The recent report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation ‘Destitution in the UK 2023’ makes for a shocking read. In the last year alone some 3.8 million people experienced destitution, of whom around a million were children. This means they were not able to afford to meet their
Read more →Archive for the Blog Posts Category
What is the point of Nourish? Ten years banging on about food and then what happened in the Programme for Government? Nothing. A space where something should have been. Programme for Government sets out the Scottish Government’s priorities for the year ahead. Nutrition isn’t one of them.
Read more →It is a pub question waiting to happen: Which state sponsored a chain of 2,000+ restaurants serving a nutritionally balanced, price-capped menu to the general public? Russia? China? Venezuela? The correct answer is the UK under a Conservative Prime Minister. British Restaurants operated across Britain during 1940’s
Read more →This week two things happened on food waste policy. The EU set a legally-binding target of 30% food waste reduction by 2030 as part of the revised Waste Framework Directive, while DEFRA announced that there wouldn’t be a target for England. Conversations about food waste often start
Read more →Last year we were reflecting on the rare moment of policy confluence for farming and land use, with the land reform, farm subsidy reform and Just Transition Commission’s work jointly presenting an opportunity for deeper change. But agriculture and land use are only part of the food
Read more →Try mentioning the “agricultural subsidy reform”, and see the light drain from other people’s eyes. Apart from a handful of die-hard enthusiasts, the new Agriculture Bill is failing to ignite the nation’s imagination. But it should! The government is designing a new farming subsidy system – the
Read more →Today’s Programme for Government (PfG) offers welcome measures to mitigate the impact of the cost of living crisis on food insecurity. It also promises further action for more nature friendly farming, forestry and fishing. Food is scattered in other portfolios too, and it is clear that the
Read more →Joined-up policy, like a common language, often feels more like a dream than an aspiration. Kant said ‘Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made’, and it may be that silos are as inevitable as death and taxes. But there are times
Read more →Maxwell Centre community garden is an astonishing example of care without contrivance, art without artifice – with more than 300 varieties of mostly edible plants rubbing shoulders amicably in borders, raised beds, containers, trained along the walls or bursting out of the polytunnel. From wallflowers to walnuts
Read more →This week sees the Period Products (Scotland) Act come into effect – a world-leading law which requires local authorities to make free period products obtainable by all who need them. It’s a great example of universal human rights in action – extending access to period products as
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