries.

They are currently working to set up a new organic Mozzarella co-operative with local young people in Campania in Southern Italy, an area still controlled by the Mafia.

Presentation – Samantha Lacey, The Co-operative College

Co-operatives had a large role in the development of Fair Trade, because the benefits go to their members, not shareholders. Co-operatives are still deeply involved in Fair Trade, whether they are groups of producers, trading partners, retail societies or workers co-operatives. Like anything they have their advantages and challenges.

Advantages include: balance between economic and social goals, empowerment, strength in numbers and profits stay local (especially for small, local co-operatives).

Challenges include historical prejudices and entrepreneurship, particularly in Africa where many have been discredited and/or are not very entrepreneurial.

The Fair Trade system was a response to the needs of poor farmers for stability, a premium, and democracy, things that are strong in the UK and EU. Fair Trade has been a big success but faces new challenges: supplying a growing demand, plantation workers, big corporations, support for development and environmental concerns.

At present, producers like the premium and the prices, but don’t like unreliable volumes, hard to meet customer standards (quality and environment), competition (eg from plantations), market drive and their continued reliance on single cash crops. Solutions need diversification; into local markets and other products; and long-term relationships.

There is innovative work currently being developed. For example:

Access to the value chain:

• Kuapa Kokoo.

More products:

• Kenyan tea and indigenous products project.

Transparency in inter-community trade:

• Just Change.

Campaigning:

• Cafe Rebelde Zapatista.

Empowerment:

• Zaytoun Olive Oil.

Connection to producers:

• Utz Certified.

Overall ethical shopping:

• Co-operative Group Ethical Policy.

Ways forward include co-operative to co-operative trade incorporating direct training and support for communities, microfinance and connecting the customer and producer.

Q & A Session:

Q: How much support did you have to give to the producers, and was it FLO or Conapi?

LC: There is direct investment of our own funds and money collected from Banca Ethica and private sources. FLO support is through the logo but this doesn’t identify the types of producer so we always put the name of the producers and some description of them on their products. We also often include photos of co-operative members. The local market is critical.

SL: Producers say that FLO doesn’t have the capacity and that TWIN and others gave the support they needed. In the last 2 years there have been FLO liaison officers but not many of them.

Q: What do you think about small producers v plantations? FLO used to insist that coffee, honey, etc would only be certified from small producers.

Tomy Mathews: The FLO AGM in Bonn will debate this. Producers have a view. Tea comes entirely from plantations. To go back on Fair Trade certification for tea would be difficult. Fair Trade is for the workers interests, to safeguard their conditions; FLO has to be very vigilant on this. The jury is still out, eg there are not such good conditions on coffee plantations.

LC: Small producers are opposed to plantations as the land has often been stolen from them. But the expansion of Fair Trade requires plantations to be included. Maybe limit them to 30%-40% of total certified.

Comment from audience: Plantations have all the economic benefits; they shouldn’t need the Fair Trade premium to be able to pay decent wages. It’s the small producers that need the support.

Q: Where is the overall market? With a few exceptions, why haven’t the big players joined in?

DC: They are taking notice. There is a challenge of scale: smallholders are often disorganised and just can’t meet the demand of large scale production. Large organisations need more than what can be offered, e.g. Cadbury’s could not get enough cocoa from Kuapa Kokoo. So the need is to find ways of growing and strengthening the producer networks.

Tomy Mathews: You cannot avoid the big players. But then what is the role of Alternative Trading Organisations? They’ve got to strengthen their messages. It is risky, they will have to change and some will fall by the wayside.

SL: Leverage and leadership is a key role of Fair Trade labelling, eg to stir people to campaign. It is also about integrating Fair Trade principles into the rest of the business’ trade.

LC: Fair Trade is an important tool for consumers and retailers to discover who, how & when something has been produced, the human relations behind it.

Developing World Livelihoods

Chair: Rachel English, Women Working Worldwide

Presentation – Casildo Quispe, Coinacapa Brazil-nut Co-operative, Bolivia

COINACAPA is located in Pando in NW Bolivia on the border with Brazil. It was founded out of a desire to improve the livelihoods of the rural community there; its indigenous population, whilst also preserving the natural habitat. The Brazil nuts they grow and pick are branded Fairtrade and organic.

By the nature of Brazil nut growing and gathering, the practice preserves the dense rainforests they inhabit and provides an invaluable income to hundreds of families, an ethic that was of close concern to COINACAPA.

The co-operative was first established in 1998 with the aid of an Italian NGO, and had 25 members. The co-operative didn’t succeed initially but when they reformed on their own in 2000, with their own constitution and no international support, they became successful and sustainable.

Being a co-operative with Fairtrade and organic certification came with additional costs, including paying for regular inspections, the implementation of fair pay for their members and healthcare benefits for them and their families. These have been costs COINACAPA have happily paid due to the importance they place on operating to high and ethical standards. A down side to the Fairtrade label has been that it has been abused by others, for example people will operate under Fairtrade regulations for some of their products but ignore them for other practices while including those products under the same label.

Major priorities for COINACAPA in the future are to become a partner in the international debate on Fair Trade and to improve the productivity of their processing plant.

In the UK COINACAPA Brazil-nuts are available from Liberation! Nuts in Tesco and Morrison’s supermarkets.

Food Security and Sustainable Food

Chair: Charlie Clutterbuck, City University and Environmental Practice at Work

Presentation – Peter Harper, Centre for Alternative Technology

There are often two view-points regarding food security and sustainable food:

• The pragmatic mind-set - what can I do right now?

• The apocalyptic mind-set - they know where we need to be for the long term and just want to get on with it.

The mix of these view-points is often frustrating.

What time frame are we talking about with respect to food security? 50 years?

• It is unlikely the UK food system will collapse in the next 50 years; we can produce enough if we need to. We don’t because it’s not economic. We’ve got out of the habit but could do it if necessary.

• Is enough food available at the right price? This is not likely to be a problem in the UK; people won’t starve in the next 50 years because a typical household only spends about 10% of its household budget on food. This could easily revert to 40%, a level spent after WW2. Only cultural factors prevent this, as we have got used to spending less.

• Is there enough of the right kind of food for health, preferences and social needs? In principle, yes there is in the UK.

So who can’t get enough food? It’s not an issue in the EU but is our food security someone else’s insecurity? Whose food systems do we affect?

On the sustainability side, there are big problems, eg climate change. How does this affect our food system? Also important is how our food system affects the big problems. It’s difficult to measure the carbon emissions of the food system, although new conventions may appear to be working over smaller timescales, eg those relating to the emissions of methane. Different actions on different scales will have different impacts on the food system.

We need to decide what sustainable world we are entering, there are 3 possibilities:

1. The mitigation world - prevent climate change, short time-scale (10 years).

2. Peak oil - just deal with oil - what are the implications for the food system?

3. Adaptation - adapting to a warming world - large implications for food system, but longer timescale (50-100 years).

Which future will emerge? Where they overlap there are areas of commonality. It looks like some degree of relocalisation is important. Cheaper renewable energy and waste and nutrient recycling will be important under any scenario. There is a danger that indecision could freeze action, we need to look for synergies and solutions, which will work under any scenario.

A useful concept is the health food pyramid produced by the Harvard School of Public Health; it gives roughly the proportion of foods essential for good health. This also turns out to be the pyramid for sustainable values. Sustainable food pyramids could be useful in planning food security futures. There could be a version of this for each individual nation, reflecting their different food systems.

Presentation – Kath Dalmeny, Sustain

Sustain has a definition of sustainable food and it pretty much fits with the Harvard food health pyramid.

Two main themes:

• Who will build food security?

• What will survive the bulldozer test (see below)?

Who controls food security and why?

Government - 18 months ago DEFRA said that “food security is not a term we use in DEFRA”. This has obviously changed. Conversation with government tends to be around labelling (allowing consumers to choose their way to food security) and also a nebulous set of indicators including ‘calorie tests’ that ask ‘is there enough energy?’ This approach will not prevent the eating of the last cod in the North Sea.

Gatekeepers - Supermarkets, buyers, distributors. The ‘just in time’ test of the supermarket, which doesn’t feel very secure. They have no social requirement to ensure food supply; having handed over our food to them we are 3 days away from running out of fresh food during fuel protests. It’s a different situation in the energy industry.

Local authorities – ‘We don’t really know what food security is’. Local authorities tend to be about individual households having enough to eat. They could apply retail diversity tests or possible planning tests.

Community action – ‘Support the farmer who grew my salad’. This could be through local box schemes. There is a lot of hope in the community response, it addresses sustainability. By becoming aware of your reliance on the producer and by trading with them you are building food sustainability. So community responses can help create food security. Growing Communities and Julie Brown have produced a sustainable Food Zone diagram inspired by Carolyn Steel. It shows concentric rings of production moving from local to less local but Fairly Traded food.

Local food case studies:

• Bridport Local Food Links - providing locally sourced and produced hot school meals.

• Farmers’ Market, Hackney - resilience lies in the consumer/producer interaction. We need the professionals as well as the amateurs.

Actions needed:

• Involvement further up the chain in planning and procurement. Sustain is getting involved in this.

• Better policy.

• Our own “Green Collar Army”, to build the stories of mutuality and resilience into our culture for the next generation.

The bulldozer test - what would we and our children and grandchildren be willing to lie down in front of a bulldozer to protect?

Q & A Session:

Q: Do you need a big player to get involved, such as a local authority or Primary Care Trust?

KD: Some local authorities have been great and some rubbish. London is good thanks to the work of Dan Keech. In some areas community groups are achieving results despite their local authority. In some cases such as land release, the co-operation of the local authority is essential; we should be telling those stories.

Comment from audience: I’m of the apocalyptic school of thought. A book called ‘The Seventh Enemy’ identifies that enemy as the inability of government to change in time. Modern society is like battery hens trying to learn to be free-range while there are very few free-range people about. Children in school should be taught about growing.

Q: I’m from the Centre for Global Education in York and our two most popular courses are on Fair Trade and sustainable development. How does community action fit in with Southern producers through the Fair Trade model and what role do the supermarkets have? How do we challenge their position?

PH: We will probably move towards two parallel food systems. You can imagine that we would have Fair Trade tropical products (approx 5%) allied with more local products (low meat) being sold in parallel with the supermarkets, but being more sustainable and growing.

CC: There is a presumption here that we will have a choice; that the rest of the world will continue to be our breadbasket. This choice may be out the window in 5-10 years due to China. Starvation might not be 50 years away.

Q/Comment: With regard to people planting more, The Co-operative should give away seeds as well as Morrison’s.

Comment from audience: I’m from The Co-operative Group and I agree it should be doing that. Growing/planting should also be part of the curriculum.

Comment from audience: I’m a retired primary school teacher and I know the curriculum is already packed so maybe we should produce readers about growing and related issues as children have to learn to read with something. It therefore wouldn’t be an extra thing.

Q: Isn’t that because they are concentrating on reading writing and arithmetic at the cost of other subjects?

Comment from audience: You can’t do the other subjects unless you can read or write.

Comment from audience: The Co-operative does have a program of farm visits for school children where they pick and cook food on site.

Q/Comment: My worry is that food security, like energy security is a political construct like food miles. I never hear mention of the fact that there is £11.5 billion of exports from the UK, growing at 9%. You never hear anyone saying that our farmers should not be exporting beef to China.

Comment from audience: Somewhere along the line the idea of food security has got lost and it has to be re-introduced from the bottom up. We need to re-assess how we teach our children about eating and celebrate it. The community is a good place to start.

Comment from audience: The Co-operative College is rolling out a new model for youth co-operatives called Greenfingers; horticultural co-operatives in schools and youth groups. Children will learn about growing food and healthy eating. Comment from audience: I am a farmer and our local box scheme helped us survive the foot and mouth epidemic. The question is whether small-scale community organisations will scale up or remain a niche market.

KD: Food security takes the ‘political construct’ to heart; it can be true but doesn’t have to be. Sending beef to China is bonkers. I couldn’t argue the economics of it but I can’t understand how it can be viable to do that.

Comment from audience: It seems scientifically more sensible for London to take produce from northern France than northern England or Scotland. I never hear anyone say let’s shut down the heated greenhouses in Scotland. The portrayal of local food can come close to Nationalism.

KD: I was talking to someone from Scotland recently where local food doesn’t mean just over the border. It needs explicitly challenging, what is really sustainable? The model needs testing. Produce grown in heated greenhouses should not be described as seasonal. The Co-operative movement is already using robust viable trading models and we should be exploring this further as part of the Making Local Food Work project.

Q: There is an underlying assumption that all land is available for food, what is the effect of the fact that we will also need to grow energy crops and building materials?

PH: The Zero Carbon Britain report (which can be downloaded from the CAT website) turns land use priorities upside down. Ruminants become uneconomic and fewer animals mean more land, as 60% is used for livestock. If we decided to go down that route, it would need to be an international agreement. Failing that, if climate change occurs we may find ourselves exporting grains etc.

Q/Comment: If we stormed the houses of Parliament tomorrow, we could affect radical change very quickly, but radical change and telling people what they can and can’t eat is not on any politician’s agenda. How do we affect policy? Are we seeing a sea change at DEFRA and how do we implement a model where we are sustainable?

KD: We need to change perceptions and make changes in bits and pieces through the media, conferences etc. We can only expect broad-brush stuff from the government. The mechanical balancing buckets model is all they understand. The supermarkets just want carbon prices setting, a framework to operate within.

Comment from audience: A message of hope and a lesson from history. The birth of the co-operative movement in Rochdale was a grassroots organisation that didn’t campaign in London, but grew and replicated organically. We should identify the pockets where there is a success story and help communities to come up with their own solutions, not wait for Whitehall.

Comment from audience: It’s no accident that The Co-operative is UK’s largest farmer, though they don’t necessarily own the land. The radical vision we have forgotten is the fact that The Co-operative invested in a fair supply chain.

PH: The Co-operative may have a role working with Community Supported Agriculture.

Q from CC: In the light of comments regarding Nationalism and local food and earlier comments about protectionism, do we need to repeat the debate over the repeal of the Corn Laws?

KD: I will talk to anybody in the attempt to sort this out; all of our eggs are not in one basket. There is a broad spectrum of debates to be had from the national to the local and some business practices should definitely be made illegal. Food growing is part of the answer, but not all of it. Regarding the Corn Laws, I don’t know.

Final Plenary

Chair: Sheila Dillon, The Food Programme

Panel: Tomy Mathews, Fair Trade Association of Kerala, India

Kathini Maloba, Kenya Women Workers Organisation

Kath Dalmeny, Sustain Joy Carey, Soil Association

Panel Discussion:

TM: Fair Trade is as much about trade justice as financial reward

Q: Local or Fair Trade?

KD: It’s about ecology, health, social justice, good livelihoods, resilience; exact mileage is not the point. All will be Fairly Traded. Let’s start doing it and not define it too much in advance.

Q: What are the effects of the current financial crisis?

TM: We spend too little on food, we should spend more. If unbridled competition got us into this situation then the post-crisis world may be a better place to solve it. This is a time for the Fair Trade movement to close ranks. The Fairtrade Foundation is very bullish about the financial crisis.

Q: Which products distract from the Fair Trade debate?

TM: Diamonds – black or Fair Trade.

Q: Will developing countries sign up to the replacement for Kyoto when they see developed countries obsessed with localism? KD: The Soil Association did well by inviting developing world organisation representatives to the debate. The Soil Association now says it will continue trade if it can demonstrate development benefits. This should also be a funders’ test. We still need to look at alternatives, eg transport, packaging, etc.

JC: The localism discussion is a red herring. The issue is sustainable food systems.

Q: People are questioning consumer choice. Should we put pressure on public procurers?

KD: Yes. The NHS is the biggest employer. Sustain just got Esmée Fairbairn Foundation money for a 3-year project on this.

JC: There is the Lottery-funded Food for Life project with schools, which includes a quality mark for schools.

Comment from audience: There is fudging on trade justice for public procurement. The Office of Government Commerce advice is that it can include Fair Trade, but may not specify that goods have to be Fair Trade. So government needs a big push on this. The Irish government committed to this recently.

Q: See http://hempreneur.wordpress.com, we’ve forgotten plants like hemp. EU laws have disincentivised growing them. What progress is there in the UK on these historic plants?

JC: I don’t’ know much about hemp but agree that it is an interesting plant with plenty of scope.

Q: We need to look at why Fair Trade took off in the first place - consumer pressure through political interest. How can we build on that?

TM: We need to convey the messages on the packaging. KM: The message gets lost when Fair Trade is applied to large suppliers, who should deliver the benefits without the Fair Trade premium. There is disagreement on how to use the money; workers want to use it as cheap loans to build houses and buy land and to build up personal assets, big companies wants to build prestige buildings.

Lucio Cavazzoni joined panel: Fair Trade is an important instrument to support producers and farmers in developing countries. It is important for consumers to see Fair Trade as a way to establish a direct connection with producers. It is also an important way for farmers to access local markets.

Q from SD: Do consumers understand the complex issues behind Fair Trade?

Lucio Cavazzoni: Yes, I think they do. The opposite is free trade – trade without rules. FLO (Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International) needs to work with consumers to develop the rules.

Closing Address

The way forward – Professor Tim Lang, City University

Capitalism is in crisis, the planet is doomed to be affected by climate change, creating plenty of leverage to work from!

There are 10 key points:

1. We have to address the new fundamentals: climate change, fuel/oil/energy, water, biodiversity, soil, land use, labour, urbanisation, demographics/population, and nutrition transition. They’ve all got to be factored into the price of food.

2. It should be easy to keep ethics on the agenda. Wants are being replaced by needs. The pressure to be concerned with ethics is getting greater not diminishing.

3. Consumer engagement differs across countries, eg Henley Centre graph compares consumers who stop buying to express dissatisfaction, so we need different strategies.

4. Rethink choice, it is a rubbish concept. Choice is universal, but there are choices and choices. We’ve got to break it apart to see where the choices should be and what their impacts are. This may require rebalancing the government, supply chain and consumers.

5. We need to clarify what a good food system is; something that has been debated over for 35 years. We are getting there with the concept of ‘omni-standards’. Fair Trade is contributing but it is not the full answer and has contradictions. It’s very complex but we need to have standards in many aspects of the food system (labour, animal welfare, Fair Trade, health & safety, etc).

6. How can we mesh consumer behaviour with these imperatives? We’ve got to lead and guide consumers.

7. Eco-nutrition needs translating into new cultural ‘rules’ for eating, eg coffee has little nutritional value, sugar has none. There is an important land use point here; to make the most of the land, eg hemp has multi-functionality.

8. Fair Trade has to become much bigger than it is; the whole CAP, a fair WTO. This is the moment to do it.

9. The agenda is changing fast. Movements need to come together, eg Fair Trade and food miles. Co-operatives can go beyond.

10. There must be a triangle of change; actions taken by state, the supply chain and society.

We should be optimistic, because we have come such a long way in 20 years. Now we must continue to ‘Educate, Agitate, and Organise’.

Sheila Dillon ended by thanking the speakers and delegates for contributing to the day, and left us with one final thought; ‘If only DEFRA had been here!’

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