Food systems impacts of COVID 19
  • Food systems impacts of COVID 19

    It’s not just about COVID: Food in the news

    Posted by Steve Guilbert

    23 October 2020

     

    By Prof. Michael Winter

    There has been a spate of press coverage in recent days about food related issues and not all are about COVID impacts. The prospects of a no-deal Brexit at the end of the transition period may well have a more severe impact on food supplies, certainly in the short-term, than the impact of COVID in March and April. How COVID and Brexit combine to serve up a cocktail of challenges is the theme of an article in the Sunday Times on the 18th October entitled ‘Jingling tills won’t solve a tricky midwinter for supermarkets’. The supermarkets are expected to ‘benefit’ from the new restrictions on the hospitality sector, and delivery slots are already filling up. The big four – Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons – are reported to be preparing plans to extend hours, use virtual queueing apps and have awnings outside stores to give shelter to those queuing. On top of all this are the uncertainties associated with the end of the Brexit transition period. The Sunday Times piece speculates that ‘fear of border delays in the new year could spur shoppers to indulge in festive stockpiling, leaving supermarkets with empty shelves and warehouses’.

    On a similar Brexit trade theme, the Financial Times reports on concerns that organic farmers in the UK may not be able to export to the EU after the Transition Period ends due to uncertainty around whether the EU will recognise the certification of UK goods with an organic label. The piece reports that UK exports worth up to £225m a year could be in peril and that EU businesses are already winding down orders from the UK as time for a trade deal runs out.

    Returning to the COVID theme, the Guardian reports that major food companies have written to the Chancellor about the risk posed to food supplies to care homes, schools, hospitals and prisons as the loss of income associated with the decline of the hospitality sector has put some wholesalers at risk. The companies advocate more Government support for wholesalers. In contrast, an in-depth piece in the New Statesman claims that some wholesalers have benefitted unfairly from Government funding of food boxes for the vulnerable. Anoosh Chakelian in ‘Revealed: The £208m food box rip-off’ pulls no punches denouncing the poor nutritional quality of the contents of food boxes for the clinically extremely vulnerable and moreover claiming that the Government paid private contractors almost double the retail value for food parcels, through the £208 million contract. Kath Dalmeny, the chief executive of food and farming charity Sustain described the boxes as a ‘mixed picture of food quality’, and the scheme as ‘logistically impressive’ but ‘nutritionally questionable’. The reference to Sustain took me scurrying off to the Sustain website where I found a challenging piece by Kath Dalmeny calling for ‘a public inquiry into the Covid-19 emergency food response, to ensure that we don’t make the same mistakes again’. She sets out 7 key questions: Why did so many people go hungry before and during the Covid-19 pandemic?

    1. Why has it been so hard for Government to recognise and relieve financial hardship for those most in need?
    2. Why was it so hard to ensure children from very low-income families got the food they needed?
    3. Why did Sustain have to resort to legal action to secure government action on child holiday hunger?
    4. Why don’t we treat meals on wheels services more seriously?
    5. How do we stop supermarket shelves from emptying ahead of impending shocks to our supply chains?
    6. Why was so much public money given to supermarkets and not local shops and suppliers?

    For more details on the above see: https://www.sustainweb.org/blogs/jul20_covid19_food_insecurity_mustnt_happen_again/

    In August’s Bulletin, I talked about the National Food Strategy, which clearly provides one of the more promising routes to address at least some of these questions. Of course, the origins of the NFS pre-date COVID and so does food poverty, and so we finish with the starting point of this piece that there are food issues which are not just about COVID. Let me give the final word to someone who has been in the news a good deal recently, the footballer Marcus Rashford who on the 15th October launched his petition calling for an end to child poverty writing as follows:

    ‘For too long this conversation has been delayed. Child food poverty in the UK is not a result of COVID-19. We must act with urgency to stabilise the households of our vulnerable children. In 2020, no child in the UK should be going to bed hungry, nor should they be sat in classrooms concerned about how their younger siblings are going to eat that day, or how they are going to access food come the holidays. The school holidays used to be a highlight of the year for children. Today, it is met with anxiety from those as young as 7-years old. Many have said that education is the most effective means of combating poverty. I do not disagree with this statement, but education is only effective when children can engage in learning. Right now, a generation who have already been penalised during this pandemic with lack of access to educational resources are now back in school struggling to concentrate due to worry and the sound of their rumbling stomachs. Whatever your feeling, opinion, or judgement, food poverty is never the child’s fault. Let’s protect our young. Let’s wrap arms around each other and stand together to say that this is unacceptable, that we are united in protecting our children. Today, millions of children are finding themselves in the most vulnerable of environments and are beginning to question what it really means to be British. I’m calling on you all today to help me prove to them that being British is something to be proud of.’

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