At a time when governments are once again backing productivity, technology and intensification, are we overlooking the fact that intensive farming systems may be becoming less resilient, not more? The SFT’s Senior Research Manager, Robert Barbour, considers the question in light of the UK’s increasing number of mega dairies.

What kind of food system are we building?

That question has been brought into sharp focus by two recent developments in the British dairy sector. First came an investigation by Andrew Wasley for The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, revealing that the number of so-called ‘mega dairies’ – where hundreds or even thousands of cows are kept permanently indoors – has doubled over the past decade. Then came the news that the number of dairy farms in Great Britain has fallen below 7,000 for the first time, less than half the number operating in the early 2000s.

Taken together, these stories tell a familiar tale. Faced with years of low milk prices and rising input costs, many dairy farmers have been pushed into a corner: either leave the industry or invest heavily to increase production. The result has been fewer farms, larger herds and a growing reliance on intensive systems that depend on imported feed, synthetic fertilisers and high levels of production to remain viable.

For some, this is simply the inevitable modernisation of agriculture. For others, including Sustainable Food Trust CEO and dairy farmer Patrick Holden, it points to a deeper problem. As we argued in our Grazing Livestock report, the long-term future of livestock farming should not be judged solely by how much it produces, but by whether it works within the ecological limits of the land while supporting food security, farmer livelihoods, animal welfare and environmental health.

Until recently, the argument for more agroecological forms of livestock farming was often dismissed as unrealistic. The assumption was that lower-input systems could not deliver the volumes needed to feed the population. But as climate change intensifies and global supply chains become more fragile, that assumption deserves much closer scrutiny.

The blockade of the Straits of Hormuz – through which a third of the world’s nitrogen fertiliser is transported – and extreme weather events like the June heatwave in Europe, show why transitioning to low input, pasture-based systems is more critical to food security than ever before. In part, this is because such systems have a much lower reliance on fossil fuel-intensive imports of energy, feed and fertiliser: animals can ‘upcycle’ human inedible plants into nutrient-dense foods and soil quality can be improved without synthetic fertilisers, for example with the dung of grazing animals and nitrogen-fixing plants like clover. The recent news that the Straits has, to some extent, reopened, must not serve as cause for complacency in the drive to transition to more resilient farming practices. Ongoing geopolitical instability means it is unlikely to be the last such instance, with sobering warnings that Europe’s food system is likely entering an era of permanent stress.

Climate change and environmental degradation are, of course, a massive driver of this stress. A significant proportion of our agrifood imports come from countries that are highly vulnerable to climate change, with a Government security assessment, published earlier this year, concluding that the UK would probably be unable “to maintain food security if ecosystem collapse drives geopolitical competition for food”. But environmental and climate breakdown also pose major challenges for domestic production. In their most recent report, the Climate Change Committee predicted that, without adaptation, the amount of ‘high-quality farmland’ in England and Wales could shrink from 38% to 11% by 2050 under a 2°C warming scenario. Soil erosion is expected to increase by at least 15%, and arable crops will become increasingly threatened by drought, with the worst year in 20 causing 20% yield loss in wheat in the South East of England. Extreme weather is already negatively impacting yields, with England having experienced three of the worst five harvests on record over the past decade driving the five-year harvest average below the 20-year average – an unprecedented reversal.

In short, there are serious questions around whether we will be able to keep on producing food and feed in the same high input, high output manner as we do today. It feels even more difficult to argue that we will be able to use as much arable land to feed livestock – an inefficient use of a finite and increasingly pressurised resource, that will only get worse if livestock production continues to intensify.

Livestock production centred on grazing, on the other hand, could make a central contribution to a more efficient and resilient UK food system by converting grass and other inedible feeds into nutrient dense meat and milk. The total quantities produced would be lower than today; our Feeding Britain report, for instance, modelled a 20% reduction in dairy production alongside steep falls in pork and poultry, due, mainly, to the much lower quantities of arable crops available for feed.

This means that transitioning to an agroecological farming system will go hand-in-hand with changes to our diets, but smaller amounts of high-quality meat and dairy would still represent a significant source of various key nutrients, and one that, crucially, would complement, rather than compete with, the food we get from croplands. This, in turn, could create more space for systems of crop production that may be lower yielding, but which, through greater diversity and better soil health, are more resilient to extreme weather. Research from Wageningen University, for instance, has shown that a global food system where livestock are fed entirely on human-inedible feeds would only require 75% of the arable land needed for a vegan diet, because of the additional supply of calories and nutrients made available through meat and dairy.

Add this to the major environmental issues associated with intensive livestock production, and we have a clear imperative for a shift to farming animals in a less resource-intensive way – and adapting our diets accordingly.  Doing so, will bolster food security and support us to be healthier, all while using millions of hectares of UK grassland otherwise largely unsuited for food production. Realising this vision isn’t easy. As tempting as it is to think that the recent surge in input costs might precipitate such a shift, this seems unlikely, so it cannot be left to the market alone – Government needs to up its game, in all sorts of ways. We also need to broaden our understanding of sustainability and efficiency, from a narrow focus on product-level footprints (which tend to favour intensive systems), to a more aggregated, system-wide measurement of impact – which is, of course, the scale which ultimately matters.

The rise of ‘Big Dairy’ in the UK is certainly an issue that needs focus right now – it is a situation that should make us question whether bigger and more intensive necessarily means better. Yet, ultimately, this is about much more than dairy farming. It is about deciding what kind of food system we want, and what we mean by efficiency, sustainability and food security. If we continue to judge success primarily by output, we risk accelerating the loss of farmers, wildlife and resilience at precisely the moment we need them most.

Read about our London Climate Week session on Big Dairy here.

As the global shockwaves of the Middle East conflict continue to amplify, urgent questions on food security are coming to the fore. From geopolitical instability to the increase in extreme weather events, it’s become increasingly clear that our approach to food security in the UK is not fit for purpose.

Here, the SFT’s Head of Policy, Megan Perry, and Senior Researcher, Robert Barbour, share their thoughts on the current situation and imagine what a future food system that’s more resilient to global shocks and price volatility might look like.

Fears about how the Iran war is impacting food production has now been widely raised by farmers and in the media. The main focus has been the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil and gas and about one third of global seaborne trade in fertilisers passes. Yet there is far more at play, and the lessons and solutions we should be drawing from this seem to be going unrecognised.

Disruption to the gas supply (a critical component of fertiliser manufacture) has further led to fertiliser plants shutting down in countries such as India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Around a quarter of the world’s rice exports come from India which will be impacted by a prolonged war. Brazil, which imports over 60% of its fertilisers, mostly via the Strait of Hormuz, is one of the world’s biggest exporters of agricultural commodities. Australia’s stock of fertiliser is expected to run out mid-April. US stocks of fertiliser are already 25% lower than usual. The Philippines has declared a national emergency.

It is not just the availability of food that is the issue, but people’s ability to buy it. With the disruption to fuel, many countries are experiencing a shut down in their industries, forcing people out of work. In the Philippines, the widespread Jeepney drivers are facing 50-60% pay cuts. In Gujarat, India, a shortage of gas has led the ceramics industry to close leaving the 400,000 employees without work. In Mumbai, a fifth of hotels and restaurants have been partially closed since the start of March.

This is all set within the backdrop of another major crisis. The United Nations warned last week that the earth’s climate is in a state of emergency and is “more out of balance than at any time in observed history”. Yet the environmental impact of the Iran war is catastrophic. It is draining the global carbon budget faster than 84 countries combined, with 5 million tonnes of GHG emissions released within the first 14 days alone.

Patrick Bigger, a research director at the Climate and Community Institute, was quoted in the Guardian, “Every missile strike is another down payment on a hotter, more unstable planet, and none of it makes anyone safer… Every refinery fire and tanker strike is a reminder that fossil‑fuelled geopolitics is incompatible with a liveable planet. This war shows, yet again, that the fastest way to supercharge the climate crisis is to let fossil fuel interests dictate foreign policy.”

There are also concerns the war will be leveraged to benefit big business or to remove environmental standards and regulation. An article from Greenpeace has said, “Expect the term ‘food security’ to be hollowed out and weaponised. Large-scale industrial players are already positioning themselves as the only thing standing between the public and empty shelves. In truth, it is this highly consolidated, chemical-dependent model of industrial farming that is making our global food system so fragile in the first place.”

How is the situation being addressed in the UK? The UK imports 60% of its fertiliser and close to 50% of its food, often from countries which in turn import significant amounts of fertiliser and rely on input-heavy production systems. The UK’s system is also heavily centralised and consolidated, nine big retailers account for more than 94% of all retail food.

The recently launched Land Use Framework gives an insight to the government’s thinking, namely we will need to produce more food from less land, with a drive to growth and efficiency in sectors such as poultry. George Monbiot does not mince his words on this approach, calling it “nothing short of moronic” given the poultry sector’s dependence on imported livestock feed.

The term ‘resilience’ is also being bandied around by the government and farming sector, but what does this mean? It does not appear to mean a big shift away from input-heavy approaches that dominate today, given the aforementioned focus on continuing to achieve current levels of production. Business as usual and tweaking rather than transforming appears to be the current thinking. But we need much more radical policies.

“The UK imports 60% of its fertiliser and close to 50% of its food, often from countries which in turn import significant amounts of fertiliser and rely on input-heavy production systems. The UK’s system is also heavily centralised and consolidated, 9 big retailers account for more than 94% of all retail food.”

As Professor Tim Benton says in this recent interview, it will likely take a crisis before change really happens. Yet we have the knowledge, resources and ability to transform our food system into one that is both resilient and does not degrade our environment.

If the government created support that took a whole farm approach, integrating nature and food production through agroecological farming methods, and promoted healthier diets aligned with what the UK can sustainably produce, we could move away from input-heavy agriculture, reducing our reliance on imports and increasing the resilience of domestic production to extreme weather. A decentralised supply chain is also critical for true resilience, embedding smaller-scale localised infrastructure across the country would be more flexible, able to pivot in a crisis and be less of a target from a security point of view. Empowering communities to produce food should also be taken seriously, supporting community growing, improving access to growing spaces and embedding practical food growing skills within the curriculum for young people. And we need to address our huge reliance on imported fruit and veg by creating market gardens and horticulture enterprises across the UK, accompanied by localised processing facilities.

In some ways, this is a vision that mirrors the shift that is needed in our energy system – a wholesale transformation to alternative forms of production that will allow us to wean ourselves off fossil fuels, and in so doing improve our resilience to future shocks like the one being experienced today. Unlike the energy transformation, however, a similarly radical shift in the food system is not only failing to happen but is barely recognised as being necessary outside a fairly small circle.

“If the government created support that took a whole farm approach, integrating nature and food production through agroecological farming methods, and promoted healthier diets aligned with what the UK can sustainably produce, we could move away from input-heavy agriculture, reducing our reliance on imports and increasing the resilience of domestic production to extreme weather.”

Much of the media’s commentary on the Iran war has, quite rightly, noted the major impacts it will have on food prices and production, thanks primarily to the effects on nitrogen fertiliser supplies. There has, though, been vanishingly little reporting on how and why a major reduction in our reliance on energy-intensive agrochemical inputs, like nitrogen fertiliser, could tackle this issue moving forwards. Instead, prominent voices have effectively positioned fertiliser supplies, and the maintenance of current levels of food production, as proxies for food security. But this is a dangerous oversimplification, that ignores the various other equally important dimensions of food security and fails to acknowledge the enormous potential that exists to wean ourselves off agrochemicals, and in so doing generate a much deeper degree of resilience in our food system.

None of this will be easy to achieve, of course. But the threats our food system face are potentially catastrophic, and demand urgent and radical action. If we fail to do so, the consequences will be dire. If, however, we rise to meet the challenge – by implementing genuinely regenerative farming practices, adopting healthy diets and putting in place the various enabling policies and infrastructure needed to make this a reality – then we can create a better future for people and the planet alike.

To understand more about how these global dynamics are already playing out on the ground, and what they mean for countries directly impacted by the current conflict, read Zeead Yaghi’s analysis of Lebanon’s growing food crisis.

To hear more from Megan, listen to our most recent episode of the Sustainable Food Trust Podcast, where she joins Patrick and Stuart to talk about food security.

Featured image by Suphanat Khumsap (Getty Images).

Lebanon is facing a food security crisis. An over reliance on imports at the expense of investment in local food networks and sustainable domestic agriculture, has left the country vulnerable in the face of acute shocks. As conflict and climate change cause increasing turmoil and food security rises up the global agenda, Zeead Yaghi – scholar, writer and editor – explores why Lebanon is at such severe risk of food shortages and the lessons that can be learned.

Three weeks into the latest Israeli war on Lebanon, the second in as many years, its bombing campaign has unleashed a devastating humanitarian crisis. Over one million people from south Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut have been displaced, and roughly 20% of the entire population have been pushed into emergency refugee centers.

Some refugees with enough means have opted to find housing on the private rental market, but the price shock driven by increased demand and sectarian anxiety over the displaced has left many unable to afford such alternatives. This has left tens of thousands of displaced people without any shelter and no recourse but to sleep rough on the available public spaces in the capital: the seaside corniche in Ras Beirut facing the Mediterranean, large sidewalks in downtown and the small scattered few parks across the city.

“Prior to the start of this war, Lebanon was already undergoing a severe food security crisis. Recent assessments by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) estimate that around 1.26 million individuals are facing crisis-level food insecurity (Phase 3), including approximately 85,000 in emergency conditions (Phase 4)…”.

Emergency relief efforts by the Lebanese government, local mutual aid networks and international organisations provide the displaced with shelter, medicine and especially food. This is occurring within the backdrop of Lebanon, which has undergone a series of economic and political crises that have undermined its already fragile and precarious food sovereignty and security systems.

Prior to the start of this war, Lebanon was already undergoing a severe food security crisis. Recent assessments by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) estimate that around 1.26 million individuals are facing crisis-level food insecurity (Phase 3), including approximately 85,000 in emergency conditions (Phase 4), highlighting the urgent need for humanitarian intervention. Refugee populations are particularly vulnerable, with significant proportions of Syrian and Palestinian refugees experiencing acute levels of food insecurity. In response to worsening economic conditions, displacement and conflict, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Program (WFP) have identified Lebanon as a major hotspot of concern globally.

This brings us back to the current moment.

Lebanon depends on imports to provide roughly 80% of its food needs. This model works as long as the global supply chain that provides the transport of food resources to the country, stays intact. Currently, the Israeli government has refrained from bombing the Lebanese International Airport and the Port of Beirut, the main arteries for food supply into the country. Should Israel strike these two sites, as it did in the early days of the 2006 war, rendering them inoperable, the country could stand to face a major food catastrophe.

Other geopolitical circumstances also threaten this fragile food system. The Israeli war on Lebanon is partly an extension of the current American/Israeli war on Iran that has shut down the Strait of Hormuz, all but blocking the transfer of oil, natural gas and fertiliser out of Persian Gulf states to the rest of the world. This has had the immediate cost of increasing the prices of these commodities across the world, and countries dependent on the oil from the region have begun to ration resources in anticipation of price shocks and further delays. The cascading effect of the blockade on the supply chain is the gradual increase in cost of transportations of material, not only oil and gas, but all supplies transported across the globe to astronomical prices, whose costs will be borne by the poorest nations and people across the globe.

“Currently, the Israeli government has refrained from bombing the Lebanese International Airport and the Port of Beirut, the main arteries for food supply into the country. Should Israel strike these two sites, as it did in the early days of the 2006 war, rendering them inoperable, the country could stand to face a major food catastrophe.”

Lebanon is already seven years into a large-scale financial crisis, engineered by its oligarchic elites, which liquidated the savings of the majority of the country and decimated the value of its national currency. The crisis pushed 44% of the current population into poverty according to a 2024 report by the World Bank, as well as driving the costs of everyday necessities into hyperinflation. Since the resumption of the fighting in Lebanon, food prices have gone up quickly in a matter of weeks, with foods like bananas jumping 41%, while the price of lamb has increased by 21%.

One week into the war, the Lebanese Minister of the Economy and Trade, Amer Bisat, reassured the residents that the country had high-level storage of basic commodities in flour, food and gas, insisting that food security was “safe for several months”. But that was early into the war and the situation, both in Lebanon and the Persian Gulf, have escalated quickly with no end in sight.

“Since the resumption of the fighting in Lebanon, food prices have gone up quickly in a matter of weeks, with foods like bananas jumping 41%, while the price of lamb has increased by 21%.”

Hani Bohsali, the head of an all-powerful food import syndicate, told local television on March 23rd that although fuel costs have risen by 40%, it has only so far been reflected in a minimal raise in local food prices, nothing “above 5%”. There are, however, no guarantees that food importers will not use the opportunity to price gouge local consumers and drive an already anxious and destitute population into further poverty. The government has, so far, only paid lip service to a monitoring role to prevent importers from abusing their leverage, yet we have not seen any significant action towards that role.

Meanwhile, the Israeli onslaught continues to devastate the country’s natural resources. The Israeli bombing campaigns of 2024 and 2026, the use of white phosphorus, and targeting of agricultural fields in both southern and eastern Lebanon have destroyed and polluted precious important agrarian land which will take years to recover. Last February, Israeli drones sprayed pesticides over agricultural fields in southern Lebanon, and tests reveal the substance was glyphosate which destroys vegetation and poisons the soil. The purpose of Israel’s ecocide in these parts of the country is to both unravel the local economy and ecology of the region making it uninhabitable to its residents. Israel seeks to create a depopulated buffer 15 km into Lebanon up until the Litani river. By rendering the land unlivable this objective becomes easier. On March 15th an Israeli strike on the border of Chebaa in southern Lebanon killed two shepherds.

The immediate and historical circumstances of war, financial collapse and political deadlock, paint a dire picture for Lebanon’s food sovereignty and future food security. Unless there is an immediate cessation of hostilities which allows displaced people back to their homes and the implementation of a massive humanitarian relief campaign, the civilian population stands to lose most. Once, and if, the fighting is over, unless Lebanese officials implement structural changes to agricultural and economic policies that shift the country’s food regime away from import dependence towards resilient agroecological and sustainable systems, we are bound to find ourselves in similar predicaments many more times in the future whenever a geopolitical crisis erupts.

Featured image by Diana Salloum.

Can the UK feed itself in the face of ecosystem collapse? Our Head of Policy & Campaigns, Megan Perry, takes a closer look at the UK Government’s recently published security report – following a Freedom of Information Request by the Green Alliance – highlighting how the government’s ‘just in time’ approach to food supply jeopardises the UK’s food security, and the transformation in food and farming production that is needed to address this.

A new report has given one of the starkest warnings yet for UK food security. If current rates of biodiversity loss continue, every critical ecosystem is on a pathway to collapse. This will mean the UK cannot feed itself.

These warnings were so stark, in fact, the UK Government attempted to bury its own report. ‘Global Biodiversity Loss, Ecosystem Collapse and National Security’ was written by the joint intelligence committee (which comprises the heads of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ and senior officials from the Cabinet Office, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Ministry of Defence, Home Office and HM Treasury) and was initially blocked by Downing Street. It only came out following a Freedom of Information Request by the Green Alliance.

Why was it blocked? According to The Times, Downing Street felt the report was too negative and would draw attention to the Government’s failure to act. The published document is reported to have been cut down, with some of the most alarming parts left out.

As the Government tries to keep us in the dark, it is even more important we sit up and take notice. The report warns that, “Without significant increases in UK food system and supply chain resilience, it is unlikely the UK would be able to maintain food security if ecosystem collapse drives geopolitical competition for food. The UK relies on imports for a proportion of both food and fertiliser and cannot currently produce enough food to feed its population based on current diets.”

Across the world, ecosystems are collapsing. According to the report, the rate of extinction is tens to hundreds of times higher than the average over the past 10 million years. It suggests that a sixth mass extinction may be underway. There is a realistic possibility some critical ecosystems, such as coral reefs in Southeast Asia and boreal forests will start to collapse by 2030 or sooner, and rainforests and mangroves from 2050. This is a direct result of biodiversity loss from land use change, pollution, climate change and other drivers.

As the report clearly states, “nature is a foundation of national security”. Biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse threaten the fundamental existence of human life – access to water, food, clean air and critical resources.

As these become scarce, the report warns there will be conflict within and between states along with mass migration and increased risk of pandemics. According to the report, a one percentage increase in food insecurity in a population compels 1.9 percent more people to migrate. Political instability and rising poverty will provide more opportunities for terrorism and organised crime. Global economic collapse will become more likely. As the report says, “Nature is a finite asset which underpins the global economy. It would take resources of 1.6 Earths to sustain the world’s current levels of consumption.”

The report is upfront about how this impacts UK food security. Biodiversity loss, alongside climate change, is one of the biggest threats to domestic food production – through depleted soils, the loss of pollinators, and drought and flood conditions.

It details how ecosystem collapse would place the UK’s agriculture system under great stress, leaving it struggling to pivot to the new approaches and technologies that would be required to maintain food supply. Impacts on major food producing regions around the world will have a direct impact on the UK which relies on global markets for food (40% is imported), animal feed (18% comes from South American soy) and fertiliser.

But food is not just affected by biodiversity loss, it is a direct contributor, with food production named as the most significant cause of terrestrial biodiversity loss.

A shift to sustainable farming systems has therefore never been more critical, playing a key role in reversing ecosystem collapse and mitigating food insecurity. Carrying on as we are and pursuing extractive agricultural practices is not an option. Yet the UK Government seems determined to ignore the immense and imminent risks.

“As the report clearly states, “nature is a foundation of national security”. Biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse threaten the fundamental existence of human life – access to water, food, clean air and critical resources.”

It is notable that the UK has so far failed to change its approach to supply chain resilience and security, unlike countries such as Sweden, Finland, Norway and Germany who are building up their food stocks and reserves. The UK, meanwhile, continues to rely on a ‘just in time’ approach to food supply, requiring consistent and rapid delivery to keep shelves stocked. Any disruption to this supply chain could have an enormous impact on the availability of food in the UK.

Global threats are looming, and while the UK now reports separately on food security, it lacks any coherent action plan and fails to integrate food with wider security strategy. The UK Risk Register – which flags up the main threats to the UK and covers everything from terrorism to disease outbreak – fails to make food and water a clearly defined risk in its own right. The UK National Security Strategy published last year gave a passing mention of food four times and without any detail about how the UK plans to address threats to food supply. The 2022 Government Resilience Framework said nothing at all about food.

What can be done?

Protecting and restoring ecosystems is clearly a priority. But our current trajectory does not look good, and plans need to be put in place now to deal with the potential impacts.

We agree with many of the report’s conclusions, including that self-sufficiency requires a wholesale change in consumer diets and improvements in efficiency, waste reduction and resilience across the food system, including agricultural production, food processing, distribution and consumption. These echo the conclusions of the Sustainable Food Trust’s Feeding Britain report which showed the UK can transition to fully regenerative farming practices and maintain or improve current levels of self-sufficiency, but that dietary change would be needed.

We welcome the mention of regenerative agriculture as a solution and feel there is a wider point to be made – climate change and geopolitical shocks change the equation around agroecological vs ‘conventional’ food systems and their (perceived) practicality. Arguments that agroecology is unfeasible due to its lower yields and a requirement for very difficult dietary change, are somewhat overshadowed by the reality that a food system with heavy use of imports, fossil fuels and agrichemical inputs could become unviable in the face of ecosystem collapse and geopolitical turmoil. Not to mention that these intensive input-heavy systems are the biggest contributors to ecosystem collapse. There is no choice but to seriously consider agroecology as the main alternative.

We therefore caution against placing too much emphasis on new technology to provide the answers (plant-breeding, AI, lab grown protein and insect protein are all mentioned). That’s not to say that technology has no role to play – far from it. But systemic change, from farm to fork, is what is ultimately required.

Any shortages in food will inevitably impact hardest on those who are already facing food poverty. The report says substantial price increases for consumers would be required for self-sufficiency. Yet prices now do not reflect the real cost of production, with the most damaging foods often being the ‘cheapest’ yet costing far more in environmental damage and impacts on our health. A transformation of our food system is needed to right these skewed economics and government intervention must be a core part of that.

The report also says the UK does not have enough land to feed its population and rear livestock. We agree that a complete shift is needed away from grain-fed livestock, particularly intensively produced poultry and pork. But integrating pasture-fed livestock, such as cattle and sheep, into regenerative systems is critical to rebuild soil fertility and move away from our reliance on fossil fuel- and energy-intensive fertilisers and pesticides.

Grazing livestock produce nutrient-dense foods that complement, rather than compete with, the crops produced from our finite and increasingly degraded arable area. In fact, in a regeneratively farmed UK, predominantly grass-fed animals could supply a significant proportion of the nation’s nutrient requirements – including around 34% of recommended protein intake, 37% of fat intake and 98% of vitamin B12 intake.

“We caution against placing too much emphasis on new technology to provide the answers (plant-breeding, AI, lab grown protein and insect protein are all mentioned). That’s not to say that technology has no role to play – far from it. But systemic change, from farm to fork, is what is ultimately required.”

Livestock also provide a level of resilience to environmental shocks that crops do not – they can be moved and, in worst cases slaughtered, should resources such as water become scarce or fields flooded.

So, a major transformation in livestock production is needed, as is the case for crop production. And this will require many people to eat less meat and dairy, overall. It’s critical, though, that this transformation doesn’t overlook the massively positive role that livestock can play in fostering a more resilient, environmentally and socially sustainable food system.

The report says countries best placed to adapt are those that invest in ecosystem protection and restoration, and resilient and efficient food systems. Yet support for sustainable food production has been inadequate and shambolic, with record closures of farming businesses. The UK also appears to have given up on the 30×30 target (30% of our land and sea protected for biodiversity by 2030) and is on track to miss targets established in the 2021 Environment Act for protecting and restoring wildlife.

While we must pressure Government to act with urgency, communities can also take things into their own hands. Tim Lang’s excellent report on civil food resilience highlights the different ways people can build resilience themselves, whether by growing food in allotments, gardens and community farms, forming co-operatives, building community food stocks, or by sharing skills.

Ultimately a major mindset shift is needed to address the root causes of ecosystem destruction and to embrace an integrated approach to food production and nature restoration. There is no time to lose.

Featured image courtesy of Christian Kay.

 The Government’s Land Use Strategy has won conservationists’ praise – but is it the right approach? Here, Patrick Holden explains why ‘land sharing’ not ‘land sparing’ holds the key to sustainable food, biodiversity and climate resilience.

The Government’s Land Use Strategy consultation document has received glowing endorsements from most of the leading conservation organisations who all seem to think that this is a really good step in the right direction.

And so it is, in the sense that at least the Government are consulting on the best way to use our precious land, given the inevitable conflicting needs of recreation, reforestation, nature restoration, renewable energy generation and sustainable food production. The fact that they recognise these tensions is good, as is the opportunity to feed back on their proposals.

However, this issue of the apparent alignment of the Government and most of the conservation organisations on future land use is a huge concern of mine, because I would say that their collective strategic conclusions comprise what amounts to a land sparing rather than land sharing approach, in terms of the way in which our future farming and food systems will be developed.

Land sparing vs. land sharing

What do I mean by this? It’s complicated, but in essence, the question that confronts us all is: how do we want our future food to be produced, whilst at the same time addressing legitimate concerns about nature depletion, climate change, declining public health and the urgent need for more renewable energy?

The so-called land sparers, including by the look of it, the Government, have concluded that the best way to reconcile these tensions is to produce as much food as possible on the best agricultural land, leaving more space for nature, renewable energy generation and recreation. Advocates of this approach argue that the decline in biodiversity is now so serious that we need to spare more land for nature and adopt what they call ‘sustainable intensification’ techniques to produce more food with fewer chemical interventions on the best land. By doing so, it is said that we will still be able to feed ourselves, especially if we change our future diets to a more plant-based version.

It all sounds very compelling, but with a degree of trepidation and some qualifications, I am suggesting that this is the wrong strategy. Instead, I believe we should adopt a land sharing approach, producing food in harmony with nature and keeping as much agricultural land in production as is possible.

The case for land sharing

Why do I believe that this approach is better? Partly because I am old enough to remember that back in the 1950s and 60s, in other words before the widespread adoption of intensive chemical based farming, we used to produce food in harmony with nature at scale. This was because traditional farming systems allowed the field to be a habitat for the vast range of species which used to coexist in the understory of crops or grasslands, without unduly compromising productivity.

Let me give an example. Last year we produced an acre of carrots for schools in West Wales, using no chemical fertilisers or pesticides. If you are a carrot grower, the biggest challenge that needs to be overcome is weed control. So, we metaphorically waged war against the weeds for about eight weeks, using mainly mechanical methods and also some hand weeding, not wanting to eliminate them, but to make sure that the crop predominated.

By early September, although the carrot crop was healthy and predominant, there remained in the understory of the crop, an extraordinary range of weeds, insects, spiders and other life forms, none of which threatened the yield (around 10 or 11 tonnes harvested per acre) but, as a result, enabled the carrots we harvested to be nature friendly, delicious, nutritious, (we had them analysed) and free of chemical residues. This was how all carrots were produced back in the day, mostly as part of a traditional arable farming rotation.

I’ve been using those principles and practices on our farm in West Wales for more than 50 years and I know from direct experience that this approach could work at scale, producing really good food, even on relatively marginal land like ours, whilst at the same time enabling our fields to be a habitat for a vast range of invertebrates, wild plants and flowers, (otherwise known as weeds), insects, birds and small mammals, many of which have become rare and threatened species, as charted in the conservation organisations’ regular ‘State of Nature’ reports.

Challenges and misconceptions

Critics of this approach will say ‘we could never feed the world’s growing population if we go this way’. Yet the SFT’s ‘Feeding Britain From the Ground Up’ report models the national application of a land sharing approach and concludes that as long as we wasted less food, and ate differently, (no more cheap chicken and pork or products from mega-dairy farms, and instead plenty of vegetables, heritage grains and livestock products from mainly grass-fed animals) we could maintain our current levels of national self-sufficiency in staple foods.

More than that, by doing so we could sequester much of the carbon that has been lost from our soils in the post-war period and avoid the need for expensive stewardship schemes, which are at best only mitigating the relentless declines in biodiversity that I referred to above.

Why does the government strategy document make this less possible? Because, first of all, it excludes recommendations for so-called grade one and two farmland, presumably based on the assumption it will be business as usual on the best farmland, in other words continuous arable cropping to increase the amount of food from those areas where we have the best soils.

Secondly, and even more importantly, it presumes that a significant amount of the so-called poorer agricultural land, which is regarded inherently as less productive, will be taken out of farming altogether to be used for reforestation, energy generation, rewilding or turned into recreation areas. I accept that a certain amount of land should come out of production to create space for nature, but that must not be at the expense of a land sharing strategy.

On the face of it this approach sounds sensible, but in my opinion, it will neither enable the restoration of all the lost biodiversity that we’ve witnessed in the post-war period, nor produce the healthy vital food needed to reverse declining public health, illuminated by exponential increases of previously uncommon health conditions – from obesity and diabetes to food intolerances and cancers. This is because much of the food that will be produced under this strategy will inevitably be from a chemically based approach, using fertilisers and pesticides, to enable us to maintain national food self-sufficiency in staple products.

Those convinced that a land sparing approach is better will argue that we can minimise the use of agro-chemicals and use gene editing and other emergent technologies, which, together, enable farmers to produce larger quantities of safe food.

Most of the conservation organisations have signed up to this approach, even though their own reports have chronicled the decline of nature. One of those people is Tony Juniper, Chair of Natural England. I heard him give a talk at the Oxford Farming Conference’s dinner this year and was surprised that he did not seem to acknowledge that a land sharing approach was a better strategy, at least from what he said that night. Another land sparer is my good friend Henry Dimbleby who shares a similar perspective. It’s not that either of them reject mixed farming, but rather that they see it as an add-on as opposed to a central strand of the land use strategy.

Why is it that so few conservationists, or even members of the Climate Change Committee, recognise the potential of a land sharing approach? Perhaps because they’ve been told for decades by ‘grown-up’ farmers and policymakers that, although well-meaning, advocates of mixed biologically based farming systems, like myself, are romantically clinging to an outmoded assumption that we can produce food in harmony with nature, whereas in the ‘real’ world, chemicals will need to be used to avoid Malthus’s predictions of mass starvation coming to pass.

Integrating time-tested farming practices with innovation

Just to be clear, I’m not against using cutting edge emergent science to assess the impact of different farming systems or to improve the productivity of biologically based farming systems, and definitely don’t want to turn the clock back. I’m looking forward to a world where we can accurately measure and improve the climate, nature and social impacts of truly regenerative farming using the very best and most up-to-date technology.

However, because some of the merits of the farming system I am advocating have yet to be validated using trusted data, you perhaps can’t blame the conservationists for listening to the proponents of sustainable intensification. By contrast, as I have had the privilege of seeing with my own eyes, I know we can produce surprisingly large quantities of food, even on relatively marginal land, in a way that allows nature to coexist in the field, not just around the edges, with nature friendly food production.

Even conventional farmers might be quite pleased at the proposals in the Government’s Land Use Strategy, because they will be encouraged to produce more food on less land, which is more or less the mantra that some members of the NFU and others are advocating.

One good example of how a land sharing strategy could be better for the climate relates to soil carbon. Ed Miliband is proposing to spend tens of billions on carbon capture and storage, yet a far better approach would be to encourage farmers in arable areas to be paid to adopt mixed farming, rebuilding their soil carbon stocks through the adoption of rotations with a fertility building phase, thereby drawing down significant quantities of CO2 from the atmosphere.

Soil carbon stewardship would be a more tried and tested strategy than the unproven carbon capture and storage approach. This is important, because the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) are big stakeholders in the land use strategy discussion.

That’s not to say I’m against solar PV or wind, quite the reverse. We need both of these, but we should make sure that we minimise the amount of productive agricultural land that is used for the generation of renewable energy. 

A call to action

For those reading this piece who share my concerns, I believe there is a need to build a coalition of individuals and organisations who are supportive of the land sharing approach, because otherwise more and more farmland will be taken out of production making it much more difficult for this strategy to be implemented. If you are interested in continuing the conversation, you can get in touch via the Sustainable Food Trust team on info@sustainablefoodtrust.org.

Today, farming is far from a simple livelihood. As well as growing food, farmers are tasked with delivering a broad spectrum of ‘public goods’ – from wildlife habitat and healthy soils to public access and rural employment. Some of the issues – like coping with a fast-changing climate – are more recent, while others have been challenges for generations of farmers.

Here, we share some reflections of the late countryman, conservationist, farmer and local politician, Steele Addison. Writing in 1985, Steele presents a clear-eyed view of the complex environmental, economic and social challenges that were facing farmers, many of which continue to be at the heart of today’s conversations about our food and farming system.

SFT CEO and organic farmer, Patrick Holden, outlines his key food and farming policy recommendations for Sir Keir Starmer and the new Labour Government, and the need for a ‘revolutionary vision’.

As a farmer in Wales and CEO of the Sustainable Food Trust, I have both a bird’s and worm’s eye view of food and farming, and from this uncommon vantage point it feels that they could be defining issues for Sir Keir Starmer and his Government.

Labour has a history of driving radical change in this area. At the end of the Second World War, Clement Attlee’s Government made food and health central pillars of his efforts to rebuild the nation and create a better future. With our current food and farming systems impacting ever more negatively on the health of people and planet, we need a similarly revolutionary vision now – and Keir Starmer’s personal leadership is critical to this.

I feel strongly that food and farming are central to achieving many of this Government’s most important goals, from the preventative health agenda to action on climate change, reviving our nature and rivers, the Green Growth agenda and national food security.

By shifting to regenerative farming systems that operate in harmony with nature, Britain could become a world leader, pioneering a new approach that combats climate change and protects nature, while delivering food security and helping to tackle poor health and poverty.

An investment in truly regenerative farming is undoubtedly an investment in the nation’s health. Today, the NHS is spending billions treating the symptoms of declining public health, including many previously uncommon diseases such as obesity, diabetes, food intolerances and cancer, all of which have been exacerbated by industrial farming methods and foods.

An investment in sustainable agriculture is also an investment in combatting climate change. By using regenerative practices to draw carbon down from the atmosphere and back into the soil, some estimates suggest we could sequester more than half of total annual greenhouse gas emissions globally.

But to transform our food and farming system and enable it to engender impactful change, we need a shared bold vision and an interconnected strategy that goes beyond any one ministry.

The Government should convene a ‘Food and Farming Council’, which would bring together the Chancellor, Secretaries of State and Ministers from various departments with a broad spectrum of stakeholders from the food system, including businesses, farmers and NGOs.

This Council should then demonstrate the same level of leadership in transitioning towards sustainable agriculture, as witnessed in the energy sector. In the early 2000s, the German government ingeniously convinced major fossil-fuel energy companies to subsidise feed-in tariffs, thereby overcoming the initial cost barrier until economies of scale eventually made renewable energy more affordable than nuclear and fossil-fuel power. Our Government urgently needs a similar approach to jumpstart the transition in agriculture, and the solution is within reach.

The food companies, retailers and other businesses who have a vested interest in ‘testing the waters’ of a transition, have the combined resources to create new models and templates for sustainable food production, and together can help shift the balance of financial advantage from extractive to regenerative production.

There are already instances of this transition in action, visible right on my farm in West Wales. Castell Howell, one of the largest food wholesalers in Wales, has recently initiated a pilot project to introduce organic vegetables into schools. They are funding the production and distribution of these vegetables, in my case carrots, using profits from their conventional trade. They are investing in this initiative because they recognise the long-term financial benefits of being pioneers in this area.

Many other players in the corporate world can support the transition by working together in new alliances. For example, members of the Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI), which was launched by the then Prince of Wales in 2020 and includes banks, asset managers, insurance companies and water companies, are now partnering with food companies and retailers to co-finance new initiatives that reward farmers for delivering on climate, nature and health.

The Government must also play its part by removing barriers to change. Here are three actions that Government could take:

• Back a large-scale pilot of a new approach to finance regenerative agriculture: through the SMI, the Sustainable Food Trust is working with a group of CEOs from some of the UK’s most influential companies, including McDonald’s, McCain, Pepsi, Waitrose, Lloyds Banking Group and Lloyds of London to develop and run this pilot. The support of the Government and Defra could greatly boost the impact of this work.
• Link farm subsidies to measurement: the Environmental Land Management scheme has some positive attributes, but not enough money has been allocated to enable systemic change of the farming system. More money, combined with the use of common, holistic metrics, must underpin these schemes and determine what they can achieve. The Sustainable Food Trust has incubated the Global Farm Metric, a common framework co-created across the food and farming sector, which is now being deployed in trials across the world.
• Introduce a stronger regulatory framework: apply the polluter pays principle to those who buy inputs that contribute to climate change, pollute water and damage human health. This would create a level playing field for farmers who are doing the right thing.

If the Government acted on these fronts and enabled a shift from chemical to biologically based food production, they could rightly be seen as world leaders in this great food and farming transition.

This article was originally published by Goals House on LinkedIn.

SFT CEO, Patrick Holden, considers the farmer protests taking place across the UK and parts of Europe, and discusses what he believes to be the necessary steps to rectify the situation, including the redirection of farming subsidies.

How can we best understand and relate to the farmer protests which are going on all over Europe, including down the road from our farm in West Wales? The regional TV news on Monday 20^th February ran a big piece featuring Mark Drakeford, the Welsh First Minister, Lesley Griffiths, Minister for Rural Affairs and others, covering the protests and the Government’s defence of the new Sustainable Farming Scheme, with both the Welsh farmers’ unions, NFU Cymru and the Farmers Union of Wales, out on their tractors blocking the A48, putting out slogans like “enough is enough”, and reminding anyone who will listen that subsidies have bought us cheap food and that farmers deserve to keep on receiving them.

Equivalent demonstrations have been taking place in the Czech Republic, with tractors invading Prague and farmers staking out the ministry of agriculture building; in France, where farmers tried to block Rungis, the largest food market in the country; in Germany, where the farmers are up in arms about the proposed cut in red diesel subsidies; in Holland, where the Dutch Government introduced payments to farmers to get out of dairy farming –  which caused such a reaction that the farmers formed a political party and toppled the Government!

Of course, the situation in the EU is marginally different from the UK, mainly because they have the Common Agricultural Policy with the proposed green reforms, whereas we have post-Brexit subsidy packages which are moving in an environmental direction.

However, in essence, the issues are similar because the background to this is common. The farming community have been receiving what amounts to social security payments in the form of an annual subsidy cheque, to which few conditions have been attached as to the kind of farming system that is preferred, leaving individual farmers to adopt what they perceive to be the best practice to stay in business.

However, this is now changing, as a result of the growing realisation that 50 years of intensive farming has had a devastating impact on climate change, nature and society, including damage to public health. Accordingly, new policies are being designed which restrict future subsidies only to farming systems which deliver so-called ‘public goods’.

As I’ve listened to all these news bulletins, I’ve tried to put myself in the place of the farmers who are protesting and I actually do feel a certain degree of empathy with them. After all, they have simply been following the money! This is because the subsidies have been unconditional and the market has been brutal; they have used, as the NFU likes to say, ‘all the tools in the toolbox’, i.e., nitrogen fertiliser and pesticides, to continuously increase their food production in order to stay in business. But unfortunately, this has been at the expense of our natural capital, climate and food quality. So, you can hardly blame them – after all, they were playing by the rules.

But now, the position that these farmers find themselves in, is that they have become commodity slaves, encouraged by the supermarkets and food companies to produce the cheapest possible milk, beef, grain and vegetables. The retailers and food companies don’t even refer to buying crops anymore. They call themselves “offtakers”, which rather summarises their parasitic attitude toward the farmers.

Driven by supermarket price wars, retailers have been relentlessly pushing down the price that they offer to the farmers that supply them, who, when faced with this price pressure, have perceived the only option left to them is further intensification and enlargement of their farming operations and, in the case of livestock, animal numbers. Worse still, many of them have invested large amounts of money in huge buildings to house factory farmed animals, and they are financially exposed with no alternative deployment for the infrastructure they have borrowed on.

I bumped into a neighbour the other day, who has a small family farm with maybe a couple of hundred acres; they used to be a dairy farm, but gave up due to the aforementioned price pressures, and switched to beef cattle and sheep. This is typical of quite a large number of farmers around here. They didn’t join the rat race and further intensify, instead they quietly accepted their fate, perhaps downsizing a little and supplementing their income with a day job. He asked me, “What is your take on the protests?” Before I could answer, he immediately chipped in, “The big boys have spoiled it for everyone else.”

In those few short words, he got pretty close to the truth! Of course, the big dairy, chicken and even beef producers who have invested heavily in new equipment and buildings are dismayed at the prospect of no longer receiving the area-based Single Farm Payment, particularly as their margins are relatively tight at the moment.

However, as the Wales First Minister said, why should Government give public money to farming practices which cause damage to climate, nature and people? The answer is they shouldn’t, of course, but since these protesting farmers are vociferous and have a big influence on the National Farmers Union and the Farmers Union of Wales, the voices cannot be ignored.

Has the Welsh Government got everything right with their outline proposals for the Sustainable Farming Scheme? Not completely, although if you read through the framework, they’ve not made a bad go of it and it still has the status of a consultation. The main policy feature that the intensive farmers highlight, when asked what they are really upset about, is the requirement that 10% woodland and 10% natural habitat is allotted on farm, which they see as a demand to take 20% of their land out of production.

It’s hard to object to this, but interestingly on our own farm we do have a problem with this approach. It goes back to the ‘land sparing’ versus ‘land sharing’ argument. If you are already farming in harmony with nature, it does grate a little to be asked to take even more land out of production. There’s probably a way of reconciling it, which is, of course, what we will try to suggest to the policy team at Welsh Government. Why not allow overgrown hedges to be treated as woodland and reward farmers handsomely for planting more trees, leaving the choice with the individual producer? I feel reasonably optimistic that we can persuade the policymakers to soften that requirement, something that they are definitely open to.

Interestingly, the new Welsh scheme looks quite positive for organic farmers, which is encouraging. Regardless of whether you are intending to farm organically, the idea of supporting a farming system designed around the principles of sustainability and not just the bits and pieces – the kind of pick and mix menu which most of the schemes now constitute – I think is the best way forward.

So, who is ultimately to blame for the farmer protests and the resulting political mess that we find ourselves in? Arguably, it is us, the consuming public. After all, most of us have become accustomed to buying cheap food, deceived into thinking this is okay by a pricing system which is fundamentally dishonest, because it doesn’t reflect the damage done by intensive farming.

The farmers are not wrong actually, when they say it is the subsidies that enable us all to have cheap food. But the problem is the subsidies have been misdirected, encouraging farmers to intensify and industrialise, instead of farming in harmony with nature. Although we might not have been aware of this, we have been complicit in precipitating the European farming crisis, due to the relentless race to the bottom when it comes to food pricing.

Of course, this is not the end of the story. Over the last couple of days, politicians have been debating the future of agricultural support at the annual conference of the National Farmers Union, and although the press has been covering the story, it is not yet clear whether we can redesign subsidies to enable a just transition, not just for the people who eat food, but also for the farmers themselves, many of whom are really struggling to stay in business at the moment.

The issue is of enormous importance, because if the subsidies can be correctly redirected, farmers could move from being part of the problem to becoming part of the solution, rebuilding the lost soil carbon, reinstating in-field biodiversity and improving the social and cultural impacts of food systems throughout the world. To achieve this, will require the introduction of new forms of agricultural support, not just from governments, but from businesses, banks, investors, insurance companies, utility companies, and of course, food companies, all of whom need to collaborate on redesigning the financial framework on which farmers operate.

We also need to resolve the current stand-off between farmers and government policymakers. It is deeply concerning that farmers have become angry and the debates polarised. A representative of the Nature Friendly Farming Network said on Farming Today that people like him were being intimidated by the demonstrations, frightened to speak out in defence of at least part of the Welsh Government policy proposals package. I, for one, would certainly be very happy to go and meet representatives of the NFU to make the case for reconciliation and constructive debate.

I sent an email to NFU Cymru this morning, suggesting that the Welsh Government’s own commissioned analysis of the impact of the introduction of the new policy package (suggesting major net job losses) was probably wrong. I would go so far to say that if truly sustainable farming practices replaced the current extractive model, agricultural employment would almost certainly increase, especially if there were also incentives introduced for re-localising Welsh food systems. On our own farm, the processing of our milk into cheese has resulted in the creation of five additional full-time equivalent posts.

This is because the old model of extractive industrial farming with centralised processing and distribution, necessitates shedding labour at great social and environmental cost, whereas the new model should be a net job creator!

Patrick also spoke about these issues on Radio Wales this morning. You can listen to Patrick’s interview here, from 13:40.

Featured image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.

Attending this year’s Oxford Real Farming Conference earlier this month, SFT Content Editor, Alicia Miller, shares more on the sessions that took place, in her round-up article on this year’s event.

After the excess of Christmas and New Year, the Oxford Real Farming Conference (ORFC) is always a good place to come back down to earth, contemplate the coming year and think deeply about what it might hold. With COP28 taking a big step forward in recognising food and farming as a critical part of the issues we face as a planet, it left much food for thought to pick over at the ORFC.

A just transition to sustainable farming means giving everyone the opportunity to be part of a more sustainable food system. But with over a million people in the UK currently struggling to find healthy food, it’s clear that there are barriers preventing many of us from accessing nourishing, sustainably produced food. In this article, we hear from Dr Celia Plender who considers how asking the right questions is essential in giving more people access to good food and highlights some inspiring projects that are already achieving this.

Throughout my time working with community food projects, one issue that has come up time and again is the accessibility of healthy, sustainable food, especially for people on low incomes.

While food insecurity in Britain is not a new issue, it is rapidly growing – there are now 14 million people in the UK who are food insecure. Many households are also feeling increasingly pressed by the rising cost of food, often struggling to afford even the most basic ingredients, let alone produce with good environmental values. Over a million people in Britain also find accessing healthy food difficult – this is due to a range of issues from the absence of stores that sell healthy foods in poorer areas to difficulty with transport and getting food home, even when stores are local, especially for the elderly and disabled.

Ensuring that everyone has access to nourishing, climate friendly foods is a big concern for many of the growers, producers, retailers and distributors that I meet, but it can be challenging to successfully work on social, environmental and economic issues within a busy project. Understandably, decisions are made about what to prioritise with their limited time and resources.