We need to fix food trade

To fix our food system, we need to look beyond what is grown in the UK and talk about the environmental impacts of what we import. We import almost half of what we eat in the UK, and yet we currently have no mandatory environmental standards for imported food. The recently concluded trade deal with the 11 countries in the Indopacific and beyond- the Comprehensive and Progressive Transpacific Partnership (CPTPP) - highlights the risks of trading without environmental standards.??

The People’s Plan for Nature: We Need to Fix Food Trade??

The public is concerned about the impacts that trade has on nature. The People’s Plan for Nature, a plan created with input from thousands of people from across the UK, and deliberated on by a representative Citizens’ Assembly, raises the concern around the lack of transparency of where and how food is produced.?

The public want to know that the food on our plates comes from sustainable sources; the survey conducted by Which? found that 84% of people thought that imports should meet similar environmental standards to those required of domestically produced food. And yet, the recent announcement on the CPTPP shows that the government have not yet addressed how they will ensure that food imported into the UK does not cost the earth.??

CPTPP??

CPTPP, consisting of 11 countries, from the Indopacific region and with a pacific coast, such as? Canada and Mexico, incentivises trade in food, including food produced with major consequences for the environment. Deforestation-linked palm oil from Malaysia is the most high profile example.? CPTPP, by zeroing tariffs on palm oil which were previously were set at up to 12%, is encouraging more importing of all palm oil rather than just products that can be shown to be deforestation free. But the concerns with farming methods in CPTPP countries extend beyond deforestation: the deal encourages trade in products made with pesticides which would be banned for use in the UK, which are known to kill bee populations and destroy aquatic ecosystems. The deal also makes it easier to import pork from Canada which has lower animal welfare standards than the UK, e.g. the use of sow stalls, which prevent sows from turning around in their pens when they are pregnant. Further, WWF’s “Risky Seafood Report” highlights Viet Nam for failing to? counter its illegal tuna fishing.?

When asked about the impact of the deal on the environment in Sky News, the Secretary of State for Trade, Kemi Badenoch said that we shouldn’t worry about the lowering of tariffs on palm oil as the legislation of standards for imports remains within the remit of the UK government. The UK government can indeed set environmental standards for imports, so why is it not doing so???

Environmental Standards for Food Trade??

WWF-UK have a proposal for how to set standards for imports we call core environmental standards. Our proposal would set a minimum environmental threshold for all imports into the UK, comparable to standards already required of UK farmers. This would ensure a level playing field for UK farmers and importers, making sure that the efforts of UK farmers to green their agriculture are not being undermined and that UK demand was supporting the best, not the worst, farming practices in other parts of the world. Core environmental standards have been recommended by several independent committees (for example the National Food Strategy and the Committee on Climate Change), and they are widely supported by environmental, animal welfare, consumer rights, and farming organisations.??

The UK should be supporting smallholder farmers who are at the frontline of changing farming practices in countries like Malaysia in improving their farming standards. This financial and technical support should go hand in hand with developing new standards. WWF UK have been calling for this approach in our work with the Institute of Development Studies (for more information, see this briefing or watch this event).??

Core environmental standards, coupled with support for smallholder farmers, would create a level playing field for UK farmers and those exporting to the UK, and allow us trade more widely without the risk of a race to the bottom in standards.??

A Better Way of Negotiating Trade Deals??

The public are concerned about the impact of trade on the environment, and their voice must be heard. As well as responding to the People’s Plan for Nature, the UK government should improve the way it negotiates trade deals to ensure that the public have a say. The only public consultation that took place on the CPTPP deal was before the negotiations about accession even started. Parliament has also not been sufficiently involved in the negotiations.? The UK government did not allow for a debate or vote on previous trade deals negotiated with Australia and New Zealand during the official parliamentary process, which meant that MPs did not have any effective say on the deal. As the CPTPP goes through the parliamentary ratification process, a debate and vote for MPs should be provided for to allow effective parliamentary oversight of the deal.??

There are some trade-offs that we cannot make : we can’t trade away our planet. With clear public concern about trade and its environmental impacts, setting core environmental standards would show what the UK’s true values are, and ensure that those are not compromised on in future trade deals.??