Landworker’s Alliance
March Against Industrial Agribusiness,
March For Healthy Food
MEET AT BURY ST. EDMUNDS TRAIN STATION
March To British Sugar Factory
RECLAIM OUR FOOD SYSTEM
Wednesday, April 29th 1PM
LWA with Rev. Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping
Drawing by Robin Stratton
Our current food system supports industrial agribusinesses like British
Sugar PLC — and their £12 billion corporate owners: Associated British
Food. It’s time to reclaim it!
The industrial food system is bad for our health, bad for the climate, bad
for wildlife, - and bad for farming. It is designed to benefit
shareholders and big business, not the producers and consumers of food.
British Sugar symbolizes the problem.
- They have a monopoly on sugar beet processing, preventing any more
ecological production.
- Profits accrue to the shareholders of their parent company, not with
their workers or the producing communities
- It is highly dependant on fossil fuels, and chemical inputs, causing
numerous environmental problems
- And it is making a commodity that is causing serious health problems for
society. 50% of children are forecast to be obese by 2050.
Yet we subsidise sugar beet farming at around £20 million/yr.
We do need a UK sugar industry, and we do need subsidies to protect and
support farmers. But shouldn’t subsidy be going to the kind of farming
that benefits us all?
At present 90% of fruit and 45% of vegetables consumed in the UK are
imported. Small producers are in a strong position to increase domestic
production of fruit and vegetables, and yet farms of under 5 hectares get
no subsidies at all.
Small scale, ecological farmers provide healthy fruit and veg, carbon
sequestration, more biodiversity and more employment. That’s what we
should be supporting.
RECLAIM OUR FOOD SYSTEM
We want to level the playing field. Cap subsidies at €150,000 - so that
small-scale farmers can play a bigger role in the open market.
We want a food system that makes us healthy, and doesn’t push cheap sugar
products down our throats.
We need a National Food Policy based on food sovereignty principles. This
would diversify production, create resilient rural economies and provide a
living wage to food producers, growers, distributors and those working in
the food industry.
It would also make access to local food easier and more affordable to UK
families
Who are Landworkers’ Alliance?
LWA is the UK branch of a global food movement called La Via Campesina, an
international group that is active in 73 countries and represents 200
million farmers globally. We work to raise the profile of the role of
small-scale producers and family farms. In doing this we campaign for
better policy to support small-scale producers and family farms, agroecology and food sovereignty.