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Church's Food Poverty Call

Friday October 17 2014

The Church of Scotland has demanded the Scottish Government prioritises the eradication of food poverty in its response to the Scottish Government discussion document 'Becoming a Good Food Nation'.

The Church believes tackling the continued existence of widespread food poverty should be focussed upon at this time.

Rev Sally Foster-Fulton, Convener of the Church of Scotland's Church and Society Council, said: "It is striking that the discussion document makes no mention of the most obvious and significant development in these five years – the growth of food banks, now in danger of becoming embedded in our communities.

"Surely a good food nation must be founded on a promise that all within its borders have enough to eat. In a country of such plenty, food banks are a particular scandal.

"The Church of Scotland supports the idea of a good food nation but we believe that the continued existence of widespread food poverty makes this aspiration seem a distant prospect.

"We choose to focus on this because we believe that this is the most pressing and urgent barrier to Scotland becoming a Good Food Nation.

"Food banks represent a huge market failure – an economic and political failure that brings little credit to food and agriculture businesses, to government at all levels, or to Scotland as a nation. No aspiring good food nation can ignore the scandal they represent.

"The major changes required to eliminate the need for food banks are partly matters of economic strategy and of the welfare benefits system; but there are also changes needed to Scotland's food economy, to the development of food projects, and to food production and food retailing if we are to ensure that everyone in Scotland has access to healthy food at affordable prices.

"Food banks cannot be a long term solution to food poverty in Scotland; but there may be ways in which the groundswell of community responses to food poverty which they represent can be harnessed to develop more sustainable, local, community-based responses which have a major part to play alongside the structural changes needed to eliminate food poverty.

"We believe that this outcome (the elimination of food poverty) should be the principal aim of Scottish Government food policy, and therefore that the proposed Scottish Food Commission be given this challenge as its first objective."


Comments

Rev Dr John Cameron - Friday, October 17th, 2014

“The same people who a few years ago were moaning about the "high cost of Britain's cheap food" are waxing hysterical about food poverty. One cannot help but feel that the real drive behind the food banks is the aid industry's need for a raison d'etre.”


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