Part
8 - Farming at a critical crossroads
Professor
Charles Godfray, a food policy expert from Oxford University said it
was not as simple as saying intensive farms were bad and small ones
were good.
"It’s
much more about how you do it,” he said. “There are
intensive operations which are horrible, and others which are good
examples of how to look after animals well and get good outcomes.”
“You
have the most excellent free range examples and other poorly-managed
and poorly-led operations.”
The Bureau
asked the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to
comment on the rise of intensive farming in the UK and how the future
might look, but it did not respond to our findings.
It did say
the government would “not compromise on our high animal welfare
or environmental standards,” and it would “always protect
our proud and varied farming traditions.”
Leaving the
EU offered “an unprecedented opportunity to shape our farming
industry so it works for the UK,” said Defra.
Dan Crossley
of the thinktank Food Ethics Council thinks that Brexit leaves us at
a critical juncture. "Will our government seek free trade
deals at any cost, lowering standards and ramping up intensive
farming? Or will the UK push for a ‘race to the top’ on animal
welfare standards, environmental protection and workers’ rights?"
The UK has
to do some “hard thinking” about how we want our food to be
produced, said Lamb, the Norfolk MP.
“It’s
easy to condemn the producers but the vast majority of people eat
meat," he said. “‘We need to have a national debate
about whether we can justify the methods to deliver cheap food. I can
choose between organic meat and cheap meat. But people on low incomes
might struggle to make that choice within their weekly budgets.”
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