International work

The issues confronting food and farming are not confined to the UK. Climate change, depleting resources, a rapidly rising world population and fluctuating fuel prices mean that current models of chemical-intensive farming are not viable, particularly if we are to meet global emissions targets.

Rising food prices – which resulted in riots and social unrest in 14 countries during 2006-08, show how interdependent our food and farming systems have become, as agricultural policies are now mostly determined at an international level. This means that almost all of the Soil Association’s campaigns and policy activities need to work in a context shaped in part by international initiatives.

The Soil Association is campaigning for a global shift to organic agriculture. We believe that organic principles can feed the world sustainably, and be a crucial contribution to moving to a low-carbon economy.

Recent developments in international policy positioning, such as the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) 2008 report on organic agriculture, the International Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) recommendations on agriculture and climate change, and reports on organic farming and food by the International Trade Centre (advisors to the World Bank and UNCTAD) and UNCTAD itself, have a huge impact on the debate about agricultural policy in Europe and in the UK. The report that has done most to shift the debate in the UK was by the IAASTD (International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Development), which concluded that current models of food and farming were not fit-for-purpose, and need to shift to environmentally sustainable methods.

International initiatives clearly have the potential to refocus the UK’s debate about agriculture so that organic farming is firmly on the agenda as part of the solution to the global challenges facing us. The Soil Association is involved in a number of important international campaigns and policy debates to ensure that the organic solution is at their heart.