As food systems took centre stage at London Climate Week 2026, the Sustainable Food Trust was there to listen, challenge and contribute to the debate. In this round-up, the SFT’s Bahareh Sarvi (SFT’s Trials Data Manager), Amy Warner (Head of Fundraising) and Jessica Gunn (Director of Advocacy and Communications) reflect on five of the most significant conversations – from affordability and investment to regenerative agriculture and the rise of ‘Big Dairy’ – and what they mean for the future of food and farming.

The irony wasn’t lost on anyone: as the Capital sweltered in temperatures of 35C, scientists, policymakers, executives and activists gathered in their thousands to discuss the climate crisis. Newspaper headlines screamed “London Climate event on coping with extreme heat cancelled due to extreme heat” and “London isn’t calling, it’s cooking!”; it all felt very real.

London Climate Week Action 2026 was bigger than ever – reportedly surpassing even New York Climate Week in the sheer number of events. There were panels, roundtables, big events and intimate gatherings across the gauntlet. The good news was that food systems as a topic was well represented from the Palace to Goals House. As ever, the Sustainable Food Trust (SFT) was deep in the weeds of it all, so if you weren’t able to be there in person – these are the five main things you need to know from this year’s event.

1. The affordability trap

The Economist launched its Resilient Food System Index, a serious attempt by a serious institution to hold companies accountable for food system performance. The Index presents four pillars of measurement and success – availability, quality and safety, adaptability, and climate and affordability. This all sounds very sensible, until you get to that last, despot of an argument that, in reality, has driven decades of soil degradation, biodiversity collapse and public health crises – here now again enshrined as a measure of success.

A UNICEF representative offered the most single, devastating data point in response: obesity has now overtaken hunger as the world’s primary form of malnutrition. Both conditions disproportionately affect people in poverty. Both are driven, in large part, by cheap food.

The SFT view: The race to make food cheaper has not fed the world or made us healthier. It has malnourished us – differently, but no less completely. Whenever a proposal emerges that might raise food prices, industry players (and Government) reach for ‘affordability’ like a weapon – and it works every time. Price has become equated with public good at the expense of every other measure of a food system’s health. Finding new language for this – language that holds space for both access and quality – is one of the most urgent tasks in food policy today.

Find out more here: insights.economistenterprise.com/energy-environment/resilient-food-systems-index

2. The investment gap nobody wants to own

Harry Farnsworth from Rabobank said something that should have made the front page: the climate is still not priced into the market. The reality of agriculture’s risk model still failing to reflect the environmental reality it operates within – global conflict, climate change, degraded soil, dwindling biodiversity etc, and the fact the margins on farming are already too low, means a sustainable transition is simply not investable at scale – unless someone steps up to take the first loss.

Two new funds have been set up to address this: a DEFRA-backed nature bond and a Wildfarmed initiative, both relying on government or philanthropic capital to absorb risk that private markets refuse to touch.

The SFT view: These are promising experiments. But they are two drops in an ocean that requires a tide. The food industry’s lobbying budget runs to tens of billions annually – while philanthropic capital flowing into food system change is measured in the hundreds of thousands. We are bringing a trowel to an excavation that needs heavy machinery.

Find out more here: https://uknaturefund.com

3. Net zero: A useful framing or a dangerous one?

One of the sharpest critiques to emerge across multiple sessions was directed at net zero itself. The framing, various participants argued, has created tunnel vision – a single metric absorbing all available attention, investment and political will, while biodiversity, water quality, soil health and community resilience, are treated as afterthoughts.

The SFT view: Net zero has become too narrowly focused on carbon. Offsetting has overtaken genuine emissions reductions, and has inadvertently rewarded intensive production because it can appear carbon-efficient (see Big Dairy) while in reality still harming ecosystems. Measuring success primarily through CO₂ can obscure wider environmental and social outcomes. Instead, we need a whole-systems approach that integrates climate, food security, ecosystem health and long-term resilience.

4. Thinking in systems, not commodities

‘Regenerative’ might be a buzz word but how to define it? Discussions around the week confirmed the answer remains elusive. Regenerative agriculture however, many now agree, is not a destination, it is an approach to farming that by design is in constant motion. Regenerative wheat is classified as such, not simply because of how the crop itself is grown, but because of the barley, legumes and grass leys that preceded it – the label emerges from a community of plants (or commodities) working together. The whole farm system is the unit of analysis, and most of our financial and regulatory infrastructure is completely unequipped to handle that complexity.

The SFT view: A true understanding of regenerative agriculture (or lack of) has profound implications for how we finance, measure and incentivise farming. Supply chains that claim to support regenerative practice must begin investing in farmers to support the transition. This process must not simply be a matter of passing the cost to consumers, nor relying on government alone to bridge the gap. If a company’s share price was genuinely exposed to the climate risk embedded in its supply chain, that investment would follow quickly. The Regen10 Framework believes that ownership of the transition must not be a dictatorship; each farm and landscape is different and the challenge for each will reflect that. Our role is to define where we need to go, not necessarily how we get there.

Find out more here: True Cost Accounting report and https://regen10.org/outcomes-framework/ 

5. A big debate about Big Dairy

The SFT hosted its own panel on the rise of Big Dairy in the generously donated environment of Goals House. There was a diverse line-up of people in the room, with Patrick Holden at the helm. Against a landscape of the number of ‘mega dairies’ in the UK doubling over the last decade, while dairy farms overall have declined rapidly from 54,000 in 1974 to under 7,000 today, it leaves in no doubt the reality that the message to dairy farmers has felt like ‘go big or get out’.

Today 60% of the milk now consumed in the UK comes from Big Dairy, aka: ‘fully housed’ systems – and the public are only just waking up to this – helped by high profile campaigns from Project Sling Shot. High on the agenda was agreement that the dairy system is trapped in a commodity model that rewards low price above all else. Commodification has simultaneously dissolved dairy’s intrinsic value, and the sector’s control over its own narrative. Stronger storytelling around its stewardship, nutrition and security is vital.

The SFT view: we need a trusted, shared framework on measurement that rewards farmers for sustainable practices, higher welfare and ultimately, human health. The current system is optimised for a small number of actors – we need pricing mechanisms that serve farmers, the public, climate and food security. Bringing people together from all sides of the debate is the first step towards a shared vision.

In a nutshell
What we need now is not more agreement on the problem, but rather the leadership – political, financial and institutional – to act on it.

This makes it all the more striking that London Climate Week generated very little mainstream press coverage. Thousands of people, hundreds of events, some of the most consequential conversations happening anywhere in the world about food, land, water and climate – and the national newspapers were largely silent. When the public conversation isn’t happening, the urgency stays trapped in the room. That, perhaps more than anything else, is what needs to change.

Image credit: Photo by Benjamin Davies on Unsplash

Last week, the High Court ruled in favour of a judicial review challenging regulations that remove labelling and traceability from so-called ‘precision bred’ organisms. The judicial review was led by Beyond GM, with Patrick Holden, CEO of the Sustainable Food Trust, and two others standing as co-claimants. Here Patrick reflects on why he chose to speak out and on the importance of the case.

I cannot pretend that I fully understood all the legal arguments when I first agreed to become involved in a judicial review challenging new regulations governing genetically modified ‘precision bred’, organisms (PBOs).

I am a farmer, not a lawyer. What I did understand was that the new regulations, which removed traceability and labelling from certain types of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) would make it harder for producers and consumers who wished to – or had to – avoid genetically engineered organisms to do so.

That seemed wrong to me then and, following the High Court’s judgment last week, it’s clear the Government did not fully consider all the options available or the impacts of a profound change in legislation.

Becoming a claimant in a judicial review is a serious commitment. It required putting my name to a public legal challenge against the Government and accepting a level of scrutiny that many might prefer to avoid. But then again, the core issues of the case led by Beyond GM – the integrity of living organisms and the protection of organic standards – are issues that I have a long history with.

The experience has caused me to reflect not only on the case itself but on how dramatically the debate around genetic engineering has changed since the battles many of us fought in the 1990s. History, it seems, still has some important lessons to teach us.

Lessons to learn

Back in the late 1990s and early noughties, when I was director of the Soil Association, one of the standout campaigns with which I was involved was against the introduction of GMOs.

Our GMO campaign, arguing that the Government should not allow genetically engineered foods to creep into our food system was won, due in no small measure to the massive media attention it attracted, but also because Labour’s Environment Minister, Michael Meacher, was both privately and virtually publicly on our side.

Michael was the one who championed the Farm Scale Evaluations – a series of large-scale trials to test the impact of GM crops on local biodiversity and ecosystems, prior to any commercial approvals. The results raised serious concerns about the environmental consequences of planting GMO crops and undermined claims that they would automatically deliver public benefits.

He paid the political price for doing the right thing.

Coincidentally, I met with him on the day that he was sacked by Tony Blair. “I’ve got some bad news,” he said, “let’s go and have a drink on the Terrace.” It was never stated publicly, but many of us believed his opposition to the Government’s pro-GM policy played a significant role in his departure.

It is heartening to know that one of the last actions Michael took before he passed away, was to stand with Beyond GM on the steps of Number 10, to deliver the ‘Letter from America’ – a plea from American farmers, businesses, food advocates and civil society organisations, representing some 57 million people, for the UK not to follow America’s unquestioning embrace of GMOs.

The empire strikes back

Twenty years later, how things have changed! There is no equivalent to Michael Meacher in the Government. Many of the MPs who waved this legislation through without scrutiny probably couldn’t tell a GMO from their own elbows and are utterly seduced by the idea that we can improve on nature using the great white heat of technology.

After a decisive blow, the industry, or perhaps one might say the empire, has struck back, and very effectively too. It did this in the form of a seemingly innocuous piece of legislation – the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act of 2023 – which sought to distance GMOs from their past failures by giving them a shiny new name: precision bred organisms (PBOs).

Ask anyone on the street and they likely won’t be able to tell you what a PBO is, yet 8 in 10 people in the UK believe that all GMOs should be labelled and traceable in our food system. This change of law has a major impact on the right to exercise informed choice and to choose not to plant, sell or buy GMOs.

The Act was signed into law by the Conservatives, but it is Labour that passed the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Regulations into law in 2025, which allow the commercial planting and sale of PBO plants.

Despite a feeling of a fait accompli, Beyond GM and its legal team at Leigh Day and Matrix Chambers believed there was still a possible route to challenge what was happening. Not by reversing the primary Act, which would require another Act of Parliament, but by challenging the legality of the regulations made under it.

Taking the fight to court

The gathering of co-claimants was part of an intense and meticulous 13-month effort by Beyond GM and its legal team at Leigh Day and Matrix Chambers.

What was needed was evidence from farmers who could explain how the absence of labelling and traceability would affect their ability to maintain the integrity of organic and non-GM production. Organic farming depends not only on what happens in the field, but on the reliability of the whole chain – seeds, feed, ingredients, certification, trust. Organic farmers are legally obliged to avoid all GMOs, including PBOs. If precision bred organisms can move through parts of that chain without being identified, then the ability of organic producers to avoid them is compromised.

The case also needed a consumer voice, and that was provided by Joanna Blythman, whose long-standing commitment to food quality and transparency is well known.

As with all legal issues, there were fine lines to negotiate. Today’s organic standards, for which I can claim some credit, have always recognised that absolute purity can be difficult in a contaminated world. Spray drift, environmental contamination and other forms of unwanted intrusion have long been part of the reality organic farmers face. But that is precisely why a functioning regulatory system matters. If the Government creates a regime in which contamination becomes both inevitable and harder to identify and avoid, it cannot then pretend that organic producers and consumers are unaffected.

“Organic farming depends not only on what happens in the field, but on the reliability of the whole chain – seeds, feed, ingredients, certification, trust. Organic farmers are legally obliged to avoid all GMOs, including PBOs. If precision bred organisms can move through parts of that chain without being identified, then the ability of organic producers to avoid them is compromised.”

The Court’s verdict

I may not be a legal expert but I can read and the Court’s judgement makes very good reading.

It concludes that the Defra Farming Minister was repeatedly “misadvised” by his advisors that he had no power to mandate labelling and traceability for these new GMOs. It goes further, noting that had the Minister been given correct information he would have given greater consideration to the wider impacts of the regulations and indeed might have made different decisions about what they should contain.

The Court accepted that the consequences of removing the tools necessary to support traceability and transparency were real and likely to impose greater burdens – and costs – on famers, businesses and consumers.

It went further still, stating that organic farming is not merely a technical standard or certification scheme. For many, it represents a fundamental set of values, principles and professional commitments which the Regulations make much more difficult to maintain. To my knowledge, this is the first time something this impactful to organic has been made plain in a legal judgement.

More than a food issue

These are serious findings and, beyond their relevance to the food system, they reveal something very troubling about the way the government now works. If ministers are not properly informed, if MPs are not fully engaged and if complex regulations are waved through on the basis of ‘party lines’, industry lobbying and soothing language, then democratic oversight becomes little more than theatre.

Will the judgment make a difference? We shall see.

As I write, Beyond GM and its legal team are now in discussions with the Government about what should happen next. The Court has identified serious flaws in the way these regulations were developed and these cannot now be ignored.

The missing media

One thing is unfortunately clear. The media appetite for this issue is much less than it used to be. When the judgment was handed down, I rang my contacts at the BBC Radio 4 Today programme to let them know about a major breaking story. They said they were interested, but in the end came the familiar refrain: “Do keep in touch, we are interested in this, but unfortunately it didn’t make the cut for tomorrow’s programme.”

That would not have happened in the 1990s.

Today, the public, politicians and much of the media have allowed themselves to fall into a state of torpor about food and farming. The progressive industrialisation of our food systems has gone so far that many people have almost lost the will to complain. It is now difficult to buy genuinely high-quality, nutrient-dense, contaminant-free food.

What comes next?

I suspect this lapse of attention may be temporary. People such as Chris van Tulleken, who I recently interviewed for the Sustainable Food Trust podcast, have done a brilliant job alerting the public to the dangers of ultra-processed food. Many younger people, especially in Gen Z – if my sons are anything to go by – are increasingly worried about what is being done to the food they eat.

So, thank you Pat Thomas at Beyond GM and Lawrence Woodward, who provided strategic advice throughout, for your thorough and thoughtful work on this issue. Please do not give up – because this issue will not go away.

I may be just an ‘average person,’ albeit rather better informed than most because of a lifelong interest in this area, but I do not want to re-design nature. I do not want to eat food of poor nutritional quality. I do not want food contaminated by pesticide residues, GMOs, additives, preservatives or anything else I cannot identify or avoid.

Some people who shared these views were, perhaps understandably, reluctant to step forward and put themselves through the rigours of being a co-claimant. I chose to do so because I believe these regulations compromise my right, and the rights of others, to eat food that reflects our values and to grow it for others.

I am absolutely convinced I am not alone.

Write to your MP – you can be part of the action by writing to your MP. Use this link, expressing  your concerns and your support for transparency and labelling for PBOs. It’s quick, there’s suggested text to use and it does meaningful work in letting the Government know what the people really want.

Food trends come and go, shaping what we eat and how we think about health. From plant-based to low-carb, with each new wave comes a surge of products designed to cash in. But behind the marketing, what does the evidence on health really say? And how do these trends relate to the realities of farming and food production? Joanna Blythman takes a closer look, through the lens of protein.

Suggest to the beefy blokes lifting weights in the gym that ‘high protein’ is merely the latest food-fad, and they’ll put you right. They have long seen a high protein diet as the only way to build muscle and need no persuading that a daily plate of steak and eggs could only be a good thing. But in recent years, high protein diets have crossed over from the sports nutrition domain to capture a much wider market, one with a more feminine demographic.

We were probably ready for that change of message. The ubiquitous ‘plant-based’ trend peaked in 2021 and has been losing ground ever since; UK plant-based food sales fell 4.5% in the year to January 2025.

Veganism, its most extreme incarnation, is right off the boil. An eating pattern that always appealed more to women than men, its Waterloo moment in the UK, came last year when the former head of communications at Veganuary quit her role to advocate a shift away from veganism to ‘less and better’ meat-eating. The proposition that populations would eventually transition to a diet free of animal-sourced foods proved to be a harder sell than its ardent proponents had hoped.

But another significant factor powering the taste for high protein is the arrival on the market of GLP-1 weight loss drugs, such as Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro. Available from GPs, or unsupervised over the internet, these drugs suppress appetite and reduce overall calorie intake, but they also cause loss of lean muscle mass.

Nutrition advisers of a ‘Keto’ inclination have habitually stressed the value of protein-rich foods as a means to feel fuller longer. But now that so many people – once again, a majority of them women – use weight loss drugs, higher protein intake is advanced as the prescription for muscle repair during periods of rapid, drug-induced weight loss. “Muscle mummies”, who are full of the joys of a high protein diet combined with resistance training, attract more social media ‘likes’ than ‘cardio bunnies’ who remain loyal to Zumba and low-fat as the formula for weight control and health.

Perhaps it’s a reaction to the plant-based craze, but more people now seem to understand the fact that animal-sourced foods – meat, fish, dairy and eggs – are typically nutrient-dense, much higher in protein, weight for weight, than plant-sourced foods. Furthermore, it is gradually becoming more widely appreciated that the protein in meat, dairy, eggs and fish is more ‘complete’ in terms of providing the nine essential amino acids we need, in their most easily absorbable, digestible forms; the Sustainable Food Trust’s Grazing Livestock report has noted that, “…grass-fed meat and dairy tend to have superior nutritional profiles compared to their grain-fed equivalents”.

The Digestible Indispensable Amino Acid Score (DIAAS), endorsed by the FAO as the most accurate method of assessing protein quality, measures amino acid absorption in the small intestine. By this score, animal proteins (meat, egg, dairy, fish) score higher than plant proteins. On the DIAAS scale, beef and eggs, for instance, score 1.22 and 1.12 respectively, while kidney beans and oats score 0.61 and 0.44 respectively.

Soy is one of the highest-quality plant proteins, with a DIAAS score of 0.92, but consumer attitudes towards it are mixed, with taste preferences and perceptions varying widely across populations.

The role protein plays in supporting hormonal health, by regulating our appetite and stress hormones, has now emerged as a talking point. In women’s health circles, where the perimenopause and health in ageing are big issues, protein is commonly discussed as a strategy to combat muscle loss, stabilise metabolism, manage weight and maintain bone health, as oestrogen declines. The logic here is that women need to get less energy from carbohydrates and fats, and more from protein, to compensate for the biological changes that occur at menopause.

Over the years, government ‘healthy eating’ guidance has told us that overconsumption of fat is making us sick and obese. The low-carb lobby has argued back that carbohydrates, so rapidly digested as sugar, are the real culprit – not fat. Enter the ‘Protein Leverage Effect’ theory. It focuses on the satiating effect of protein and postulates the idea that without an adequate proportion of protein, the body’s drive to reach its target protein intake will make us continue to over-eat unnecessary energy from fats and carbs until we get the protein we need.

Heightened awareness of protein’s critical role in maintaining good health is, of course, good news for livestock farmers. UK meat sales saw a substantial upswing in 2025. We spent £500 million more on meat products.

Meat is off the naughty step, at last. The ‘yuk’ reaction towards meat has taken another knock from soaring interest in bone broth. Our grandmothers and great-grandmothers always had a stock pot of bones and carcasses bubbling away and saw that precious liquid as a foundation for good health. Bone broth contains collagen, which breaks down into gelatine during cooking, providing amino acids that are essential for joint health, gut lining integrity and connective tissue repair, along with useful micronutrients – magnesium, potassium and more – and fat-soluble vitamins from the bone marrow. As the currently strong growth in demand for ready-made bone broth products shows, previously squeamish meat avoiders can nevertheless be persuaded to purchase 500 ml of liquid bone broth at £7 a time, or keep powdered bone broth beside the kettle. Might concentrated powdered bone broth be the new Bovril?

But it is minimally processed dairy products, such as Skyr, that have benefited particularly handsomely from the protein quest. Witness the fortunes of cottage cheese. For decades, it looked like a legacy product from the 1960s, but now, powered by a TikTok buzz, cottage cheese is hot, hot, hot.

Grahams, the Scottish family, reported cottage cheese sales growth of 40%, just in 2024 alone. Propelled by the appetite for protein, its new Protein Cottage Cheese, with 25% more protein than standard cottage cheese, is flying off the shelves.

Manufacturers of ultra-processed foods are, naturally, only too glad to surf the protein wave. A ‘high protein’ label is the latest way to imbue products that least deserve it, with a halo of health. So, you can buy high protein everything, from crisps and energy bars, through meal replacement shakes and smoothies, to pizza dough and wraps.

A closer look at the composition of M&S’s High Protein Chocolate Porridge gives a flavour of the less processed products of this type.

It contains more than 21% sugar, which qualifies as high in sugar by even the most forgiving dietetic measure. It also contains chicory fibre (inulin). Fibre, in particular chicory fibre, is having a moment in some weight loss circles and is used in many ultra-processed food formulations, not exclusively high protein ones. But it can produce bloating, gas and other irritable bowel symptoms, particularly when taken in large doses in the form of supplements and powders.

Most high-protein supplements and snacks are based on concentrated ingredients, such as whey protein isolate, milk protein concentrate, pea protein isolates and soy fractions. Inclusion in a formulation of these hyper-processed substances allow manufacturers to keep the protein-seekers happy, but their creations lack the pleasing taste and texture of protein found in natural forms. Protein isolates can make products overly dry and chalky, with a challenging dense texture. Like soy, they often taste bitter. At this point, food technologists and product developers reach for emulsifiers, stabilisers, sweeteners and flavourings to make them palatable. Meanwhile the marketing departments are hard at work, positioning such novel creations as convenient tools for sating appetites and building muscle.

But there is no robust research on how these highly synthesised, industrial forms of protein might impact on human health in the long term. It’s more than likely that such new-fangled protein forms won’t be as well adapted to our body needs as protein in its more traditional forms.

So, should we be cynical about the high protein trend? It has to be said that our forebears were well aware that protein ‘keeps you going longer’, as they put it. The costliness of protein foods was the only reason they saw to restrict their consumption. But now over 50% of the food we eat in the UK is ultra-processed. If that mirrors your diet, watch out for any high protein sales pitch designed to convince you that the product you’re buying is great for you when, in fact, it is anything but.

Yet for people who cook for themselves routinely and actively avoid ultra-processed products, this current focus on protein is surely welcome. The prominence of protein in diet debates demonstrates that many more of us are now actively seeking out nutrient density, as opposed to counting carbs. That’s a welcome corrective to the stale plant-based, vegan fixation. Protein’s prominence puts animal-sourced foods back at the heart of our diets, which is where they always used to be.

To find out more about how we can produce nutrient-dense foods from sustainable livestock farming, read our report, Grazing Livestock: It’s not the cow but the how.

The new UK regulatory framework on genetically modified (GM) plants threatens both the right of farmers to choose what crops they grow and the right of consumers to know what they are eating. Patrick Holden – CEO of the Sustainable Food Trust and part of the successful 1990s campaign for the appropriate regulation of GMOs – highlights why we must act now if we want to preserve our right to keep GM plants out of our fields and GM food off our plates.

I have photographs of myself from the late 1990s, standing outside the High Court in London holding a placard. I was director of the Soil Association then, and we were in the middle of a major public campaign against the introduction of genetically modified crops into British farming. The cameras were there. The public and other civil society groups were with us. The momentum was with us.

We won – or so it seemed. Not by making GM crops illegal, but by ensuring they were regulated. A tough regulatory framework, backed by strong labelling requirements and even stronger public opinion, meant that GM crops never took root in British fields. For nearly two decades, that felt like enough.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t because regulation, as we have all learned to our cost, can be rewritten, debated by MPs who don’t understand what they are debating, or worse are told what position to take by the party, and signed into law in by ministers who haven’t read them. That was our Achilles heel, and we didn’t see it coming.

The industry we thought we had seen off came back, and it came back with a plan.

Three things converged to make this possible. The first was a genuine development in the science: a new technique called gene editing, which gives scientists the option of modifying a plant’s own genetic material rather than splicing in genes from an unrelated species. The second was Brexit – or more precisely, what Michael Gove called the “unfrozen moment,” the opportunity to strip away what his party regarded as overcautious European regulation. The third was a compelling political narrative: that Britain, freed from Brussels, could become a world leader in agricultural innovation, with Norfolk- and Cambridge-based plant scientists at the vanguard.

Put those three things together and you have a powerful lobby, a receptive government, and a story the media were willing to tell sympathetically.

Same old arguments, better PR

I was one of several NGO representatives who attended consultation meetings organised by Defra over the last few years, and we made the arguments against the proposed legislation with some force – the substantive grounds were strong. But the atmosphere was entirely different from the first time round. Instead of opposition making headline news, the media were largely seduced by the vision of Britain leading in agricultural innovation. What a contrast with the 1990s, when our campaign led the evening bulletins.

The argument the industry is making today is, at its core, the same one it had made then – that these genetically engineered plants are essentially no different from any other plant you’d find in a field or a hedgerow. Tony Blair’s government had accepted a version of this argument in private, but the late Michael Meacher, his Environment Secretary, fought it publicly and the campaign held.

Today there is no one remotely like Meacher. The legislation moved through Parliament, and when Labour came to power in 2024, rather than pause or reconsider, they accelerated it. The Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act became law in 2023, and despite some well-articulated opposition from NGOs and the House of Lords secondary regulations, which allow precision bred plants to be grown and sold as food, followed in 2025.

Taking our rights away

We cannot now unpick the primary legislation without another Act of Parliament. That argument is, for the moment, closed. What remains open – and what matters enormously – is what sits underneath it: the new regulatory framework that undermines three fundamental rights.

The first is the right of farmers to grow crops that have not been gene edited, without fear of contamination from those that have. The second is the right of consumers to know what they are eating and to choose accordingly. The third is the right of the wider natural world – the wild plants, the insects, the birds, the entire web of life that still manages to coexist with our farming systems – to be protected from changes whose long-term consequences we cannot yet know.

In my view, the regulations fail on each count. That is why a judicial review has been brought, and why I am a co-claimant in it.

It is worth being clear about who has actually been watching while others looked away. Beyond GM, the civil society organisation leading this legal challenge, and the wider UK network of UK GM groups have never stopped monitoring this issue – tracking the legislation, analysing the regulations and building the evidence base with a forensic attention to detail that puts many larger and better funded organisations to shame. While the rest of the movement drifted toward other priorities, they stayed in the room. This judicial review exists because of this.

Where is everyone?

But here is what I find genuinely shocking, and what I think demands an honest reckoning. Where are the other voices?

The National Farmers’ Union represents tens of thousands of farmers, including many who depend on the organic premium and the credibility that comes with a guarantee of non-GM status. Silence. The Consumers Association exists precisely to defend the public’s right to know what is in their food. Silence. The major environmental NGOs, with their memberships, their legal teams, their media relationships and their decades of expertise in exactly this kind of regulatory battle. Silence. And the organic movement itself – the community with the most immediate and practical stake in getting this right – seems to be fighting from the shadows and sidelines.

Time to speak up

I have thought carefully about how to characterise this absence, and I want to be direct. I don’t think it is cowardice. I think it is something more troubling: a failure to understand what is actually happening – not just where we are but where we are rapidly going. The legislation is complex.

The shift from primary law to secondary regulation is technical. The distinction between what we have lost and what remains to be fought for is genuinely difficult to communicate in the bullet point world of social media. These missing voices have been like the proverbial frog in slowly heating water – and I say this not to wound but to wake them up, because the water is now very close to boiling.

The judicial review being heard in May is not a rearguard action by a handful of obsessives. It is, I believe, one of the most important legal challenges to agricultural policy in a generation – a serious argument, mounted by serious people and serious lawyers, with serious evidence. I became a co-claimant because I believe that. I am an organic farmer. This is not an abstract issue for me.

What I am asking of the Sustainable Food Trust’s community, and of every organisation that believes food systems should work with nature rather than against it, is straightforward. Understand what is at stake. Say so publicly. And join us, spread the word, write to your MP,  make a donation to the legal fighting fund – because a coalition of the willing, speaking clearly and together before and after the hearing, may yet change the terms of this debate.

You can make a donation to the Stop Hidden GMOs fighting fund at CrowdJustice. Read more about the court case at Beyond GM and Stop Hidden GMOs

Featured image by Markus Spiske (Unsplash).

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).

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.

Earlier this month, the EAT-Lancet Commission launched its much-anticipated second report at the EAT Forum in Stockholm, accompanied by significant publicity and widespread social media attention. Here, our CEO, Patrick Holden, responds to the report.

Earlier this month, the EAT-Lancet Commission launched its much-anticipated second report at the EAT Forum in Stockholm, accompanied by impressive publicity and widespread social media attention.

Many of my friends hold influential roles within the EAT Forum, and I was invited to contribute to their Farmers and Fishers Consultation. Yet despite this engagement, I don’t believe the final report sufficiently reflects the perspectives and lived experiences of farmers on the ground.

So, what do I think of the report?

Firstly, there are some important and welcome conclusions:

• It rightly critiques the current food system, which is operating beyond several planetary boundaries.
• It calls for a shift to food systems that are environmentally and ethically sound and recognises the critical importance of a socially just transition.
• It highlights the need for financial support for sustainable agriculture.
• It makes clear the need for dietary shifts in line with ecological limits.

These are significant and commendable. However, I believe the approach the report takes is fundamentally flawed, with significant implications for our understanding of what represents a truly sustainable approach to food production.

1. A top-down, diet-first framework

The cornerstone of the EAT-Lancet report is the ‘Planetary Health Diet’, a universal dietary template based on an analysis of the health effects of different foods. I have two overarching problems with this approach. First, while the report’s recommendations do provide some flexibility in food choices, I take real issue with the inference that diets that exist outside the framework EAT-Lancet propose are unhealthy. Humans are, after all, a remarkably flexible species, able to thrive on a hugely diverse range of different diets. There are also all sorts of things we don’t know about the health impacts of different dietary choices, including evidently relevant factors like production and cooking method that are often not even considered in diet health studies.

Second, because EAT-Lancet’s dietary guidelines are based entirely on a top-down reading of health impacts, they have not been informed by any analysis of what different regions can sustainably produce. This, in my opinion, is a major flaw that risks missing practical, on-the-ground farming considerations that are obviously fundamental to the question of what we can and should eat. Future diets should instead reflect the food output from truly sustainable farming systems – which will vary by region. In other words, diets must emerge from farming systems that work with nature, not be imposed upon them.

2. Lack of clarity on how we should farm

This brings me to my next concern, which is that the report is inconsistent in spelling out what changes to farming systems will be needed in the future. On the one hand, the report speaks to the benefits of adopting more ecological farming practices and produces some useful figures around the potential of these to reduce the global food system’s environmental impacts. It also contains some important criticisms of industrial systems. At the same time, however, the report’s top-line modelling appears to assume further increases in agricultural yields in regions where these are already high (e.g. Europe), and this can only mean a continuation of a predominantly industrial approach – the opposite of the ecological systems the report claims to be supporting. All this does in my opinion is contribute to the ongoing confusion around which farming practices and systems we need to support – those based on ecological principles – and the ones which we need to move away from, that are heavily reliant on fossil fuel and energy-intensive inputs.

Future diets should instead reflect the food output from truly sustainable farming systems – which will vary by region. In other words, diets must emerge from farming systems that work with nature, not be imposed upon them.

3. Meat reduction without nuance

All of this is relevant to the question of meat and dairy. EAT-Lancet advocates for a major reduction in meat consumption globally. Our own modelling in Feeding Britain also acknowledges a need to reduce overall meat consumption, as do other studies that have modelled the outcomes of a wholesale shift to more nature-based farming systems. There are, however, some important differences in how we reach our conclusions.

Our starting point was looking at how much meat and dairy the UK could sustainably produce, were there to be a nationwide transition to farming systems based entirely on agroecological principles. We found there would be a very significant decrease in pork and chicken production, due to their heavy reliance on grain and feed imports. When it came to beef and dairy, however, we modelled more modest reductions, and this reflects the key benefits grazing animals provide in a food system based on biological principles. For instance, cattle and sheep play a central role in supporting regenerative cropping systems that don’t rely on agrichemicals, help manage cherished landscapes rich in carbon and nature, and produce nutrient-dense meat and dairy from our extensive grassland area otherwise unsuited for producing food.

This is a pattern that other agroecological modelling studies have broadly found. The EAT-Lancet report, on the other hand, argues that red meat and ruminants should constitute a considerably smaller part of our diets and farming systems than poultry. This simply doesn’t tally with what a transition towards a more ecological food system would in reality support. All of this is frustrating, given the report does acknowledge some of the benefits that livestock can provide – it just doesn’t go far enough in linking our diets to them.

Of course, none of this should detract from the need to produce and consume a more diverse range of plant foods – something that we too modelled in Feeding Britain. But if those crops are grown in chemically intensive monocultures or hydroponic systems, they may be nutrient-poor, lacking flavour, and environmentally damaging. This isn’t the future we need.

There are always going to be differences of opinion when it comes to the future of food. That’s healthy. But given the EAT-Lancet Commission’s growing influence, it’s vital that these differing perspectives are heard and brought together.

To that end, I’ve made repeated efforts to engage with the EAT-Lancet community – even inviting them to my farm. When I challenged the top-down nature of their dietary recommendations during the farmer consultations, there was widespread agreement among fellow participants. Yet I don’t see enough of that reflected in the final report.

Let’s be clear: we all want a food system that is fair, sustainable and healthy. But to get there, we must bridge the gap between global frameworks and local, grounded farming realities.

I hope this intervention encourages more genuine dialogue, because if we don’t work together, we risk building solutions that sound good on paper but fail in practice.

Ahead of the publication of the Government’s forthcoming National Food Strategy (NFS), food systems expert, Honor May Eldridge, reviews the Consortium for Labelling for the Environment, Animal Welfare and Regenerative Farming’s (CLEAR) ambitious proposal for the NFS to call for ‘method of production’ labelling to become mandatory for all meat products in the UK.

More and more of us want to make informed, ethical choices about the food we buy, and these choices inevitably reflect our concerns about the environmental impacts of food production and animal welfare. The SFT’s recent report, Grazing Livestock: It’s not the cow, but the how, demonstrates how, in relation to meat and dairy, the method of production makes a huge difference when it comes to the environment, animal welfare and much beyond. Consequently, it is critical that farmers who invest in better production methods are rewarded for that investment by the marketplace. Seventy-five per cent of UK consumers say they want supermarkets to stock only sustainably and ethically sourced food, and they’ve consistently called for more transparency about how meat is produced.

That’s where CLEAR comes in. The Consortium for Labelling for the Environment, Animal Welfare and Regenerative Farming, of which the Sustainable Food Trust is a founding member, wants to see national legislation to deliver transparent, verifiable food labelling that clearly communicates how food is produced. It is pushing for this to be a commitment within the forthcoming National Food Strategy (NFS). Defra is scheduled to publish the NFS in the autumn, which will lay out the Government’s vision to reshape the country’s food system to be healthier, more sustainable and resilient. The Strategy will guide the future of the UK food system and will (hopefully) pave the way for a Food Bill for England. CLEAR is pushing for the NFS to call for ‘method of production’ labelling to become mandatory for all meat products in the UK.

This focus is a continuation of the excellent work that CLEAR has done since its founding in 2021 when it brought together leading NGOs in the food and farming space to lobby the Government for better labelling. In 2021, CLEAR launched its manifesto at Groundswell with the aim of empowering consumers with meaningful information, bringing real transparency to the food system. Clear, consistent labelling will help people understand what lies behind the products they buy. Many of us have stood in a supermarket, holding a carton of milk, only to be confronted by a sea of labels – organic, non-GMO, fairtrade, free range. But what do they all mean? And how do they compare? For most shoppers, it’s unclear.

CLEAR’s vision includes mandatory method of production labelling for all foods sold in the UK, including imports, underpinned by strong enforcement mechanisms. It calls for independent assessment processes that are based on verifiable benchmarks, ensuring the integrity of any claims made. Crucially, the labelling must be clear and accessible, appearing directly on packaging so that shoppers can make informed choices at a glance. It is also vital to build the enforcement capacity needed to support these measures and make the system effective.

At a recent event hosted by CLEAR and the SFT to launch CLEAR’s ecolabelling review report, the authors highlighted some of the challenges of capturing farm environmental impacts on food labels. One theme which kept cropping up was the need for data that truly reflects the farming system that it describes – this usually means holistic, primary, outcome-based data. This is the type of data that the Global Farm Metric (GFM) focusses on. This data provides the truest reflection of farm sustainability, although it does require time and it does have a financial cost. The GFM team continues to work with the food labelling sector to explore how this type of data can feed into more transparent labelling efforts.

While its proposal is ambitious, CLEAR acknowledges the complexities of the current context. The UK’s departure from the European Union has left the food and farming sector in a state of flux. The UK is in the process of negotiating its phytosanitary (plant health) standards with the EU, and that negotiation will also involve consideration of labelling. The outcome will be critical for the future of the UK food system. At the bare minimum, the UK needs mandatory animal welfare labelling for poultry and pork that focuses specifically on method-of-production, strengthening country of origin labelling requirements, and establishing a regulatory basis for sustainability terms to ensure they are used meaningfully and consistently.

As the UK redefines its food system, now is the moment to ensure that transparency and integrity are placed at its core. Mandatory method of production labelling isn’t just a technical fix – it’s a vital tool for empowering consumers to make informed choices, rewarding farmers who adopt higher animal welfare and sustainable practices, and driving meaningful change in how our food is produced. With the National Food Strategy on the horizon, it’s time to embed CLEAR labelling into the future of UK food policy.

On April 4^th, the SFT participated in the launch of the Local Food Growth Plan. This plan was developed in partnership with the Landworkers’ Alliance (LWA), Sustain, Sustainable Food Trust (SFT), Pasture for Life (PfL) and the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission (FFCC), and was funded by the Rothschild Foundation.

The aspiration was to create a roadmap that will boost demand, channel investment and direct effort into delivering a thriving local food sector across the UK. There are huge benefits of expanding and strengthening local food economies. Firstly, these food systems are deeply rooted in communities and help build connections between people and their food producers. This creates economic growth and expands employment opportunities. Secondly, it tends to be more sustainable with fewer food miles and higher rates of agroecological production. This benefits the wider resilience of our food system, which is critical in light of growing global tensions and the climate crisis. Lastly, it benefits public health by increasing access to fresh, nutritious food so that all citizens can access healthy and sustainable food. You can read more about the benefits of local food in Richard Kipling’s article for the SFT.

In order to successfully grow the local food sector, this plan set out actions that require engagement from a range of people and organisations. Developed through research and a consultation process, this report contains detailed recommendations and seven key priorities.

Seven priorities for a thriving local food sector

1. Establish regional local food growth plans: These documents would be guiding principles to inform and advance the expansion of local food within a region. They would be agreed with stakeholders from across the community, ranging from politicians to farmers, businesses and NGOs, and include a strong voice from citizens, and would direct investment and development in the local food sector.
2. Enable and invest in policies to support infrastructure: Both national and local government need to invest and support the infrastructure that underpins local food. This means protecting and expanding local markets and increasing regional processing facilities and mid-scale infrastructure. For example, protecting small abattoirs to enable small-scale local meat production to continue. The campaign to protect small-scale abattoirs is a long-running campaign of the SFT and you can learn more about it here.
3. Prioritise horticulture support in a national Horticulture Strategy: Defra has been promising to deliver a Horticulture Strategy for years now without any progress. This document would act as a clear commitment from Government that they valued British horticulture and were committed to increasing the supply, processing and distribution of fruit and vegetables to improve public diets through healthy, affordable and climate-friendly food.
4. Create a roadmap for meeting the commitment to public sector food procurement standards: The Government has made a strong commitment to increase the target of local and agroecological food in public procurement. But, to achieve that goal of 50%, supporting policies need to be put in place that can provide the necessary support to SMEs to submit bids, along with data collection and monitoring to ensure that the targets are met.

5. Enable decisive action to make food supply chains fairer for farmers: Part of the challenge for small and local suppliers is that the system is rigged against them. Large retailers hold too much power. The food supply chain needs to have greater transparency and accountability to ensure fairness. This requires expanding and reinforcing the powers of the Groceries Code Adjudicator, Agricultural Supply Chain Adjudicator and Food Crime Unit.
6. Recognise the vital role of local action and networks: Local food works because it is rooted in community and listens to the voices of citizens. To expand local food systems, we need to ensure that sustainable food partnerships, are established in every area, to advocate for the needs of the local food sector and enable collaboration between local farms, supply chains and citizens.
7. Promote influential marketing, targeted business and training support to help the local food sector thrive: People want to buy local food but currently it is often too challenging. There needs to be an effort to promote and connect citizens with local retailers so that we can build a grassroots movement to expand access to local food for all people.

The full Local Food Growth Plan is available here.

So how do we make this aspiration a reality? How do we grow local food in our communities? To do so, we need to catalyse change within our political leadership, and we need local and regional authorities to commit to meaningful action.

A manifesto for local food leadership in Bristol

That is why a collaboration between local food organisations in Bristol (where the SFT is headquartered) have developed a manifesto for the upcoming mayoral election for the West of England Combined Authority. This strategic authority encompasses Bath, Bristol, South Gloucestershire and North East Somerset. Once elected, the next Mayor will have a critical role in shaping how food is produced, distributed and accessed across the region. Through adopting key actions, the region can deliver healthier and more sustainable food for all.

The group is calling for a strategic review of food access across the region to help ensure that local and sustainable food is accessible to all citizens in the region. This review should engage with civil society, businesses and community groups to co-develop a Regional Food Plan that strengthens supply chain infrastructure and improves food resilience. Similar work is already ongoing with the Sustainable Food Places programme. This would be a legal document and would be used to inform spatial development strategies, ensuring that food accessibility is embedded in planning, development and the management of council-owned agricultural land. Central to this document would be the evaluation of St Phillips Market, a local fruit and veg market that has been operating for decades and is critical for the collection, storage and distribution of local food. Ahead of any closure of the market, there needs to be a clear plan for its replacement to ensure a thriving future for SMEs in the food sector for years to come.

Once this document was approved, it would prompt the investment needed to make it a reality. Many groups in the region have been struggling to access the funds that they need to improve public diets and tackle hunger. Through the public commitments within the Regional Food Plan, resources would be unlocked to improve the access to funding for initiatives addressing health inequalities and climate change impacts through food systems, with particular support for small, community-led organisations.

Lastly, one of the key areas that sits within the remit for the Strategic Authority is skills and training. Therefore, there is a huge opportunity for the incoming administration to invest in training, career development and business support for those entering the sustainable local food sector, fostering new green job opportunities and supporting SMEs. Investing in the next generation of growers and food producers will help ensure the viability of local food long into the future and support economic resilience by increasing employment and regional growth.

Call for action: Better food for all

These steps are critical for the region to achieve healthy and sustainable diets for all citizens. There are approximately 150,000 residents in the region who live in deprived communities with poor access to good food. Many low-income families can only afford to buy cheap food, which is often high in fat, salt and sugar, and this can damage their long-term health outcomes. Worse still, this food tends to be cheap because it is produced in a way that is environmentally damaging. Industrially produced food fails to account for its true-cost to the planet – something Patrick Holden, the SFT’s CEO, has spoken out about recently.

Our dependency on cheap food and the inequalities in our food system needs to change urgently, and we need our regional leaders to act. All families deserve to be able to access climate and nature-friendly food that is affordable and nutritious and grown without harmful chemicals. The region is full of incredible agroecological farmers, growers and food producers that want to deliver sustainable food for the region to help meet net zero targets, support nature recovery and improve health outcomes.

So, will the politicians running for the role step up and commit to these five key asks if elected? We will keep you posted.

Read the full manifesto here.

SFT Content Editor, Alicia Miller, provides an overview on this year’s Oxford Real Farming Conference, including one of the SFT’s sessions, Grazing for Good, which took a closer look at the integral relationship between livestock and the biodiversity it supports.

Arriving into 2025 with the Oxford Real Farming Conference (ORFC), it has been hard to ignore what this past year has delivered in terms of climate change – 24 hours of rain in Dubai, a terrifying hurricane season in the US, fatal flooding in Valencia, Spain, heatwaves here, there and everywhere across the globe, and as an intro to the new year, Los Angeles is burning like never before. Twenty-twenty four was the hottest year on record; what will 2025 be?

So, being at the ORFC felt almost blissful – a momentary haven to talk with like-minded people and think about the micro and the macro, how we move forward in a rapidly changing new world and, most pressing, what we can do to fix it, if fixing it is even possible at this point… But hope remains our friend and that’s good to keep in mind.

As always, there was much to explore at the Conference with an array of workshops and ‘deep dive’ sessions arguably dominating the more academic talks on topics like Trauma and the Land and The Interbeing of Agroecology– not to dismiss those deeper discussions which are important to have, but perhaps ‘practice’ is having a moment? What can we do on the ground, in the day-to-day, to make change happen? Are we in a place where action speaks louder than words? That’s definitely food for thought.

In a session on Improving Food Resilience, food policy veteran, Tim Lang, discussed the findings of his recent research for the UK Government, with the panel addressing the critical question: ‘Is the UK’s food system resilient?’ Unsurprisingly, the general consensus was a resounding ‘no.’ The panel explored what resilience truly means in the context of food systems – essentially, the ability to recover from shocks, whether acute (like pandemics) or chronic (such as prolonged political instability) – and how it can be strengthened. The ‘just-in-time’ logistics employed by supermarkets faced criticism, with broad agreement that transitioning to a more localised food system could be vital to ensuring access to healthy and sustainable food in an increasingly uncertain world. Sustain’s Sarah Williams shared insights from the Local Food Plan (which the SFT is involved in), while farmer and GP Tom Pearson emphasised the importance of more farmers engaging with their local communities. The panel agreed that the proof of concept exists, but robust policy frameworks and a stronger economic narrative are needed to turn theory into action.

Following in the vein of Tim Lang’s thinking was a lively panel organised by the Eating Better Alliance. Chaired brilliantly by the organisation’s Sarah Wakefield, the panellists tackled the complex issue of dietary shift and implications for farming – a topic often mired by polarisation, which Eating Better aims to overcome. Holly Purdy’s Exmoor farm exemplifies the concept of ‘better’ meat, with her pasture-fed beef and sheep, and ‘more plants,’ through the introduction of a market garden and silvopasture incorporating fruit trees. Jimmy Woodrow at Pasture for Life highlighted the need to better account for the ecological role of livestock in regenerative food systems, a contribution that isn’t always “captured in spreadsheets,” while Julia Kirby-Smith of Better Food Traders brought in the perspectives of consumers and retailers, emphasising the system’s reliance on cheap food. Could True Cost Accounting provide the solution to rebalancing the system and demonstrate the far-reaching benefits of ‘eating better’? The discussion around barriers ranged from the lack of local abattoirs to the role of the media, and, once again, the panel agreed that getting people – whether school children or MPs – onto farms will be essential to shifting mindsets and driving real long-term change.

Also very interesting and relevant, was a session on pesticide use and its future, organised around organic beef farmer Denise Walton and mixed arable farmer Patrick Barker and how they manage their land. It was an enlightening perspective, especially from Barker, who while working hard to conserve nature on his land (and doing it very well), still uses glyphosate widely. It’s a strange disconnect – for Barker, it’s a tool and he doesn’t worry about it overmuch. But for most, if not all, agroecological farmers at the ORFC, it’s anathema. You can’t do both and his admission is at best problematic.

The Sustainable Food Trust’s session on Grazing for Good? Livestock and Biodiversity in the UK, chaired by SFT CEO Patrick Holden, included the SFT’s Senior Researcher Robert Barbour and Farmer Teleri Fielden, along with Molly Biddell, Head of Natural Capital at the Knepp Estate and Jo Riggall at Plantlife. It was an engaging discussion on the integral relationship between livestock and the biodiversity it supports. Teleri Fielden made a strong case for the role that the mixed flock of cattle that she and her husband graze in Snowdonia National Park are essential in the wider preservation of the nature they support. Practices like rotational grazing and the inclusion of more diverse swards can help to mitigate the overuse of anti-parasitic medication which has significant impact on invertebrates. The reintegration of fertility building leys grazed by animals in crop rotations also offer significant benefits in reducing agri-chemical use. And there are many more sustainable practices that work to support nature and natural habitats in a variety of ways – it is possible to have a food system that works for “people, farm animals and the natural world”. Livestock, as Molly Biddell comments, is “totally critical for the health that their meat provides [and] critical for what they do for the landscape…” The session explored many of the themes that will be covered in the SFT’s next report, due out later this year.