Our Core Principles
1. People matter:
2. The Environment matters:
3. It’s about more than food:
4. Short supply chains go further:
- Everyone has the right to sufficient, safe, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food obtained in ways free from stigma or status, now and into the future.
- Our food system is run by people for people, throughout the food chain. Everyone should have key employment rights and be respected and valued. There should be a just transition to a new food system.
- The food system should be governed democratically, with people involved in decision-making at all levels from local to global.
- Both consumers and the industry deserve properly funded independent checks on food production.
2. The Environment matters:
- Agriculture alone accounts for around half of food’s total carbon footprint in the UK. Scotland must move away from our current resource-intensive production models at sea and on land, towards alternatives such as organic and agroecological production which deliver sufficient food to eat while building resilience in the face of climatic change.
- Organic and other sustainable farming systems foster stewardship of land which is vital because farming is so much more than just food production; agriculture is important for its impacts on water quality, biodiversity, flood alleviation, carbon storage, animal welfare, landscape and recreation.
- Seeds and genes should not be made into commodities and commercialised by corporate interests; they are the basis of a resilient food system that all of us need to survive.
3. It’s about more than food:
- Food and drink is more than calories, profit margins and trade: our food system profoundly affects our health and wellbeing, and should be designed to enhance both.
- Public health is a priority; in order that our bodies and minds function to the best of their abilities a nutrient-dense diet, with limited high-sugar food and drinks, is essential.
- Food is a tool for social transformation. A thriving food culture in Scotland can strengthen communities, improve animal welfare, and bring fun and meaning to mealtimes.
- The way we produce and consume food should reflect an understanding of our reliance on the natural environment.
4. Short supply chains go further:
- Food supply chains should distribute - not concentrate - power and ownership.
- Everyone should have opportunities to develop understanding of the food they eat and participate in growing or producing through access to land. For example an allotment, community garden, or community supported agriculture.
- Where possible, food supply chains should be short (in steps, if not geographic distance), simple and transparent, and be made up of mutually beneficial relationships.
- Scotland should produce more of what it eats and eat more of what it produces, bringing people and food providers closer together in a resilient ‘mixed economy’ of food.
- We currently waste huge amounts of food (and the natural and human resources which went to make it) at all stages of the supply chain: we need to take significant steps to reduce this.
