Ministers have given the independent group set up oversee delivery of the government's wide-reaching Sustainable Farming and Food Strategy another year to build on the progress and successes already achieved. Margaret Beckett, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has asked Sir Don Curry's Implementation Group to continue until December 2004.
Mrs Beckett welcomed the group's contribution to the solid progress made in 2003 on delivering the strategy. The group is helping government and industry to work together to shape a more profitable, diverse, competitive and environmentally-sensitive farming and food sector. Detailed delivery plans are in place and a disciplined approach is being taken to achieving milestones and the measurement of progress using a range of indicators.
UK supermarket chains have been trying to reassure consumers over the safety of farmed Scottish salmon, after claims by US researchers that the fish contains dangerous levels of harmful toxins.
UK retail firms J Sainsbury and Safeway have informed customers that their salmon was within recognised safety limits, according to the Financial Times. The salmon industry has been fighting to counter a possible consumer backlash against Scottish farmed salmon after a report in the journal Science claimed that farmed salmon contains far more harmful toxins than wild salmon, and that intake of farmed salmon should be limited.
According to the UK Food Standards Agency,
"The levels of dioxins and PCBs found in this study are in line with those that have previously been found by the FSA and are within up to date safety levels set by the World Health Organisation and the European Commission. This study does not raise any new food safety concerns. This applies to all the salmon: farmed as well as wild, Scottish as well as imported."
The government has said statutory registration may be on the cards to end illegal seasonal labour in fresh produce if other measures don't work. And it pointed the finger at food chain price pressures as fuelling the use of illegal immigrants and benefit claimants as cheap workers.
In a reply to the environment, food and rural affairs committee probe into gangmasters, the government said:
"This is an issue that can only be addressed by the food chain working together. Many labour providers claim they set out to operate within the law, but are put in a position where they feel forced to cut corners to stay in business because their customers are not prepared to pay a price for labour which reflects the full costs of a wage bill."
Supermarkets are failing to support British farming, according to delegates at a recent conference.
Safeway communications director Kevin Hawkins said it was in the supermarkets' own interest to have progressive, efficient farmers supplying safe, consistently available food. But delegates to the Oxford Farming Conference overwhelming dismissed the motion that supermarkets do support British agriculture, with more than two thirds of the delegates voting against.
Multinational supermarket chains are revolutionising food retailing in developing countries, and while consumers are flocking to the new stores, developing-country farmers can have a hard time getting into the supply chain.
In Asia and Latin America the fastest-growing supermarkets are chains from Europe and the United States, including Carrefour from France, Wal-Mart from the United States, Ahold from the Netherlands, and Tesco from the United Kingdom. With populations, incomes, and urbanization all projected to rise in developing countries in the next 10 to 20 years, supermarkets are poised to continue their rapid expansion into these regions. The largest food retailer in Africa, Shoprite, has already opened stores in more than a dozen countries, and plans to add new outlets in these and other countries.
David Hughes, professor of agribusiness and food marketing at the Centre for Food Chain Research of Imperial College London, says: "The growth of supermarkets is good news for big farmers and efficient, well-organized farmers. For others it can be troublesome."
