ABSTRACT
Introduction Wherever we live food is basic to our survival; large parts of the world contain millions of people who live on a subsistence income with barely enough food. The impact of natural disasters and climatic change has obvious and alarming consequences for many of those living in the poor world because the accumulating evidence on the likely impact of climate change suggests that food supplies are in danger. Rising sea levels and changed weather patterns threaten to knock out some of the major grain-producing regions of the world. In those countries where there is no system of state income support, the rural poor who live in these areas depend on what they can grow from the land. Landless labourers in the developing world are increasingly attracted by the promise of a better life in the rapidly growing urban centres and they further intensify the urban demand for food. Food policy in the UK has to be seen in this global context: what we eat is often produced
thousands of miles away and the decisions about what gets onto the shelves of supermarkets are influenced by international agreements and the multinational food corporations. Health, poverty and food have become inextricably linked. The discussion of food policy is inherently about health and so the risks to our health from consumption of certain foods is both a health and an environmental issue. There are various roles for the state in food policy: it can intervene directly by denying some people food choices or by rationing food, it can provide food to certain groups in the population, for example free milk or vitamins for children under 5 years old, and it can issue vouchers which can be used to purchase food (Leat in Murcott, 1998). In this chapter, we examine the nature of the debate about food policy and address its global dimensions.
