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Food and climate change
Airfreight of food

Sustain has taken a keen interest in the controversial area of airfreighting food. These pages record recent activity on this issue. For enquiries about this material, contact Sustain's policy director, Kath Dalmeny, kath@sustainweb.org.

Summer 2007

Organic standards and airfreight
Sustain contributed to discussions with the Soil Association certification department, on the issue of airfreight of organic food. A proposal to ban airfreight has been issued for public consultation by the Soil Association, and a stakeholder meeting to be held in July, which Sustain will attend.

Spring 2007

Food Ethics Council advice to supermarkets
Kath continues to give presentations at and attend a wide range of high level meetings on this issue, including with the Food Ethics Council, on what key messages civil society should send to supermarkets about tackling airfreight of food. The report by the Food Ethics Council has now been published (download report), with recommendations for how supermarkets could address sustainable development for poor countries, whilst also starting to curb the damage caused by airfreight, and slow the growth in this burgeoning method of food distribution.

Winter 2006-07

In November 2006, Sustain's deputy coordinator Kath Dalmeny arranged a successful seminar for the Department for International Development (DfID) on airfreight of fresh horticultural produce from least developed countries. This brought together environment, development and consumer organisations to explore how climate change policies could be developed to ensure that least developed countries can still benefit from trade in agricultural products. Detailed notes from the seminar can be downloaded following the links below.

DfID Airfreight Meeting notes
 Download 135kb pdf

PowerPoint presentations
Background materials