The final G20 communiqué last week revealed serious tensions. On one hand, it confirmed support for financial markets to "restore confidence, growth and jobs" and "repair the financial system to restore lending". Yet on the other, it sought to "promote global trade and investment" while aspiring to "build an inclusive, green and sustainable recovery".
Can we have it all? What is the relative weight given to each aspiration? Is green recovery getting the same political and financial backing as toxic banks?
Food policy already looks dangerously disjointed. Nobody seems clear whether more food should be shipped and flown long distances or whether regional and local food systems should be rebuilt. Or whether it's better to opt for more carbon labelling or the reduction of high-carbon foods and diets.
While G20 met in London, I was in the US with Latin American, African and Asian food specialists assessing the food crisis. A major theme was the failure of global institutions to grapple with the full weight of evidence available. No world body pools health, environmental, fiscal and energy-related evidence. The UK is making some progress via the Domestic Affairs (Food) Cabinet Committee and other bodies, but the what about the EU? Or globally?
At the US gathering, the need to feed more people better was widely agreed. The question is: how? More hi-tech, energy-squandering methods? Or approaches based on enhancing biodiversity, conserving water and low greenhouse gases?
The "inclusive, green and sustainable recovery" has to happen in food, or the G20 words are empty rhetoric.Worryingly, the word 'green' that featured on page one of the communiqué was dropped in the relevant section later in the document.
The fact is that the planet cannot support the feeding habits of US or UK citizens.
We produce too much greenhouse gas right along the food supply chain, eat too much meat and dairy and use too much embedded water. There is too much trucking within countries - let alone between them - and too much waste.
This is not just an economic problem but a social and cultural one. How can we all change when for 70 years, progress has meant cheaper 'everyday feastday' food? Will we rich countries live more simply to let poorer countries live at all?n
Tim Lang is Professor of Food Policy at City University.
Can we have it all? What is the relative weight given to each aspiration? Is green recovery getting the same political and financial backing as toxic banks?
Food policy already looks dangerously disjointed. Nobody seems clear whether more food should be shipped and flown long distances or whether regional and local food systems should be rebuilt. Or whether it's better to opt for more carbon labelling or the reduction of high-carbon foods and diets.
While G20 met in London, I was in the US with Latin American, African and Asian food specialists assessing the food crisis. A major theme was the failure of global institutions to grapple with the full weight of evidence available. No world body pools health, environmental, fiscal and energy-related evidence. The UK is making some progress via the Domestic Affairs (Food) Cabinet Committee and other bodies, but the what about the EU? Or globally?
At the US gathering, the need to feed more people better was widely agreed. The question is: how? More hi-tech, energy-squandering methods? Or approaches based on enhancing biodiversity, conserving water and low greenhouse gases?
The "inclusive, green and sustainable recovery" has to happen in food, or the G20 words are empty rhetoric.Worryingly, the word 'green' that featured on page one of the communiqué was dropped in the relevant section later in the document.
The fact is that the planet cannot support the feeding habits of US or UK citizens.
We produce too much greenhouse gas right along the food supply chain, eat too much meat and dairy and use too much embedded water. There is too much trucking within countries - let alone between them - and too much waste.
This is not just an economic problem but a social and cultural one. How can we all change when for 70 years, progress has meant cheaper 'everyday feastday' food? Will we rich countries live more simply to let poorer countries live at all?n
Tim Lang is Professor of Food Policy at City University.
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