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About Us

We work to accelerate the transition to sustainable food and farming systems for the benefit of climate, nature and health.

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Mission

The mission of the SFT is to accelerate the transition to sustainable food systems, inspired by our philosophy of the interconnectedness of the health of soil, plants, animals and people. Our vision is for future food and farming systems which nourish the health of people and planet and are equitable and accessible to all.

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Around the world, we now face multiple crisesclimate change, loss of nature and biodiversity, food shortages and famine, partly as a result of conflict, and a worsening public health crisis driven by industrialised food with poor nutritional value.

How do we respond to these crises? We have a choice. We can either double down on industrial farming to produce food that is bad for our health, the environment and food security – or we can seize the opportunity to accelerate more sustainable food and farming and, ultimately, ensure everyone has access to healthy, sustainable food. Today, food and farming are part of the problem, but we believe it could be a big part of the solution if we make the right choices in the coming months and years.

Our Work

Everyone now agrees we need a fundamental transformation of our food and farming systems. Our role is to accelerate this by overcoming the barriers to change.

We are working to develop:

  • New models of food and farming systems which deliver on climate, nature and health
  • A shared vision amongst individuals in leadership positions on the food and farming transition
  • A globally harmonised framework for measuring on-farm and land-use sustainability
  • An economic environment which enables farmers to transition to truly sustainable systems
  • An informed body of public opinion to drive change
Sustainable vegetables

History

The Sustainable Food Trust is a registered charity that was founded by Patrick Holden in 2011 in response to the worsening human and environmental crises that are associated with the vast majority of today’s food and farming systems.

Since then we have worked to address some of the major barriers preventing a shift towards more sustainable food production and healthier diets. Including, the lack of:

  • Consensus about the type of farming systems to which we need to shift
  • An enabling financial environment for farmers wishing to transition
  • A common, holistic framework for measuring farm-level sustainability
  • Public understanding of the impact of regenerative food and farming systems

History highlights

Since being established, the SFT has worked collaboratively to inspire change. Some of the highlights from the past ten years include:

  • Helped to establish True Cost Accounting as a concept and discipline, particularly through holding the True Cost of American Food Conference in San Francisco in 2016.
  • Published our report, The Hidden Cost of UK Food, in 2017. It is still regularly referenced as the go-to source for true cost accounting in the UK.
  • Founded The Harmony Project, inspired by the Prince of Wales’ book Harmony: A New Way of Looking at Our World. It takes inspiration from nature in changing the way we look at the world, most notably in our education system. After holding the Harmony Conference in 2017, the project has grown and is now becoming its own registered charity.
  • Published A Good Life and A Good Death: Relocalising Farm Animal Slaughter in 2018, a report about the decline of small abattoirs in the UK and how this impacts sustainable, high welfare farming. The report sparked our Campaign for Local Abattoirs which has led to the creation of the Abattoir Sector Group which works with government to address problems facing the industry.
  • Campaigned for the reduction of antibiotic use in farm animals, publishing our report, Maximum Growth: Whatever the Cost in 2020.
  • Founded the Global Farm Metric Coalition, beginning in 2017 through working with farmers. The coalition now has over 150 members. You can find out more about the GFM here.
  • In 2022, we published Feeding Britain from the Ground Up, a report which explores the potential impacts on land use, food production and individual diets of a UK-wide transition to sustainable farming based on biological principles.
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