Gordon Brown’s blunt call on Brits to stop wasting food marks an interesting moment in the food prices debate.
So far, policymakers have concentrated almost entirely on the supply side – specifically, with the need to increase food production by 50 per cent by 2030, in line with World Bank demand forecasts. (I worry that too much focus on the overall quantum of food produced risks obscuring the equally fundamental issue of who has access to it – but let’s leave that aside for now.)
What Brown’s emphasis on waste does is to give the demand side of the equation equal billing – a position it’s deserved all along, but hasn’t received from policymakers, presumably due to anxieties about implying that consumers may have to change behaviour.
The issue of food waste is a massive issue in its own right – the UK wastes 4 million tonnes of food a year, and the forthcoming Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit report on food says that up to 40 per cent of food harvested in developing countries can be lost before it’s consumed. But its long term significance may be as a bridgehead for opening up a broader front on demand reduction: as the food equivalent of energy efficiency, if you like.
Another of the battles in that front will be over biofuels – a major new source of demand for crops. The leak last week of an internal World Bank document showed just how significant biofuels have been: it argued that biofuels have been responsible for as much as 75% of food price increases – way more than the 30% previously estimated by the International Food Policy Research Institute. (The Bank’s 75% figure isn’t new – it’s been kicking around their HQ for at least three months – but its release now will definitely increase pressure on the US to reduce subsidies for corn-based ethanol.)
But what I think’s most significant of all about Brown’s new tack is that it makes him the first head of government to talk clearly about the elephant in the room with food prices: the fact that our diet in developed countries has a direct effect on the food security of poor people in developing countries. Waste may be the first stop – but the train line we’re on leads directly to the question of how much meat and dairy products we can consume without impinging on others’ fair shares.
