Meeting of the Parliament 17 March 2016
I congratulate Alison Johnstone on bringing the debate to the chamber. It is a welcome, topical and timely debate, and it illustrates the growing importance that we all attach to Scotland’s food culture and systems, and the need to improve in those areas.
The report on which Alison Johnstone’s motion focuses, which is entitled “PLENTY: Food, Farming and Health in a New Scotland” and is published by the Scottish food coalition for a socially and environmentally just food system, is also timely, and it is another sign of the momentum behind the food debate in Scotland. I say to the authors of the report that it is first class, although I do not necessarily agree with absolutely everything in it. It discusses the ways in which we can change Scotland’s food culture and systems; that will not happen overnight, but the report certainly gives us many ideas for how we can get to a much better place in the future, and I support much of what is in it.
At my party’s conference at the weekend, I spoke at a meeting that was hosted by the RSPB and Nourish Scotland. There were a lot of common themes expressed by all the speakers at that very well-attended event.
As a country, we celebrate our food and drink industry and resources. Scotland has a fantastic wealth of natural resources, and the natural environment allows us to produce the raw materials. We have our seas, our fertile land—at a time when the rest of the planet is running out of fertile land—and we have the men and women with the skills to take the raw materials and turn them into fantastic produce that people in this country and overseas want to enjoy.
That brings an important economic benefit, and exports are an important part of that success. However, it would be unfair—in response to what Alison Johnstone said at one point—to say that Scottish food policy is all about exports and big business, and salmon and whisky. Those industries are immensely successful, and after all we want people to be able to afford to buy food, so they need jobs. We have those economic strengths and we should make the most of them in Scotland.
However, Scottish food policy has placed a huge emphasis over the past few years on the other dimensions of food policy, such as the environmental impact, particularly in the context of wanting to achieve our climate change targets. It has also focused on tackling the ironic situation in which we are able to produce so much nutritious food on our own doorstep and yet we have record-breaking diabetes and obesity statistics, which we wish was not the case. We have all that healthy food, but people are not enjoying it.
In addition, we have food poverty in Scotland, which is a mark of shame. The UK’s austerity agenda is largely responsible for where we are with that at present. I, like many other members, congratulate the many community initiatives and charitable efforts that are taking place across Scotland to ensure that people can access food at their time of need. The answer is clearly to ensure that people can afford to buy their own food in the first place, and the Scottish Government is bringing forward funding to help such initiatives.
Local food is undergoing a revolution in Scotland just now. Again, that has been supported by the Scottish Government, which gave more than £2 million between 2013 and 2016 to support many local initiatives across the country. Indeed, 140 initiatives have been supported through that funding, ranging from community food initiatives, to ensure that people can access food that is grown locally, to food festivals and other food events, which are important in supporting the local food revolution that is taking place in Scotland.