David & Goliath
Sustainable Farming Campaign
@UKSUSTAIN
Riverford’s GetFairAboutFarming ‘scarecrow protest’ outside parliament on the day of the Westminster debate on Fairness in the Food Supply Chain. Credit: Riverford Organic Farmers
The Sustainable Farming Campaign is a leading voice in pushing for a sustainable farming future in the UK. We help amplify farmers voices in order to aid a farmer-led transition to nature friendly farming.
The Campaign
The Sustainable Farming Campaign is trying to accelerate the transition to nature friendly farming. A key barrier is unfairness in the food supply chain. With over 95% of their food sold through just 12 retailers, farmers’ options are severely limited when negotiating prices. Our report highlighted that farmers earn less than 1p profit per produce. After Riverford’s #GetFairAboutFarming campaign, indicating 49% of farmers fear bankruptcy within a year, Sustain & Riverford worked together to achieve large scale public and political support for more fairness in farming.
Another key barrier to change is the potential for badly negotiated trade deals to flood the UK market with hormone-injected beef from environmentally and ethically unconscionable farming systems. After Jacob Rees-Mogg’s comments implied that his constituent farmers were in favour of hormone-injected beef imports from Australia, the campaign coordinated an open letter from his constituent farmers in Somerset to set the record straight.
@UKSUSTAIN
https://www.sustainweb.org/sustainable-farming-campaign/
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The Sustain Team at Oxford Real Farming Conference, where we held a session on Supply Chain Fairness. Credit: Sam Haywood
It’s a real honour to receive this recognition from SMK. Sustain’s work in partnership with Riverford and other farmers have shown that the British public care deeply about getting a fairer, more just farming system for people and planet. It’s now time for the Government to take strong action on our food supply chain to achieve this.”
Will White – Sustainable Farming Coordinator at Sustain
The Sustain Team at Oxford Real Farming Conference, where we held a session on Supply Chain Fairness. Credit: Sam Haywood
It’s a real honour to receive this recognition from SMK. Sustain’s work in partnership with Riverford and other farmers have shown that the British public care deeply about getting a fairer, more just farming system for people and planet. It’s now time for the Government to take strong action on our food supply chain to achieve this.”
Will White – Sustainable Farming Coordinator at Sustain
The Change
The letter received significant media coverage, with over 200K views on twitter and coverage in the BBC, Farmers Weekly, and the Farmers Guardian. This led to Jacob Rees-Mogg being challenged directly on the BBC and having to clarify his comments.
Sustain and Riverford’s combined efforts on the #GetFairAboutFarming campaign resulted in 110,000 signatures on the petition, 11,000 emails sent out from constituents to MPs, and a Westminster debate on the topic. This led to politicians from across the political spectrum agreeing on the urgent need for supply chain reform.
They now have a powerful public mandate and cross-party political support for supply chain regulation reform. All that remains is for the Government to act.
The Future
There is now a clear consensus for strengthening and expanding supply chain regulation. Sustain recognises it’s crucial to keep advocating for governmental action to redistribute risks more equitably along the supply chain. They will use their public and political mandate to lobby the Government for meaningful supply chain reform, thus getting a fairer deal for farming.
Sustain says doesn’t want to see British farmers’ ambition to transition to nature friendly farming undermined by allowing food to be imported that has been produced to lower environmental standards and has higher emissions. They’ll continue to help make nature friendly farmers voices heard and not have their views misrepresented for the purposes of political peacocking.
Who else was involved?
Several organisations have been incredibly helpful and deserve huge credit. Riverford Organic Farmers, who launched the #GetFairAboutFarming campaign and were instrumental in garnering such huge public support for the cause of fairness in farming. The Nature Friendly Farming Network (NFFN), were also incredibly helpful in reaching out to farmers in Jacob Rees-Mogg’s constituency. With huge thanks to Professor Lisa Jack who did the core research in our Unpicking Food Prices Report. Finally, thanks to Farmers Weekly for publicising the letter so widely.
