Right to Food UK Conference: ‘Hunger is a political choice'

UK Conference

‘Hunger is a political choice’

13th September 2025

35 Marylebone Road, London, NW1 5LS

9.30 am – 4.30pm

Followed by an evening of food and music

Food insecurity, malnutrition and hunger continue to increase as a result of further cuts to welfare and poverty pay. Our food system is broken.

This national conference will discuss a new strategy from farm to fork that stands by the rights of farmers, food growers, and all food and nutrition workers. A plan that gives us more control over which foods are sold on our high streets and the price of healthy foods. Our families and communities must have the right to live healthy lives with dignity.

Join the conversations at the conference to share your experiences and solutions.

Ian Byrne MP’s Right To Food campaign provides a strategy for changing the food system based on enshrining the right to food in law. This starts with living wages and benefits to afford healthy and culturally chosen foods. In the UK, a healthy diet would cost up to 70% of disposable income for families with children. People with disabilities are most vulnerable, with over 50% struggling financially already and some now facing cuts to their disability benefits.

Join the conversations on how the government can increase wages and benefits.

We will discuss the core need for universal free school meals, community kitchens and meals on wheels as part of universal community food and nutrition services. Should this be part of the public health system, where people providing food in communities should be paid and have nationally agreed-upon working conditions?

In the context of food sovereignty and democracy, should community food provisioning based on the circular economy be regulated? Is the right to food central to how local government plans local food economies? How much say do we have?

At this conference, we will discuss how to ensure food security nationally, for communities and households and independent enforcement of the right to food legislation.

Throughout the day, we will discuss how to build a social movement bringing together over 20 right to food cities and towns, the massive support from the trade unions, across our communities, among football supporters, academics, food and health practitioners and food activists.

Our struggle for the right to food is local and global. It is seen in the UK that hunger is a political choice. It is a weapon of war, as in Sudan, and in the starvation campaign and genocide in Gaza. These will be key conversations for us.

Join us in building a social movement uniting our communities, trade unions, academics, practitioners, and activists to win the right to food in the UK and globally.

For more information contact Sharon: [email protected] and the office of Ian Byrne MP on [email protected]

The Five Demands of the Right to Food Campaign.

Hunger is a political choice, and we are urging the Government to end food poverty by delivering on our five key campaign demands:

1.Universal free school meals. No child should go hungry and the Right To Food campaign is calling for free school meals for every child.

2. Government to state how much of minimum wages and benefits (on which people are expected to live) is for food. The Right To Food Campaign wants Government to reveal how much money is factored in for food when setting minimum/living wages and benefits.

3. Independent enforcement of legislation. Right To Food legislation must be accompanied by oversight and enforcement powers granted to a new independent regulatory body that will hold Government to account.

4. Community Kitchens. The Right To Food Campaign believes Community Kitchens provide a workable solution to food poverty. Government should fund dining clubs and ‘meals-on-wheels’ services for the elderly and vulnerable, school holiday meals for those most in need and cookery clubs for the wider community.

5. Ensured food security. Government must ensure food security and take this into account when setting competition, planning, transport, local government and all other policy.

For more information about the Right To Food Campaign visit: https://www.ianbyrne.org/righttofood

Host or Publisher College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, UoW