‘Worse than half-baked’: Johnson’s food strategy fails to tackle cost or climate
Boris Johnson’s new food strategy for England contains virtually no new measures to tackle the soaring cost of food, childhood hunger, obesity or the climate emergency, a leaked version of the white paper shows.
The strategy, seen by the Guardian and due to be published on Monday, was supposed to be a groundbreaking response to recommendations from the restaurateur Henry Dimbleby, who wrote two government-commissioned reports on obesity and the environment.
Dimbleby made a number of high-profile suggestions, including the expansion of free school meals, increasing environment and welfare standards in farming, and a 30% reduction in meat and dairy consumption.
But the slim 27-page document makes few recommendations, and declines to address the contribution of food prices to the cost of living crisis or address calls for consuming less meat and dairy.
Among its few policy proposals are the suggestion there could be more fish farming, which is environmentally controversial, and an increase in the use of “responsibly sourced wild venison”.
The strategy was described as “bordering on preposterous” by Labour over its lack of concrete proposals on food prices and “worse than half-baked” by the environmental campaign group Greenpeace.
Johnson recently delayed measures to tackle obesity and has come under fire for failing to do enough help families with the cost of living, with inflation running at 9%.
Although the white paper accepts food prices are a major part of the squeeze facing many families, and that many people on low incomes struggle to afford to eat, it suggests this is not the business of a government food strategy.
The white paper instead focuses on “longer-term measures” to support the food system rather than “duplicating
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