YOU CAN COOK | Blog

This week Bosco Santimano founder and executive director of social enterprise You Can Cook, shares his thoughts on a Brexit extension beyond December 2020 and the devastating fallout on Scotland’s economy, food and people…

Michael Gove has done it again! The cheerleader for the Vote Leave campaign which was founded in October 2015 by political strategists Matthew Elliott and Dominic Cummings, has announced that the prime minister had been quite clear since the election about the government not extending the Brexit transition period beyond December 2020 come what may. What are the Leave campaigners up to now? Since the Tories won an outright majority in last year’s election, Boris Johnson has accelerated the process to get the whole of the UK out of the EU by the end of December 2020 under any circumstances. The reason being that they have been given a mandate by the people of England to crash out of the EU without a deal and create a trade deal with the US and any other country that may wish to form a new trade alliance with Great Britain!

Unfortunately for them “Coronavirus”  let rip through all their plans and has brought this great country to its knees in just a few months. So much for bringing back control and the good old days back to Great Britain. The arrogance of the Tory party and its decision to put the whole country in a state of panic and chaos for years to come is purely based on its narrow ideological views and is beyond rational thinking and strategy. The current pandemic has already raised food prices by more than 25 percent in a matter of weeks of the lockdown and does not look like it’s going to slow down. Families are struggling to put food on the table while at the same time suffering job losses, anxiety, depression and other mental health issues. No one is saying to abandon leaving the EU but a sensible approach must be taken to mitigate the causes of the coronavirus pandemic first before embarking on this road to self-destruction. Andrew Opie, director of food and sustainability at the British Retail Consortium has warned that the UK could face huge food shortages even worse than the impact of the coronavirus! He warned that a no deal Brexit could mean shortages of products like tomatoes and lettuces and highlighted, that in January alone around 90% of lettuces, 80% of tomatoes and 70% of soft fruits came to the UK from Europe. He further warned that a disorderly Brexit would mean that the country would face a bigger challenge than the food supply chain faced with Covid-19.

If no deal can be reached with the EU on future relations, concerns have been raised about the impact having to use World Trade Organisation rules would have on businesses. Over 35% of our food currently comes from Europe, and it is very likely that fresh vegetables and fruits, will become more scarce and more expensive in the event of a no deal Brexit.

So what can we do to make sure Scotland does not suffer due to Tory policies coming out from London? Write to your local MP and fill their inboxes with letters, come out in droves once lockdown restrictions are eased to their monthly surgeries to protest and finally keep the pressure on all elected representatives including your local councillors who also have a vested interest in making sure Scotland and its people do not go hungry.

Stay safe! Eat well!

*Originally written & published in the Peeblesshire News.

This week Bosco Santimano founder and executive director of social enterprise You Can Cook, shares his thoughts on the Agriculture Bill going through Westminster and the House of Lords and the lowering of food import standards after Brexit.

I am lost for words as it is becoming very clear to me that the UK is heading for a new category called the “fourth world country” after the formalities of Brexit are over. Conservative MP’s in the South of Scotland region have voted against requiring new international treaties on the import of agricultural and food products to ensure products imported into the UK under those arrangements comply with World Trade Organisation safety rules and the UK’s own standards. To explain in a lay persons term, we have been screwed by Tories David Mundell (Clydesdale and Tweeddale and Berwickshire), John Lamont ( Dumfriesshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) and Alister Jack (Dumfries and Galloway) in accessing good food after Brexit.

328 MP’s including two Labour MP’s voted against the above amendment to safeguard our high standards and protect farmers livelihoods, while 277 cross party MP’s voted to keep them. Independent experts and researchers were sceptical about the Tories keeping their promises of not lowering food standards post Brexit as America clearly stated publicly that in order for a trade agreement between the two countries all sectors of the economy will have to be on the table for negotiations and according to US standards. This bill before the UK parliament was also a first of its kind to be voted on by MP’s electronically and was passed on 13^th May 2020.

The National Farmers Union (NFU) and a number of animal welfare and environmental organisations wrote to all 650 MP’s pleading them to make sure the new Agriculture Bill guaranteed that all imported food coming into the UK after Brexit and trade deals currently being negotiated meet the same high standards of environmental protection and animal welfare as is expected of any local food producer. Some of the organisations that put their names to this letter were; NFU, RSPCA, Soil Association, Friends of the Earth, Woodland Trust, Greenpeace and many more. The NFU President Minette Batters highlighted the real differences between food production in the UK and other countries which includes the US;

Abattoirs use chlorine or other chemicals to wash carcases which are not allowed in the UK because we have legislation on the way we keep our livestock, limiting stocking density;  We have rules on bio security, lighting, diet and veterinary oversight; Battery cage egg production is still permitted in some countries but was banned here in 2012; Meat and bone meal in feed which was banned in the UK over 24 years ago is still allowed elsewhere; In Brazil, farmers don’t need a Vet’s prescription for animal medicines and don’t need to record treatments. These are just a few examples that will compromise the high UK standards already in place with the new Agriculture Bill.

This bill now moves to the Lords for a second reading and hopefully it is voted out and sent back to the government for a major rethink of this once in a lifetime opportunity to keep the high standards achieved over decades in place and not torn to shreds for a desperate trade deal with the US of A. What will happen if this bill passes into law? Readers may have come across this headline a few years ago; “Get ready for cheap chlorinated chicken and hormone filled beef flooding the UK in a new trade deal with the US”. Not only will the health of citizens in this country be badly impacted by cheap imports but our farmers will not be able to compete with food produced in the US as its widely known how lax the regulations are, if any.

The Tories are running around in circles and trying to get a bad trade deal with Trump at any cost. Rebel Conservatives and Labour amendments to hold the government to previous promises made to protect British and Scottish food and farming were defeated, thanks to our own elected low life’s and career politicians. What will it take to boot the Conservatives out of this area? Is it death squads via Covid-19 or slow food poisoning of the electorate? Well! That’s the choice you have and if you decide to vote these corrupt individuals again that put themselves, Queen and Power before the people than I am sorry to say what’s coming next will completely be our fault. It’s not too late to take our elected MP’s to task and hold them accountable.

Stay safe! Eat well!

*Originally written & published in the Peeblesshire News.

This week Bosco Santimano, founder and executive director of social enterprise You Can Cook, shares his thoughts on the farming crisis.

What a fine mess we find ourselves in during the COVID-19 pandemic that is sweeping the world. The sector that was already struggling before the virus hit us was farming. Due to the rise of English nationalism which was followed by Brexit and the unwelcoming attitudes of all Brexiteers to European nationals; we now fully understand the contributions to sectors like farming made by nationals from Romania and other eastern European nations. Citizens of these countries were doing the jobs British folk considered lowly and beneath them. Take into consideration that these jobs are mostly low paid and seasonal and also having to wake up at 4am! You get the picture why these jobs are not popular with the locals. Farmers faced the first wave of labour shortages soon after the EU referendum in 2016 and only got worse over the years until the final nail in the coffin was delivered by the people of England who voted overwhelming to elect a Conservative & Unionist government to get Brexit done. Where does that leave us now? Farmers are now complaining that they need over 70,000 seasonal workers this year from Britain to make up those workers who will not be coming or can’t come due to the hostile nature and immigration rules imposed by the Tories on the whole of the United Kingdom. Repeated pleas made by the Scottish government to have separate immigration rules for Scotland has fallen on deaf years by Boris Johnson and his government.

“Feed the Nation” was a major hiring drive initiated by the three main recruiters(HOPS, Concordia & Fruitful Jobs) in agriculture to attract locals to fill the jobs now left vacant during the coronavirus pandemic. It attracted more than 27,000 applicants  but just over 4000 took up an offer for an interview. Other EU countries like Germany are allowing over 80,000 seasonal farm workers to come from Eastern Europe to help harvest crops during the peak season. All workers will have to be flown by air, undergo the necessary medical tests and follow social distancing guidelines while on the farms.

There is a simple solution to this problem! Why don’t all the Brexiteers now come forward to save queen and country? Brexit means Brexit! So please signup along with your family and friends who voted to leave the EU and save Britain once again; by getting off your backside and taking back control of your farms from EU/foreign workers. As this goes to print six charter flights have already landed in England bringing around 400 workers from Romania in the first of many flights in the coming weeks. Fruit and vegetable pickers will be specially flown in to meet demand and shortage of farm workers. 99 percent of seasonal agriculture jobs are filled by eastern Europeans, namely Romanians and Bulgarians according to the Office of National Statistics as reported in 2018.

Scotland is at a big disadvantage in this crisis as part of the United Kingdom as it has no powers to operate and do what it thinks is right for its farmers and citizens.

It will be an absolute scandal if crops are left to rot due to a shortage of farm workers and this will only make the current shortage of food worse, expensive and beyond the reach of normal citizens. Food poverty rates have already spiralled out of control during the lockdown and the battle to feed the nation would be lost due to political apathy and negligence. Brexit will just tip us over the edge.

It’s not too late to change course.

*Originally written & published in the Peeblesshire News.

This week Bosco Santimano, founder and executive director of social enterprise You Can Cook, shares his thoughts on panic buying.

It’s been a week now since we are in semi-lockdown and what a emotional roller coaster it has been for all of us here in the UK and around the globe. Since news went viral on social media that 3 cases of coronavirus have been identified in the Borders, locals in the region went berserk with shoppers driving to all the main supermarkets and panic buying food and toilet paper! I am yet to understand the logic behind toilet paper, but never mind. Pasta, tin foods, bread, fish, chicken, cheap fresh foods, hand sanitisers, alcohol were flying off the shelves within hours. By next day the supermarkets were looking like a warzone or as if it were attacked by zombies! The apocalypse was truly here. Many elderly and vulnerable adults were left with no access to their normal shopping items as these maniacs went on a wild rush to hoard as many items as possible. I saw cars and people carriers being stuffed with toilet paper and all other fresh food items that would in my opinion either be frozen or wasted in a couple of days.

Unfortunately I was right as news reports from all over the country saw a huge spike in food waste! What a disgrace and a typical human response in times of crisis. Many people become selfish, greedy and paranoid and in these difficult times its always the rich that can buy and hoard goods in their big houses and garages while the majority of us have to pray and hope that we don’t have to resort to cannibalism to survive. Just kidding by the way! Food and other essentials are slowly making their way onto the shelves and thankfully people are realising that we are all in this together and sanity seems to be coming back into our lives as we don’t want the scenario of a Mad Max movie, where instead of oil we are fighting and killing for food.

You Can Cook was setup in 2007 after doing my research and finding out a few key issues with food and the supply chain. First, many people did not know how to cook from scratch, second over 70% of our food came from abroad, a disaster waiting to happen as the current crisis clearly shows us the fallacy of this policy, and third we don’t grow enough food on these islands to feed the whole population, while government and European Union policies dictated paying farmers grants and subsidies not to grow food! This economic policy is what has led to a big divide between the rich and poor countries, whereby we in the developed West are using developing and third world countries to grow food on our behalf while the citizens of those countries are forced to grow foods for the western markets eg. soya, at the expense of not growing their own staple foods.

On these islands growing food has never been so important and we as part of a holistic approach to tackling these problems work to alleviate and empower communities across Scotland through cooking and growing. Please visit our website for more health related information and loads of recipes to try while you and your family are self-isolating.

Take care.

*Originally written & published in the Peeblesshire News.

This week Bosco Santimano founder and executive director of social enterprise You Can Cook, shares his thoughts on humans battling with the onslaught of machines in our day to day lives; this week its self-checkout tills.

It’s been a couple of decades since self-checkout machines really took off on these islands. Our two big supermarkets in Peebles have installed them to ease queues and provide a quick and efficient way to shop. I have seen people refusing to use them and some actually bewildered by them and some of course yelling at these machines! Well! It’s the voice activation that drives people nuts; “unexpected item in the bagging area” the dreaded trigger that I have seen provoking normal people into a rage. Staff politely come to the rescue of these stranded shoppers and help ease the frustration by diffusing the volatile situation just like bomb disposal experts.

So! What’s the big fuss you may ask about technology that is supposedly helping us in our shopping experience? Well! Apart from many people who swear by these check-out tills there are many who would prefer to see them gone for good and below are a number of reasons why.

The big benefit to retailers is substantial reduced labour costs. Retailers are all for hiring us as unpaid staff with no legal responsibility to pay taxes, employer national insurance and pension contributions, by doing the job of staff. One member of staff can often run six checkout tills with the work of the cashier now done by us the customer! One of the arguments for self-checkout tills is the efficiency and speed with which shopping can be done but anyone who has used a till will know that it’s not all easy and simple to use. Of course there are some who prefer these counters as they have maybe a single item or a few and in these scenarios it’s well worth using them if staff are busy. Plus a study done in 2002 showed people with disabilities where adversely impacted by the self-checkout tills as most of them are not designed keeping accessibility in mind.

Customers have complained about the repeated sounds of a robot coming out of these tills and this promoted Tesco to replace the robotic voice with more human sounding voices. Being more complex, self-check-out tills are prone to failure on a regular basis. For example, they use scales to weigh goods in the bagging area, and, if the scale fails, the machine does not work. Also, in a manned checkout lane, any simple problems like lack of receipt paper would be immediately fixed by the operator, while self-checkouts may not be fixed for quite some time. This lack of reliability can be compensated for by having excess lanes available or enough staff on hand to perform immediate maintenance.

Retailers are getting massive tax breaks and subsidies from the government in many cases for providing jobs locally but unfortunately jobs are being lost to machines instead. All profits are diverted to shareholders who along with the retailers often avoid tax legally by investing in tax havens. This has been investigated over the years by journalists covering tax avoidance schemes.

Please remember, the more we use checkout tills, the more justification for job losses and less taxes collected to pay for vital public services. Ultimately we end up working for corporations without realising we are doing a great disservice to staff who as part of their role provide a much needed community service.

*Originally written & published in the Peeblesshire News.