There are alternatives to supermarkets that are community focused, environmentally sustainable and gathering momentum. What they need is your support.

Individual /local action:

Take an interest in where your food comes from.

Boycott supermarkets and large food manufacturers. Yes I know that we are not all saints, so maybe just buy the essentials from the supermarkets

Support small, independent suppliers, processors and retailers.

Buy imported goods only when they cannot be grown in this country.

Support local farmers by using their farm shops, organic box schemes, going to farmers markets.

Encourage small retailers to stock locally produced food.

Grow your own vegetables.

Consider becoming vegetarian or vegan as a way of reducing your own support for industrial farming methods.

Help set up new methods of distribution locally, eg. co-operatives for marketing local produce locally, consumer co-operatives to buy healthy food in bulk for your community and delivery schemes.

Set up a community shop. Find out about community-owned retailing. Contact Toby Peters on 01435-883005 or toby@easynet.co.uk.

Support farmer's actions to end their exploitation at the hands of the supermarkets. See Farmer's For Action campaign. www.farmersforaction.org

We need to start the conversation in society - why do we have supermarkets? and why do we need them at all?

Current Legislative ideas:

Support the 'Food Justice' bill to abolish food poverty in the UK. Spearheaded by Alan Simpson MP with a core of organisations including Sustain, Child Poverty Action Group, Help the Aged and Friends of the Earth. Contact Ron Bailey 020 8698 3682. Email: enquiries@foodjustice.org.uk

Lobby for more help for farmers to convert to organic production through the 'Organic Targets' Bill that aims for 30% of farmland to be organic by 2010. Contact Sustain or FoE for more information (see below).

Support the 'Localisation Bill' which has provision for more investment in a local food economy. Contact Sustain for more information.Support the 'Breaking the Armlock' Alliance which is calling for a mandatory Code of Practice for supermarkets in their dealing with suppliers, and an independent regulator.
www.breakingthearmlock.com

Policy recommendations:

After allowing supermarkets to come up with voluntary codes, it is clear that these do not work. Well intentioned projects such as 'Race to the Top' or the Ethical Trading Initative, which work with the supermarkets, have led to superficial changes, but are often undermined by the supermarkets themselves.

We need strong government legislation to curb the power of supermarkets, to prevent the exploitation of suppliers and the destruction of small retailers and the attendant social and environmental costs.

Ideas on the table include a strong enforceable supplier code of practice drawn up by the suppliers themselves; a 'Local food targets act' for the UK and local seasonal produce to be supplied in supermarkets; an independent regulator for the supermarkets 'OffTrolley' (!); and regulation on gangmasters to stop the exploitation of farm-workers and undocumented migrants.

A major rethink of Competition law in relation to supermarkets is urgently needed both in the UK and European Union. The question we need to ask is 'what are the real effects of having food retailing concentrated in the hands of so few companies?'. We need to investigate more thoroughly how monopolies and oligopolies affect suppliers as well as consumers and also look at local monopolies. We could follow the example of other European countries in curbing persistent below-cost selling.

It makes sense to relocalise food production and retailing. This would include building covered food markets, through We should also limit supermaket developments through a mandatory economic impact assessment to be undertaken before a supermarket is granted planning permission. There could be a cap on retailer floor space.

Supermarkets could be taxed for the environmental pollution they cause, with taxation on non-recyclable packaging, excessive transportation and car-parking spaces.

We should support UK farmers with high environmental and animal welfare standards against unfair trade rules, and call for agriculture to be taken out of the WTO and an end to export dumping. See www.viacampesina.org and www.iatp.org for more information.

Campaign against the GATS agreement of the WTO which could ease supermarkets in their quests to open up more markets overseas against the wishes and best interests of local populations.

Watch out for other good policy ideas as we are all still trying to work this out. For example, Wye Cycle's proposal for legislation stating that no individual business may be responsible for more than 1% of UK food retailing. See www.wyecycle.org