{"id":3499,"date":"2015-03-27T16:43:33","date_gmt":"2015-03-27T16:43:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=3499"},"modified":"2015-03-27T16:43:33","modified_gmt":"2015-03-27T16:43:33","slug":"food-safety-at-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=3499","title":{"rendered":"Food safety at risk"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Most of us eat a meal without ever even really thinking about whether or not the food is safe \u00e2\u20ac\u201c we simply assume it is. And most of the time, this is true.<\/p>\n

 
\nBut the reason most of the food we consume is indeed safe is thanks to the thousands of men and women who do the work in this important field.<\/p>\n

 
\nOne agency carrying out work vital to food safety is the independent Food, Environment and Research Agency (Fera). The agency, which was instrumental in identifying horsemeat in the UK food chain, analyses chemical risks and diseases in the food supply chain, among other projects, which include studying the effects of invasive species and pesticides.<\/p>\n

 
\nBut this work may just be threatened as it joins the ranks of public services being sucked up by private companies.<\/p>\n

 
\nOutsourcing giant Capita is set to take over Fera next week (April 1) and has already announced plans to significantly change how the agency does its work \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it will shift its focus to more commercial projects in an effort to double sales.<\/p>\n

 
\nLeading food policy expert Professor Tim Lang says the move will spell disaster for the agency and food safety as a whole.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bNo one will pay for evidence about food and biodiversity, or food and pesticide residues,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Lang told the Independent on Wednesday (March 25).<\/a><\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThere\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no profit in that. In fact, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more profit in not having it. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an absolute incentive not to have public-interest research about these areas. And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a concern.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bGovernment needs to have optimum advice at its fingertips\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Climate change, pesticides \u00e2\u20ac\u201c all sorts of things that politicians ought to have good advice on are wrapped up in the daily bread and butter of Fera,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Lang added. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bAnd the Government privatising that basically gets rid of that.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nFera, which currently employs about 400 scientists in York, made \u00c2\u01411.6m in profits as a government agency last year, with \u00c2\u014140m in sales. Capita, however, wants to significantly increase profits. It has said it wants the unit to make \u00c2\u0141700m in sales over the next decade, at \u00c2\u014170m a year.<\/p>\n

 
\nGlobal contractor Capita, like many giant outsourcing companies seeking entry into public services, has not had an entirely wholesome past.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe National Audit Office (NAO) is currently investigating a contract between Capita and the Cabinet Office to provide civil service training and development training, following allegations from smaller businesses that the contractor had exploited its dominant position at the expense of the suppliers it had been working with.<\/p>\n

 
\nUnite assistant general secretary Steve Turner condemned the impending corporate takeover, saying it was business as usual for the privatisation juggernaut increasingly dominating UK public life.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis news is yet another example showing why privatisation is always an attack on the public interest,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWhat business does big business have in a research agency whose most important work is food safety?\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bProjects vital to public safety are by their very nature not lucrative. And why should they be?\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Turner added. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bA profit-seeking firm taking over a once public enterprise will undoubtedly abandon public interest projects in favour of commercial projects that bring in the money.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen it with the NHS and other public services \u00e2\u20ac\u201c private firms coming in and ruthlessly cutting costs in their endless quest for profits at the expense of the people being served.<\/p>\n

 
\nBut Turner argued that there was a way out of relentless privatisation.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe ongoing privatisation of every institution we hold dear must stop,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThat\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why voting in the general election in May is so important. We are at a crossroads, and we have the power to decide \u00e2\u20ac\u201c do we want a government that will irreversibly accelerate our current, privatise-at-all-costs status quo? Or do we want something different?\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most of us eat a meal without ever even really thinking about whether or not the food is safe \u00e2\u20ac\u201c we simply assume it is. And most of the time, this is true.   But the reason most of the food we consume is indeed safe is thanks to the thousands of men and women […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":298,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[31,252],"wps_subtitle":"Private corporate takeover could spell doom for food research agency","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3499"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3499"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3500,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3499\/revisions\/3500"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}