ACHIEVING FOOD SYSTEM CHANGE IN SCOTLAND – HOW CLOSE ARE WE?

Campaigners, Scottish Food Coalition members and MSPs outside the Scottish Parliament for the SFC’s Day of Action, April 26th 2022 (Photo: Andrew Stark).

By Andrew Stark, 1 August 2022

Our food system is broken. But there’s exciting changes happening here in Scotland, with important developments in the Scottish Parliament about how we can go about fixing our food system.

The Scottish Food Coalition – campaigning for food system change

The Scottish Food Coalition (SFC) is an alliance of over 45 organisations including: farmers and growers (such as the Nature Friendly Farming Network), academics (Food Researchers in Edinburgh), workers' unions (Unite and Unison) and charities focused on the environment (RSPB Scotland), health (Obesity Action Scotland), poverty (Trussell Trust) and animal welfare (OneKind). We know that the challenges facing our food system are connected and we need to work across the whole system to achieve a healthy, fair and sustainable future. See full membership here.

Since our inception in 2015, we have been campaigning for a new law on food to be introduced, a Good Food Nation Bill. This passed in the Scottish Parliament on June 15th 2022 and enshrines in law the Scottish Government’s vision for Scotland “being a Good Food Nation, where people from every walk of life take pride and pleasure in, and benefit from, the food they produce, buy, cook, serve, and eat each day”. We campaigned for this Bill to be a positive step in fixing Scotland’s broken food system. Read on to find out the history of the Bill, and what we achieved…

A history of the Good Food Nation Bill

The Good Food Nation Bill has been years in the making and has had lots of civil society and 3rd sector engagement, alongside agri-food businesses, Scottish Government and Scottish political parties. The original consultation for a Bill was brought forward in 2018, which gathered the views of people across Scotland about what they believe should be in the Bill. The SFC played a key role in gathering responses through a series of e-actions and workshops; 627 individuals responded to the consultation. This showed public support for a Bill, with the majority of responses in line with the Coalition’s asks (see below). A Bill was scheduled to be introduced in the 2019-2020 Programme for Government, but due to Covid-19 it was shelved along with other ‘non-emergency’ legislation. After the 2021 Scottish Parliamentary elections and appointment of the new Cabinet Secretary Mairi Gougeon, the Bill was finally introduced in October 2021.

The changes we secured to the Bill

There were some positive aspects to the Bill, such as the requirement for the Government to create a national food plan and for every local authority in Scotland to also make a food plan. But in order to create the systemic change we need, more changes were needed. After tireless campaigning with numerous evidence sessions in the Scottish Parliament, fantastic lobbying by our network of volunteers (called ‘Good Food Nation Ambassadors’), a ‘Day of Action’ outside the Scottish Parliament, countless meetings with Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) and a targeted letter writing campaign (nearly a 1000 letters were sent in calling for a Food Commission!), we achieved some significant changes to the Bill which won’t fix the food system on its own, but give the Scottish Government and policy makers a much better chance at achieving the change needed. Have a look below at the final outcome of the Bill.

What’s next?

Now the Bill has passed, the Scottish Government has to continue delivering to ensure they achieve their Good Food Nation vision and that we can address the food systems role in contributing to ill health, the nature and climate crisis, poor workers’ rights, and poverty. The main policy commitments from the Bill – the new Food Commission and the development of local and national food plans – will be key to this. The Coalition are going to keep working to ensure we continue down the right path and Scotland can continue to be a world leader in food system change.

Want more information? Have a read of the Scottish Food Coalition’s recently published report: A Good Food Nation For Scotland, Why & How and sign up to our newsletter to stay tuned for what comes next!

For any questions, please contact Andrew.Stark@rspb.org.uk