Gordon Ramsay calls for fines for chefs using out-of-season food

A wee while back the BBC Today Programme examined Gordon Ramsay's deliberately provocative assertion that chefs should be fined for using food that's out of season. Good on him for opening a debate on this.

Cartoon: sent by a friend - the days of cheap oil are over

Professor Lang from the City University’s Centre for Food Policy felt that in essence he was right:

".... We have got to push back towards seasonality...production is dropping just at the time when we have got to make the food system work on a more ecological basis....the global food system is going to have to shift..the fuel issue is clearly at the top of it. We're already seeing it in the Big Four commodities; wheat, maize, rice, soya....."


Indeed Prof. Lang and John Humphrys both agreed that "The days of 26,000 items on the supermarket shelves - those days are going to have to come to an end." On the otherhand Bob Stott, former Chairman of Morrisons, seemed both complacent and contemptuous - revealing a worrying set of assumptions that must be questioned.

The challenge of securing the world's food supply was the subject of Professor Lang's City University London lecture ‘Food Security: are we sleepwalking into a crisis?’ on 4 March 2008. It examined the clash between our cheap food culture and sustainability. At stake are fundamental questions for our national policy: what is land for, what skills are necessary and where does the public interest lie? The Powerpoint slides provide a dramatic summary.

Magnus Linklater pointed out in The Times very recently,

"...just at a time when we should be considering how best to increase our production of grain, we in Britain are switching off one main source of it. ...It is clear that the Government has yet to react to the dimensions of the looming world food crisis. It needs to begin a debate with the EU on the whole direction of Europe's agricultural strategy and rethink it from scratch, devising a strategy for sustainable production, then begin to educate the public about the realities ahead. It will mean a change in culture that is a million miles from the Tesco-driven consumerism we have grown lazily used to over the past 20 years. " Read in full

On the question of government complacency and inaction, I would strongly urge folk to ask their MPs to support a motion called by John Hemming MP, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil and Gas (APPGOPO). The Early Day Motion (EDM 1453) urgently calls on the government to review its prediction as to when peak oil will occur, in light of rising energy and food prices. David Drew MP has already signed.