SCOTLAND’S LOCAL FOOD REVOLUTION

• 3 Things we’ve learned in the last 9 months

• Some history of the present crisis

• Equidae

• Some Obstacles to Change

• What we can do

• We have breached 400 ppm of C02 in the atmosphere for the first time in 3 million years.

• It’s been disclosed that we waste (both in production and consumption) 50% of our food in the UK (and as Tony Jupiter pointed out yesterday globally that figure is more than enough to feed the hungry 3 times over.)

• Food Banks have boomed by 300% in Scotland in the last year alonne. These are a useless sign of a failing society. They degrade people and feed the narrative of the worthless feckless poor that has been assiduously cultivated by the right wing media for decades.

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CLIMATE CHANGE The way we produce and consume our food creates 31% of the average UK households emissions.

The (Scottish) government has announced its intention to legislate for an 80% reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050 - probably the most ambitious climate change abatement programme in the world. It should be cheered to the echo for that commitment - but it's one it cannot possibly reach without changing fundamentally the way we produce, process and distribute our food.

- Hugh Raven

HEALTH In some parts of Scotland food has replaced cigarettes as the no.1 cause of preventable cancer.

We may be the species which has developed a diet that is killing itself. - Frances Lappe Moore

SOCIAL JUSTICE 1974 - 500 million hungry people. In 2009 1 billion hungry people.

Half the world is malnourished, the other half obese—both symptoms of the corporate food monopoly.

- Raj Patel

LACK OF RESILIENCE Just in time logistics are hugely fragile to external shocks, making a mockery of the concept of food security.

Events are revealing that many of the things we take for granted, like bank accounts, fuel and food, are vulnerable. If we value civilization, the litmus test for economic success should not be short-term profitability, but resilience in the face of climatic extremes and resource shortages.- Andrew Simms

Two decades of food crisis, collapse and system failure

Equidae is the technical name in taxonomy for ‘Horses and ‘horse related animals’ (by which they mean ‘horses, mules, donkeys and zebra’. There was (it’s thought) 60,000 tonnes of Equidae in circulation in Europe in 2011/12.

Obstacles to Change that is Sustained, Credible and Immediate:

Surround sound, hegemony of increment

The Daily Mail bag campaign- “a British family on their weekly shop - but their bags could be killing our wildlife”

Surround Sound

Hegemony of Increment

• Adopt little steps• Adopt marketing

strategies• Focus on green

consumerism• Create offers which

are easy, painless• Use non-

environmental motivations

• Use celebrity endorsements (‘Nicole Ritchie loves the planet’)Source: Meeting Environmental Challenges: The Role of Human Identity, Tom Crompton WWF

Asking a different question

• Is ‘our’ behaviour the problem? Depends who we are.

• Farmers? Supermarket CEOs? Public procurement officers? Pesticide salesmen? DEFRA? Monsanto?

• To what extent do we truly believe that consumer behaviour will change society?

• When are we going to legislate? There is no point in asking people to change their behaviour if their whole social environment makes this extremely difficult.

Our 6 Pledges for Low Carbon Sustainable Food

• Eat local (defined regionally)

• Eat less meat• Eat more organic• Reduce food waste• Compost More • Grow some food

What can we do?

• Moratorium on supermarkets

• Abolish fish farming

• The Soup Test

• Set organic targets (Czec h Republic and France aim to double, Copenhagen have 75% in public food)

• The Right to Grow

• Soda Tax

Our members have a carbon foodprint average 50% below the UK average on food.

What has worked in our project

• Eating together• Being ambitious• Being honest about the

realities of change required

• Motivating through pledges

• Bringing people together at live events

• Not engaging in ‘general awareness rising’

• Looking after children• Not being patronising• Combining global

picture with local realities and practicalities

Overview of the Fife Diet

• Started from a sense that there was something fundamentally wrong with the food system

• Aims to combine populism with honesty and clarity about climate change

• Developed from an informal network to a movement for change around food (2007-2013)

• We held a series of talks around food hosted by people in their own communities

• Began to map the region for producers and develop a network

• Publishing carbon foodprint reports on 100 research volunteers and now all members (5000)

• Aims to deliver stronger communities through enhanced local economy, healthier unprocessed fresh food and food with lower carbon impact

It’s about the ecology stupidmike@fifediet.co.ukhttp://fifediet.co.uk/