Food Alliance “very disappointed” with National Food Plan green paper

The National Food Plan does not reflect community submissions and consultation on the initial discussion paper, claims the Food Alliance, a coalition of health and research agencies. The plan exhibits a lack of Australian and international research on issues such as climate change, the alliance says.

Food Alliance Coordinator Kathy McConell said the alliance is “very disappointed” with the green paper.

“It fails to reflect the numerous community voices and extensive expert evidence given in submissions, webcasts and public meetings across the nation and focuses inordinately on the interests of the food industry and short-term economic drivers,” McConell said.

“Its business-as-usual approach is highly unrealistic because of key challenges our food system is facing - from rising chronic food-related diseases to predicted environmental stresses that will render our current fuel-dependent agricultural system increasingly costly and unsustainable. There is an assumption that technological advances can overcome any limits.

“Modelling shows that parts of our food supply, such as fruit and vegetable supplies, are vulnerable, with shortages and associated price hikes increasingly likely,” McConell said. “The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation recently called on governments to encourage a shift to sustainable diets and Australia would do well to heed this advice, given the major health and sustainability issues. Our food system is broken and requires transformational - not incremental - change.”

The alliance is pushing for an independent food commissioner to be named as part of key governance mechanisms for the National Food Plan.

“We do not support the proposal for an Australian Food Council as, in the form proposed, it would not have decision-making powers,” McConell said. “The failure to consider a range of possible scenarios and to plan for ‘no regret’ adaptive responses to climate change calls into question the robustness of the proposed National Food Plan.”

The Food Alliance is funded by VicHealth and sits within the Food Policy Unit at Deakin University’s Population Health Strategic Research Centre.

The consultation period on the National Food Plan closed on 30 September.