Food

The Greens (WA) believe that all people should have physical and economic access to enough nutritious, culturally appropriate, safe food to allow them to lead healthy and active lives. With global warming, droughts and the inevitable rise in the cost of all fuels, food is becoming more expensive in Western Australia.

Goals
 

The Greens (WA) want:

  • to ensure that the social, health and environmental issues associated with food production are fully considered in agricultural policy
  • people to have access to food that is healthy and locally produced
  • a more diverse, flexible and resilient food production system
  • humane treatment of animals used for food (See also The Greens (WA) Animals policy)
  • comprehensive food labelling
  • increased benefits to rural communities from food production in their region
  • a review of National Competition Policy legislation to favour local production close to final markets due to rising transport costs and carbon emissions
  • more local shops within walking and bicycle range of customers.

Initiatives
 

The Greens (WA) will support legislation and actions that: 

Food Production and Distance to Market

  • encourage sustainable food production and processing standards
  • reduce the distances that food is transported from grower to processor to shop to consumer
  • encourage local and sustainable food industries in Western Australia (see Greens (WA) Sustainable Agriculture Policy)
  • encourage farmers markets
  • make advice about how to cultivate home vegetable gardens freely available to the public
  • enhance the availability of soil testing for people wishing to convert household gardens to food production
  • zone to prevent further residential development of peri-urban agricultural land
  • reduce the use of toxic chemicals, pesticides and artificial fertilisers in agricultural production
  • phase out use of growth hormones and antibiotics in food production
  • encourage free-range food production with the establishment of clear standards
  • support sustainable fish production
  • encourage the saving of heritage seeds and animals
  • oppose the conversion of good agricultural land used to grow food crops to biofuel production, while encouraging alley farming and other practices that reduce salinity by mixing food and tree crops
  • encourage the eating of seasonal food.

Labelling and Public Information

  • improve information to Western Australian consumers to enable them to make informed choices regarding food purchase
  • promote the labelling of the place of origin for fresh foods
  • ensure that processed food is labelled to indicate local production, amount of trans fats and Genetically Modified (GM) ingredients (see Greens (WA) Genetic Modification Policy)
  • ensure food labels show all product content, proportions and easy-to-understand nutritional value
  • ensure food labels show name of ingredients as well as additive number
  • ensure labels do not mislead consumers by requiring illustrations, names and other promotional information to reflect only major ingredients
  • continue government advertising campaigns like 2 Fruit and 5 Veg, Buy West, Eat Best and Life – Be In It
  • ban junk food advertising on children’s TV programs and other children's media such as video games and children's internet sites
  • encourage the slow food movement.1

Nanotechnology and Genetic Modification

  • legislate a moratorium on the sale of all food containing nanotech2 materials until a proper regulatory scheme is in place
  • maintain the moratorium on GM food production in Western Australia (see Greens (WA) Genetic Modification Policy).

Animal Welfare

  • treat animals used for food in a humane manner by:
    - banning intensive production systems for meat, dairy and egg products
    - banning mutilation practices
    - phasing out feed lotting
  • reducing long distance transport of animals from farm to abattoir (see Greens (WA) Animals Policy)

Health and Social Justice

  • introduce laws to regulate the sale of foods containing trans fats3 by banning partially hydrogenated oils used in food production to below 2% of trans fat (as has been done in Denmark)
  • reduce and eventually ban the use of artificial and unnecessary additives and preservatives in products aimed at or likely to be consumed by children
  • ensure that producers are paid a fair price when food is produced in undeveloped countries

Glossary
1. Slow food movement – is a movement to counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions, people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world – people, communities, animals, plants and the environment. (http://slowfoodperth.org.au)
2. Nanotech – Nanotechnology is a powerful new technology for taking apart and reconstructing food at the atomic and molecular level (http://nano.foe.org.au/node/198)
3. Trans fat is the common name for a type of unsaturated fat. Scientific evidence shows that consumption of saturated fat, trans fat, and dietary cholesterol raises low-density lipoprotein (LDL), or "bad cholesterol," levels, which increases the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD)
(http://www.fda.gov/FDAC/features/2003/503_fats.html)
 

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