A Bitter Pill?
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The magazine of the Food Ethics Council Sugar A bitter pill? Sidney Mintz | Oliver Cheesman | Rebecca May | David Willers Jeffrey A. McNeely | Amy Serrano | Alison Boyd | Nick Vink Susan Coldwell | Julia Clark | Ian Bretman | Nick Wells Sue Davies | Ben Richardson | David Phillips | Mariann Fischer Boel Michael Heasman | Neville Rigby | Adam Drewnowski summer 2009 | 4 Volume Issue 2 | www.foodethicscouncil.org Carl Atkin | Miriam Boscarsly | Jack Winkler | Clare Devereux Contents Introduction 05 Sugar: old champion, new contenders | Sidney Mintz The environment 11 Sugar production | Oliver Cheesman Food Ethics, the magazine of the Food Ethics 14 Sustainable sugarcane production | Rebecca May Council, seeks to challenge accepted opinion and 16 The Better Sugar Cane Standard | David Willers spark fruitful debate about key issues and developments in food and farming. Distributed Biofuels quarterly to subscribers, each issue features 18 Biofuels: sugar may not always be so sweet | Jeffrey A. McNeely independent news, comment and analysis. The Food Ethics Council challenges government, Human rights business and the public to tackle ethical issues in 19 The Sugar Babies | Amy Serrano food and farming, providing research, analysis and tools to help. The views of contributors to The big question this magazine are not necessarily those of the 21 Sugar: an unhealthy addiction? Food Ethics Council or its members. Alison Boyd | Nick Vink | Dr Susan Coldwell Please do not reproduce without permission. Julia Clark | Ian Bretman | Nick Wells |Sue Davies Articles are copyright of the authors and images as credited. Unless otherwise indicated, all other Power and trade content is copyright of the Food Ethics Council 24 Refined power | Ben Richardson 2009. 26 Global sugar and fair trade | David Phillips 28 Sugar reform | Mariann Fischer Boel Editorial team: 29 UK sugar production | Carl Atkin Ann Baldridge Liz Barling 31 The persistence of sugar | Michael Heasman Susan Kerry Bedell Tom MacMillan Consumption 34 Sugar consumption and public health | Neville Rigby Printed by: 37 Global obesity trends | Adam Drewnowski PEP the Printers, Brighton 38 Sugar addiction | Miriam Boscarsly Printed on 80% post-consumer recycled paper. 40 Where next for public health strategies? | Jack Winkler Regular features 03 From the editor Produced with kind support from the Polden Puckham Charitable 04 Letters and news Foundation 46 Book reviews ISSN 1753-9056 47 Restaurant review | Clare Devereux Food Ethics Council 39 - 41 Surrey Street Brighton BN1 3PB UK T: 0845 345 8574 or +44 (0) 1273 766 654 F: +44 (0) 1273 766 653 [email protected] www.foodethicscouncil.org The Food Ethics Council, registered charity number 1101885 Cover image: © nathan gibbs From the editor More than just a sweet tooth Tom MacMillan Are we addicted to sugar? In the strict government’s healthy eating target of Consider, for instance, how EU sugar psychiatric sense, perhaps: if we binge 11%. Globally, total sugar consumption reforms affect workers. Dismantling on harmful amounts in spite of is rising at about 2% annually, and protection has accelerated corporate knowing the consequences, that’s attempts to set science-based guidelines consolidation and mechanisation, enough to have us diagnosed. But since on how much it is healthy to eat have according to Ben Richardson (p.24), food in general might tick the same been mired in controversy. shedding jobs and exposing vulnerable boxes, explains Miriam Boscarsly (p.38), producers to market volatility. This will the jury seems out on whether sugar increase pressure on sugar businesses to addiction is a medically useful idea. ensure healthy, fair and dignified conditions for workers who remain in As a metaphor for society’s love affair Is sugar really the their pay and small producers who with sugar, however, addiction is supply them. But what happens to certainly compelling. As Sidney Mintz right target? those pushed out of sugar by (p.5) describes, sugar has helped make restructuring? the world go round since the first plantations bankrolled and fed colonial So sugar illustrates Europe’s debt to expansion and then industrial coerced workers and our obligation to capitalism. Our economy was built on repay it through significantly increased sugar and many countries still depend Efforts to address these problems have development assistance and an on it. Yet its ills – from slavery to tooth- been fraught, but not without success. uncompromising political commitment rot – have seldom been far from public An alliance of producers and NGOs to development-focused trade reform. view. called the Better Sugarcane Initiative Yet it also underlines that no single seems to be making a mark on sector should be privileged in this Global sugar production is 165 million production, reducing fertiliser and effort, and that development assistance tonnes (2007) and rising.1 While it pesticide use, and promoting better and trade reform across the board must comes mainly from cane in Latin water and soil management. The EU’s be made radically more accountable to America and Asia, the EU also produces protection for sugar producers, which the workers, small producers and other a fair bit from beet, a legacy of dumps beet sugar on world markets and vulnerable people it affects. agricultural protection. Overall, cane gave preferential market access to some accounts for about two-thirds. cane producing countries, is being In Adam Drenowski’s (p.37) analysis, painfully reformed. Fair trade schemes employment conditions, income The environmental toll of producing are winning a better deal for producers, inequality and social protection are the cane sugar, which includes water with some benefits reaching hired biggest issues in consumption. “What scarcity and biodiversity loss, is workers. In the UK and elsewhere in leads to obesity may not be sugar but pronounced but comparable to other Europe, nutrition standards on the low price of sugar. Or fat. Or refined tropical and subtropical monocultures. advertising are set to restrict the grains,” he argues. “The real question is Its human cost is more closely linked to promotion of very sugary foods to not what made Americans obese, but the crop’s particular characteristics, children and to adults using health who made them poor”. Focusing on presenting a narrow harvest window claims, while product reformulation is sugar, say by taxing empty calories, and inhospitable working environment. chipping away at our intake. might make matters worse. As Mintz puts it, these have meant that “sweated, unskilled, imported labour But is sugar really the right target? If we So the problems hinge, as Mintz that was openly or furtively coerced did all these things and more to improve famously put it, on ‘sweetness and under colonial or quasi-colonial production standards in the sugar power’ rather than simply on sugar. The conditions, has been the very hallmark industry, gain fairer terms of trade and solutions lie in tackling inequality and of the cane sugar industry, almost expose hidden calories, we’d surely be abuses of political and economic power always, and nearly everywhere”. better off. But would it crack the by upholding human rights at home and problems sugar presents? abroad, and actively promoting When it comes to consumption, sugar democratic engagement and has see-sawed with fats as the focus of Probably not. As contributors to this accountability. Admitting that this goes concerns over obesity and diet-related magazine attest, there are rival sources beyond sugar and even beyond food disease. Brits on average eat around of sweet, cheap calories, such as high- doesn’t let our sector off the hook: it 40 kg a year, which works out at 14% of fructose corn syrup, and plenty of other obliges us to lend our voices, our the energy in our diets – the recent ways to exploit workers, including evidence and our support to far- trend has been downward, reports bioethanol production from cane. reaching measures that will work. Squeeze sugar, and those problems Heasman (p.31), but we still exceed 1. All figures from articles in this magazine. bulge elsewhere. summer 2009 volume 4 issue 2 | www.foodethicscouncil.org 3 Letters and News Dear Sir; Following Survey results the ‘fish’ edition of your magazine, you In the last issue we asked what you thought of the Food wrote to The Ethics magazine, to find out what we’re getting right and Grocer asking that where we can make improvements. Thirty-one people retailers only responded, and congratulations go to Rosalind Eccles who supply fish that has receives a year’s free subscription. been certified as sustainable by the We are delighted that overall you like the magazine, and feel Marine Stewardship that it’s timely and relevant, with a good mix of contributors. Council. Respondents particularly the magazine’s in-depth analysis, The continued topicality, focus and balance of articles. They noted our wide supply of fish to range of interesting contributors, our objectivity and our meet increasing coverage of contemporary and novel issues. consumer demand Lest we rest on our laurels, you’ve also told us that you’d like is a major problem. to see more colour in the magazine, shorter articles, campaign It may seem that news, more case studies and executive summaries. These are MSC certification is all things we’ll be looking at over the next few months. In the the best way we meantime, thank you for all your comments, and we hope that currently have of judging sustainability, which is why it you continue to enjoy reading the Food Ethics magazine. is endorsed by most major retailers, but there is no evidence to suggest that any of the key MSC certified Sustainable food distribution – present and future sustainable fisheries are actually sustainable. There are major question marks about the Pacific Salmon fishery, Two new reports are now available from the Food Ethics the Alaskan Pollock fishery, the New Zealand Hoki Council.