IF REVIEW group reports continued to be issued in hardcopy, then Henry Dimbleby’s plan for a National Food Strategy would certainly have landed with a mighty thump on Ministerial desks across Whitehall. Its heavy impact is not only because it extends to nearly 300 pages but also because it dares to do something which Governments for generations have failed to achieve and that is to deliver some joined up thinking.

In that vein, from a farming perspective, there will be individual elements of this wide-ranging report that will rankle. In particular, the recommendations around reducing meat production and consumption and the desire to see farmland repurposed to plant trees to mop up carbon emitted by other sectors including industry, transport and households will be problematic for those of us within the farming community.

Despite the legitimate arguments that could be levelled against these individual recommendations, I would encourage my farming colleagues to try to see the report in its wider context.

Unlike DEFRA and other parts of Whitehall, Dimbleby’s plan attempts to map through its recommendations to create a coherent framework for producing a sustainable National Food Strategy.

For example, it addresses the fundamental dichotomy between ensuring fair returns to primary producers whilst delivering affordable food to all UK consumers; it looks at how the taxation system can be used to nudge change in both reduction and consumption; it nails the arguments over why it is important to ensure that in our international trading relationships we have the same standards at our borders as we do domestically to ensure that we are not off-shoring our problems, undermining our producers and failing our consumers; and crucially for my Association and its members Dimbleby grasps the nettle of making sure that tenant farmers have both sustainable opportunities to grow their businesses and fair access to new Government initiatives.

In reading Dimbleby’s report you get the sense that as uncomfortable as some of the recommendations might be, strong efforts have been made to think through the impact of the measures proposed. Disappointing then, on the day of its launch, that the Prime Minister displayed what, at best, could be described as ambivalence towards the report in answering questions following his, “levelling up” speech delivered in Coventry. He also chose to pour cold water on any idea around the use of the taxation system to encourage healthier diets which was a key recommendation of the report.

The Government’s formal response to the report was “the Government will carefully consider its conclusions and respond with a White Paper within six months, setting out our priorities for the food system”.

Dimbleby’s report has been two years in the making and has been hotly anticipated. Of course, it will divide as well as unite. I have already highlighted some of the concerns from the farming perspective.”