Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20
- 39)
WEDNESDAY 28 JANUARY 2009
PROFESSOR TIM
LANG
Q20 Mr Drew:
I am interested with this idea of how you put all this together.
That is the problem with food policy.
Professor Lang: It is, yes.
Q21 Mr Drew:
It is a massive jigsaw puzzle where government is, as you say,
in control of it and so again going back to your student, Mr Benn,
in your first lecture to him you are going to give him this map
and how would you address the start of the map?
Professor Lang: I think there
is good news here and I really would like to emphasise it because
I know you know it but I want to say it to make it absolutely
clear that you know I know it. I think these arguments that I
have been articulating, essentially the plea that policy listens
to evidence, there is a gap between policy and evidence, it is
quite common as we all know, but there is the beginning of a political
response to address that gap. I think the Cabinet Office report,
the Food Matters report was very significant. I declare
an interest; I was an adviser to it. It was highly significant,
not just because of what the report concluded—it said that
the British food system essentially must aim for a low carbon
but healthy food supply. That has not been stated as starkly as
that before but what was significant was that it mapped out a
political process to deliver it and the Cabinet Office Domestic
Affairs sub-committee (Food), with the wonderful acronym DA(F)
is now beginning that task. It is the ministerial sub-committee,
chaired by Mr Benn—he is in the hot seat—that is actually
beginning that process, we understand. At the civil servant level
that process also needs to happen. It must happen across Whitehall,
it cannot just be left to Defra—back again to the Chair's
question. Even though I personally would like Defra to be the
lead and it is seen by the Cabinet, I understand, as taking that
lead, it cannot deliver a coherent food security sustainability
policy—call it whatever we will—unless it is also
dealing with the Department of Health, the Food Standards Agency,
DFID, the Treasury. It must be cross-sectoral or else it will
not resolve the problems that we have. So to stress the answer
that I am giving to you I think a political process is beginning
but it has to go very fast; it has to go very fast indeed. It
has to not just happen in Whitehall but engage with the big players
in the food sector. It has to set up regional activities so that
farmers who do not deal exactly with the Domestic Affairs (Food)
sub-committee know what the direction of travel is that British
food policy wants. But there is good news that the political process
does seem to be beginning. I think that is good news.
Q22 Miss McIntosh:
I am slightly concerned by the direction of travel that you are
proposing. I represent the largest livestock producing area currently
in the Vale of York. We fatten the cattle that are born in the
hills and then come down and I think that Thirsk is the largest
or joint largest fat mart in the country. So bearing in mind that
we do have to produce food to higher environmental standards I
personally would not advocate coming out of livestock production.
Particularly for girls as they are growing up—there is no
substitute for red meat giving them all the vitamins and the blood
count that they need. So surely there are other ways we could
look at producing a low carbon food production by encouraging
people, as you are saying and as the government is saying, to
eat more locally produced meat. So surely we should be looking
at labelling better and eating more locally produced food rather
than stopping livestock production.
Professor Lang: I take your point
about the last point and I will respond to that last point and
go backwards into your first, beginning point. There is considerable
confusion among consumers, research shows, about what is the local—is
the local British or is the local within 20 miles? Studies done
for companies that I have seen, on a confidential basis let alone
public studies, show an amazing variation of what people mean
by the local. That is an example that Defra ought to nail—what
is local food? At one level you could have it designated as within
30 miles, say—the Farmers' Markets movement has made that
sort of attempt, 30 to 50 miles. So I think that there is clarification
that is needed there. Back to your issue of meat, of course you
can lower the carbon load or the greenhouse gas load of a diet
without tackling meat but you will not tackle it very much unless
you do tackle meat and dairy. Meat and dairy are at the heart
of the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. My point is, as
an ex hill farmer, which I ought to say, I can see a role and
a place for meat production on the hills—what else can you
do with them? The history of meat production in East Yorkshire
was because of proximity to cereals land to the foods that were
grown to enable fattening of animals quickly. The 21st century
model of agriculture is going to have to be something very different.
I understand the historical legacy—back to Cornwall—that
all the areas of the UK have, but the 21st century is going to
require a suspension of that not least because climate change
is going to change it anyway. So I do not see the future of Thirsk
as remaining in meat even if it is there now.
Q23 Miss McIntosh:
I think that would be something that we might disagree on.
Professor Lang: I am sure.
Q24 Miss McIntosh:
In your view what constitutes a sustainable food supply?
Professor Lang: This is the sort
of thing I want Defra to actually nail down. We have strong evidence
on climate change—not just carbon but all the greenhouse
gas emissions. We have strong evidence on nutrition; we have strong
evidence on energy use; we have strong evidence on the great family
of issues that we can lump together as ecosystems—soil,
water, etcetera—a whole variety of environmental, quality,
health and social issues. My own definition, which I will happily
send in response to what the Chair asked me to do, groups what
we mean by a sustainable food system and what a sustainable diet
must address under those four headings—environmental, health,
quality and cultural issues and then the social/ethical issues.
So I think we can actually see the beginnings of an emergence
of what I have called with colleagues an omni standards approach
to food. Even if we have not yet in Britain defined what a sustainable
diet is or a sustainable food system is we now have very good
evidence about what the criteria are by which we should judge
one. So I think we are a bit like the political process in my
answer to the previous question; I think we have the beginnings
of what can be turned into a definition of a sustainable diet
and a sustainable food system. We now know that you could not
have a 2050 food system that ignored carbon; anything that ignored
carbon would be stark raving irresponsible and flying in the face
of evidence. Equally, for a food system not to deliver the requisite
mix of nutrients would be flying in the face of 100 years of epidemiology
and nutritional research. So we have some very, very strong evidence
bases that we can throw into the policy pot.
Q25 Miss McIntosh:
I would argue that meat and dairy products that are produced locally,
within whatever definition the government might come up with,
are both the most sustainable and the healthiest products. How
are you going to meet the sustainability target if you are taking
products which are not grown locally, so by definition have to
travel further, so that you are increasing the food miles and
are probably not as healthy?
Professor Lang: Let us deal with
the sustainability issue as food miles. The distance that a food
travels can add to its carbon load, it is clear, but long distance
food is not necessarily the highest carbon loading of the food.
There is pretty good evidence that seasonality is a factor that
cuts across it. If you want the classic Defra study of the long
distance tomato it is better to have a long distance tomato grown
under the sun in Spain in terms of its carbon load than having
one that is under a greenhouse, gas or coal fired or whatever,
artificially heated greenhouse grown locally, so the local may
actually be inappropriate. But if you are saying that an out of
door sun grown tomato in Thirsk, in which case the window of growing
will be fairly narrow, would probably be—I have not seen
a study that has done this—a lower carbon than one that
is grown in Spain and then trucked from Spain so the local may
be better, you are quite right. Let us get back to your issue
of meat and dairy. No one in public health and nutrition that
I know of is arguing that there should be no meat or dairy. The
issue is how much and then the sustainability argument of how
is it produced? If you have meat three meals a day, seven days
a week this is going to be a very high carbon diet. If you have
meat infrequently—special occasions, feast day food not
every day food—it can take a place in a sustainable diet,
no issue about it. Sustainable is not just healthy, remember,
but greenhouse gas and the other criteria. So I am not arguing
a case—I really would like to make this clear—against
meat and dairy full-stop. I do not eat meat, although I used to
be a vegan sheep farmer.
Q26 Miss McIntosh:
Can I ask a very personal question, is that where you are coming
from?
Professor Lang: Me personally?
Q27 Miss McIntosh:
Yes.
Professor Lang: No, I am looking
at the data. Just go and look at the data, the IAASTD or the climate
change data on meat—we have to reduce it. The excellent,
huge study—and if the Committee does not have that I urge
you to read it—the Cooking Up A Storm report, written
by Tara Garnett at the University of Surrey, the Food and Climate
Research Network report, is a sensational summary of all the
data. There is just no way, it seems, that we can get away with
not having to reduce meat and dairy consumption from our very
high levels—we the British. The Americans' is even higher
than us. It is a difficult, tricky issue, I accept.
Q28 David Lepper:
Meat and dairy on the one hand and there is you, Professor Lang.
The government places a lot of emphasis on healthy eating.
Professor Lang: It does.
Q29 David Lepper:
It tells us about five a day and all the rest of it and what we
should be doing. You are talking both about that and sustainable
eating as part of a sustainable food policy. How do we change
consumers' preferences, our preferences, Anne McIntosh's preferences?
Professor Lang: With great difficulty,
in case you thought I was on Planet Zog! With great difficulty.
But the interesting thing is that there is great appetite to change.
The surveys that I see show the public saying that actually they
want to address climate change; they are becoming extremely concerned
about it. Again, back to the Chair's initial push to me, I think
this is a role where Defra ought to be leading; it is not something
it can hive off to the Department of Energy and Climate Change.
It has to see that food is a leading opportunity to address the
issue of climate change in people's ordinary lives because the
Stern report showed the IAASTD report showed, the Tara Garnett
Cooking Up A Storm report showed, numerous reports have
shown and reiterated—and taking the European Union's IPRO
study, the Manchester University Sustainable Consumption study
have all shown this—that whichever way you crunch the numbers
we have to alter our diets. People are very conscious of their
diets and their food; they have become literate about the importance
of food. So my point is that there is an appetite for change but
it is not being helped, and I think part of the reason people
are not changing their diets towards a low carbon diet is because
they do not know what that means, they do not know what it looks
like, they do not have the guidance. It is back for the need for
coordination between Defra and the Food Standards Agency, Department
of Health, DFID and so on. You have competing messages coming
from different organs of government; you have competing messages
coming from the supermarket shelf. You walk down supermarkets
aisles and it says "Fair Trade" or "healthy"
or "low carbon" or "bird friendly" or "animal
friendly", these are all single issue competing messages.
Actually it is only government that can pull all of those together
and say that a sustainable diet looks like winning on these but
maybe trading off a bit on that, and trying to minimise what you
trade off, to get win-wins across all fronts. But the appetite
for change among consumers is much greater than is sometimes seen
by the cynics.
Q30 David Lepper:
So what many of us thought was a good idea at the time, setting
up the Department of Energy and Climate Change might not have
been such a good idea because it hangs a particular set of labels
on the issue of dealing with climate change.
Professor Lang: I think that is
true.
Q31 David Lepper:
The synergy that you are talking about becomes perhaps less attainable.
Professor Lang: That was always
the risk with setting up DECC, as we all know. The truth is whichever
way you have government departments you are always going to be
cutting the cake in one way or t'other. Government, whichever
way we coordinate responsibilities, always has that problem with
joining up. Both the challenge and also the excitement of food
and this security issue is how do you get all across government
to deliver a coherent position. My point is that I do not think
the right messages are coming from government to help consumers
change, but they have an appetite to do so; they want to eat healthily,
they want to do the right thing for the environment but they do
not know what it looks like. Food industry studies are showing
that already—they do not know what it means. The food industry
needs guidance on that. Not even mighty Tesco can resolve climate
change.
Q32 Mr Williams:
You make a case that all meat production is very poor in terms
of carbon emissions.
Professor Lang: It is high load,
not necessarily poor.
Q33 Mr Williams:
Very high in terms of carbon emissions. Just to take the case
of non-ruminants to start with because it is simpler in terms
of non-ruminants, but chicken and pig production, they are actually
eating plant products that were grown basically that year. All
the carbon that was in the plant products has been taken up from
the atmosphere that year and released back, so I am not quite
sure how you say that it is high in terms of carbon because all
the carbon has been sequestered at that particular time. They
are not using ancient sunshine, they are using current sunshine.
I do not quite follow your argument.
Professor Lang: It is not my argument,
it is just the data—I read it just like anyone else. All
the lifecycle analyses studies have shown consistently and coherently
all around the world the high load. The food and agricultural
organisations, Livestock's Long Shadow report confirms
that.
Q34 Mr Williams:
The data I look at, just talking about the carbon emissions from
the production, is not looking at where the carbon came into the
production cycle and all that was sequestered from the atmosphere
in the year of production. I am simplifying it to a certain extent.
Professor Lang: Yes.
Q35 Mr Williams:
Yes, there may be costs for machinery, cost of fertiliser in terms
of carbon, but there is a key issue there that I think has failed
to be understood in the analysis.
Professor Lang: I cannot comment.
I am not a climate change specialist; I read the literature like
everyone else does. I merely get—and all my colleagues around
the world in my sort of work—consistent messages from the
climate change specialists, whether it is the Chief Scientist
at Defra or the World Bank or the FAO. They are agreed, whether
you are doing short term or long term analyses you are dealing
with an area of high carbon. That is leaving carbon and methane—
Mr Williams: I left it non-ruminant just
to simplify the argument.
Q36 Paddy Tipping:
You have reminded us on a couple of occasions of the importance
of the EU and CAP and many of the policy levers are there. When
it comes to food security should we not be having the discussion
there rather than at Defra?
Professor Lang: I take that point
but I do not see it as an either/or. If I need to clarify my earlier
remarks I feel it is essential that the UK works out its food
security within a European context. It has very good opportunities
to link sustainability criteria for what that might be at the
European level but I think we need to have a lead from Britain.
Britain has taken a very interesting lead in global politics on
climate change. I think in diet we are not taking the lead that
we could and should be doing. So I do not see it as an either/or.
Q37 Paddy Tipping:
One of the leads that the government has been taking with the
EU is in broad terms moving away from payments, subsidies on—
Professor Lang: Decoupling.
Q38 Paddy Tipping:
Decoupling, moving towards public good and environmental gain.
How does that link into the argument about food security because
a simpleton might say subsidies on production would bring forth
the policies we want.
Professor Lang: There is probably
no way we are going to turn the clock back to recoupling, but
the great irony, as your question is astutely getting at, is at
the moment we are decoupled production incentives to farmers is
exactly when we need to get a new direction for encouraging appropriate
land use and food production. What we are not doing is linking
environmental gains into food production. We are seeing the decoupled
CAP as paying for environmental goods instead of paying for food
to deliver those environmental goods. I would like a recoupling
of sustainability into food production.
Q39 Paddy Tipping:
Is that what the phrase you used today, the common sustainable
food policy—
Professor Lang: Is articulating
that.
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