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.

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.

The UK could be on the verge of a large increase in imports of New Zealand seafood, as British retailers and consumers reach for sustainable seafood alternatives in a post-Brexit world. However, the so-called “sustainability” of New Zealand seafood is actually far from what it’s bigged up to be.

New Zealand is often regarded as one of the world’s most sustainable fisheries, and held up as a gold standard for responsible fisheries management. The oft-revered Quota Management System (QMS), on which the fishing industry is based, has been touted by the New Zealand government as “the pearl of New Zealand fishing”. It is flashed about as a science-based, totally sustainable regulatory framework that has allowed the New Zealand seafood industry to remind the world, repeatedly, that they “needn’t worry about the health of New Zealand fish stocks”.

Except that…we really should.

New Zealand’s seafood economy 

New Zealand may seem like a small, remote country. A few tiny dots at the bottom of the gigantic Pacific Ocean, populated by about half as many people as London. But in terms of ocean and fisheries, it’s actually huge.

Thanks to its long coastline and many islands, New Zealand has around the fourth-largest Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the world, encompassing over 4 million square kilometres (1.5 million square miles) of ocean. That is a lot of ocean to cover, and a lot of fish to catch. Furthermore, over 90% of New Zealand’s seafood is exported, with more than 250,000 tonnes accounting for around £1 billion in export revenue every year – and a bigger chunk of that could soon be coming to the UK.

Earlier this year, New Zealand and the United Kingdom finalised terms on a free trade agreement that will see significant reductions in import barriers and a removal of tariffs on many products, including seafood. The New Zealand seafood industry – still a bit bruised from the covid-induced exposure of its reliance on China as an export market – is already licking its lips at what this deal could mean for New Zealand seafood exports to the UK.

Part of that push is because, following the formalisation of Brexit and the gradual roll-out of changes in customs controls and trade regulations between the EU and UK, the UK has been targeted as a somewhat “emerging” market, one in which New Zealand seafood can capitalise on its “sustainable” image. According to Tim Pankhurst, former CEO of industry trade group Seafood New Zealand, “that sustainability stamp is an endorsement of our fisheries management, and it is already driving increased demand” overseas. A similar push is set to happen into Europe, with an even more lucrative NZ-EU free trade deal, finalised just a few months after the NZ-UK deal.

However, this may not be as big a win for sustainable seafood as people might think – or as companies might claim.

Sustainability concerns

To say that there have been concerns raised about the sustainability of the New Zealand fishing industry, is putting it very lightly. For years, the recklessly indiscriminate and destructive methods employed by New Zealand fishing companies – particularly regarding by-catch and the destruction of marine ecosystems from bottom trawling – have been criticised by everybody from McDonald’s and Waitrose to Greenpeace, the NZ Recreational Fishing Council and, most concerningly, the very government ministry that regulates the industry itself. It’s also routine for the shady dealings and behind-closed-doors politics, which go on between industry and government in New Zealand fisheries, to be exposed (including a high-profile case last year).

Still, despite all the bad press, New Zealand’s sustainability label still seems to sell. Both at home and overseas.

New Zealand’s three biggest seafood companies – Talley’s, Sanford and Sealord, who between them own about 60% of New Zealand’s total commercial fishing quota – all claim sustainability as a guiding principle, and proudly give strong reassurances on their websites, such as “100% of New Zealand’s commercial catch is from sustainable fish stocks”, “we are committed to a sustainable future”, and that “sustainability is a journey that we are all on together”. Similarly, the New Zealand government – despite ongoing petitions and pressure to revitalise depleted marine environments and ban bottom trawling – continues to fuel the narrative that the New Zealand seafood industry is sustainable, and that the QMS “supports sustainable fishing”.

For example, the latest report on the status of New Zealand’s fish stocks was released in February of this year, around the same time as the NZ-UK free trade agreement was signed. This report stated that “by far the majority of New Zealand’s fish stocks are performing well”. Since it came out, trade industry group Seafood New Zealand has been quick to dispatch articles and press releases to both overseas audiences and platforms at home, driving  home the fact that “New Zealand fisheries and fish stocks [are] highly sustainable”.

However, just what exactly government and industry mean by “sustainable”, when you dig into it, is alarmingly different from what many consumers might assume.

Measuring sustainability

Forgetting about trawlers for a second, the stipulation for a fishery being deemed “sustainable” in New Zealand is guided by the Harvest Strategy Standard (HSS) plan (as enacted in law through the Fisheries Act 1996), under which the only real measure for sustainability is the abundance of a single fish stock. This abundance is measured against a species’ “natural”, or pre-depletion biomass levels (which typically means fish populations up until the 1970s-1980s). The legislation largely ignores any broader environmental impacts, such as marine ecosystem damage brought on by overfishing and industrial fishing methods.

The HSS has four ‘performance measures’ built into it. Of these, the ‘soft limit’ (for which the default figure is 20% of the natural biomass) is the key measure to determine whether a stock’s fishery is ‘sustainable’ or not. This means that any stock that is likely to remain at a biomass level above the soft limit, if current fishing levels are maintained, is deemed to have “no sustainability risks”.

To put it another way: as long as a fish stock seems ‘more likely than not’ to remain at about 20% of the population of what it was, say, 50 years ago, when it was deemed ‘unfished’, then things can go on as they are.

That’s a pretty low bar, but, it gets worse.

The fourth performance measure in the HSS is the overfishing threshold, which refers to a “rate of extraction” (i.e., how many fish are allowed to be caught) at which it is likely to cause stocks to diminish in the future. However, this measure in itself doesn’t necessitate any action in terms of reducing legal catch limits – at least not until the overfishing actually reduces stock numbers to below the soft limit.

Stock assessment

However, according to that February 2022 report – and despite the industry and government continuously waxing lyrical about the scientific data that forms the foundation of the QMS – only 67% of total stocks (by catch landed) could be assessed. That means that approximately one-third of all commercial catch landed in New Zealand, equating to about 150,000 tonnes – or an amount roughly similar to the total national fisheries production of such seafaring countries as Portugal and Finland – lacked sufficient data to be “scientifically evaluated”. This suggests that there are a lot of things going unsaid, and unchecked, in New Zealand fisheries.

Even worse, though, is perhaps what the report does say: in claiming that 85% of stocks (that were able to be assessed) have “no sustainability risks”, 15% of the stocks can be said to “have sustainability risks”. Unsurprisingly, when you delve into the 1,888-page Fisheries Assessment Plenary on which the report was based, these “unsustainable” stocks include the largest fisheries for some of New Zealand’s most important species, including snapper [p. 1551-2] and blue cod [p. 192]. Population declines and industry-induced vulnerability to the effects of climate change (p. 609) in New Zealand’s largest single fishery, hoki, are also mentioned.

To put those stocks “with sustainability risks” in monetary terms, the New Zealand seafood industry – which is worth more than £2 billion annually – can be said to have made approximately £120 million in profits last year by selling fish from stocks that, by their own admission, are probably being fished at unsustainable levels. To put this in perspective: £120 million is approximately ten times the amount that the entire industry pays in annual levies (£12 million) to fund the fisheries research upon which the system relies (a fact that the industry continues to bemoan).

It can be easy to get swept away by the sustainability story behind New Zealand seafood; and New Zealand does, luckily, have some small-scale operators pushing for things to be done in a more genuinely sustainable way. Overall, however, just like when selecting sustainable options from closer to home, it’s worth questioning where it actually comes from, and how it was caught.

For UK consumers over the coming years, that might mean thinking twice before lurching into the wide adoption of big New Zealand seafood imports.

We share some initial thoughts on the Government’s food strategy.

Patrick Holden, Sustainable Food Trust CEO, said: “This mix of half measures and future promises misses a huge opportunity to transform the way we grow and eat food. The strategy creates a false choice between food security and the environment. There is a win-win with the right mix of policies and incentives. An ambitious Food Strategy could build national food security, fight climate change, protect nature and improve our health, if it incentivises a different type of sustainable farming – one that is in harmony with nature, reducing the reliance on volatile food imports and Russian fertiliser.”

On farming and nature

While the food strategy does acknowledge that regenerative farming can have an important role to play, the overall trajectory of the strategy is towards intensification of food production, increased reliance on technological innovation and gene editing as well as a big emphasis on global trade. Our new report, Feeding Britain from the Ground Up, suggests a radically different approach, arguing that we should farm in harmony with nature, reducing chemical inputs by returning to mixed farming across the country. The strategy and wider government policy has seemingly abandoned its more ambitious proposals for nature restoration as the Ukraine crisis has pushed the need for food security front and centre. But it is a false choice between food security and environmental protection, and even between farming and rewilding. There is a win-win if done in the right way.

On metrics

It is good to see the need for a Food Data Transparency Partnership included in the strategy, based on consistent and defined metrics . These metrics must empower farmers to drive change. They must also extend beyond health and animal welfare and take a holistic approach to include all aspects of farming and food sustainability. The same is true for eco-labelling. These should not focus on single issues (such as carbon) and must be underpinned by common metrics agreed by the whole sector. It is imperative we give citizens an honest and full picture so that they can make informed food choices.

On local food and supply chain infrastructure

It was good to see proposals for public sector food to be procured from local, sustainable sources. However, there was no mention of the short supply chain infrastructure needed to enable this. The decline of small abattoirs, for example, is threatening the supply of local, traceable meat. In order to support a vibrant, sustainable and local food system, the Government urgently needs to invest in short supply chain infrastructure and address disproportionate or unhelpful regulation. Furthermore, local, sustainably produced food should be made accessible to all, and while it’s a great starting point, the Government should not focus solely on public sector procurement but should support citizens to buy locally through investment in diverse, local businesses, infrastructure and retail.

On school food and food education

While we welcome calls for a ‘school food revolution’, Defra needs to be more specific in promoting fresh, locally sourced, seasonal produce with school menus that reflect that. In many parts of the country, there are opportunities to link farmers and fishers to their local school networks. This cuts out costs related to transportation and other ‘middle’ costs between the producers and the schools. Catering contracts will need greater flexibility to allow for this. A review of the policy and delivery for the School Fruit and Vegetable Scheme should consider how much of the scheme is procured from the UK as currently, the majority comes from overseas. There is potential to regionalise the scheme and connect producers more closely to their schools and even to offer visits to see where the fruit and veg is coming from and how it is grown. None of the fruit or veg comes from organic sources at present and it would be good to see how this could change and what incentives could enable this. We need a longer-term vision for greater fruit and vegetable production in the UK that the School Fruit and Vegetable Scheme is wholly aligned to, along with other school catering contracts.

Food should be seen as more than as just an area of learning within Design and Technology. There are many opportunities to teach food education in a cross-curricular way that goes well beyond Design Technology into Science, Maths, Geography, History, Art and PSHE (Personal, Social, Health Education). This holistic approach, which could link the story of our food and the systems that produce it with what constitutes a healthy diet, is surely the way forward. The reference to the ‘Invisibility of Nature’ in Henry Dimbleby’s report needs a higher profile in this learning too, as our natural world is in crisis right now and education must play a key role in its long-term recovery.

The £5 million allocated to deliver a school cooking revolution could go much further. Knowing six basic, healthy recipes by the end of secondary school is not enough. We are disappointed there is no proposal to expand Universal Infant Free School Meals – these should be expanded to the whole of primary education, as was originally proposed.

We asked a few of our speakers from the upcoming Fir Farm Conference 2022 to share their thoughts on the issues that matter most to them – true cost accounting, sustainability, animal welfare, and of course, farming.

Paula Daniels

Paula Daniels is Co-founder, Chief of What’s Next, and founding Chair of the Center for Good Food Purchasing, a social enterprise non-profit founded in July of 2015 as a national spin-off from the Los Angeles Food Policy Council, which Paula founded in 2011. The Center for Good Food Purchasing uses the power of procurement to create a transparent and equitable food system that prioritises the health and well-being of people, animals and the environment, through the nationally-networked adoption and implementation of the Good Food Purchasing Program by large institutions. There are numerous institutions in many large cities across the US enrolled in this Program.

True cost accounting can be a vital tool in reforming our food system – how do we leverage it more effectively to drive real change in food production?

True cost accounting is important in shining a light on the otherwise hidden costs in the food system, so that businesses and policy makers can better design their practices and policies.

Why are local food economies important in our food system and how do we best foster their development?

Local food systems are a key aspect of supply chain resilience in times of disruption, as well as important frameworks for supporting local economic development and small businesses.

What’s most important in the creation of a healthy food secure future?

Recognising the public interest in a healthy equitable food system, and designing supportive policies accordingly.

John Gilliland

John Gilliland is Director of Global Agriculture and Sustainability at Devenish, an innovative livestock nutrition company with a focus on sustainable food solutions. He was recently appointed Professor of Practice in Agriculture and Sustainability at Queens University Belfast. John has previously been an award-winning farmer in Ireland, President of the Ulster Farmers Union, a policy adviser for Devolved, National and European Governments on Biotechnology, Climate Change and Sustainability, and chair of Defra’s Rural Climate Change Forum for seven years. For the last six years he has chaired the N. Ireland Expert Working Group on Sustainable Land Management and is currently a member of the EU Commission’s Mission Board Assembly on Soil Health & Food in Brussels.

How would you define ‘sustainability’ in food and farming, especially from a global perspective?

Sustainability means different things to different people. For me, it is about using the breadth of human intelligence to produce food and manage our natural environment in a manner that improves human health, environmental health and profitability, all at the same time, and that allows us to feed 8 billion people, by 2050.

What’s most important in how we evaluate the impact and sustainability of our farming systems?

If you can’t measure, you will never be able to manage your impact on sustainability. Core to the work I am leading is measuring farming systems at the landscape level, then repeating the measurements on a regular basis to inform and communicate the journey of improving sustainability of our farming systems.

What do you see as the three most important changes that need to happen in the way we farm, if we are to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees?

Firstly, there is no silver bullet. To date, we have been very good at bringing forward single innovations without any understanding of how they impact the other public goods we provide. Research and education into systems-based solutions that optimises the synergies and minimises perverse outcomes will be fundamental. Secondly, knowing where your business is on its journey to Net Zero – knowing your gross emissions, your gross sequestration and ultimately your net carbon position and what tools are needed to improve the net position over time, is vital. Lastly, building resilience into your food production system that will allow you to weather both the direct and indirect impacts of ever-increasing numbers and severity of extreme weather events will be essential.

Marisa Heath      

Marisa Heath has 17 years of experience as a policy adviser and campaigner, working on issues relating to food, farming, animal health and welfare in the UK and has also worked internationally on agroforestry projects. She is Cabinet member for Environment at Surrey County Council responsible for the Climate Change Delivery Plan and is involved in numerous projects around local food, land management and nature recovery. She has a strong interest in future food systems and the role of better meat, plant-based food and sustainable production. She authored the ‘Future for Small Abattoirs’ report from the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Animal Welfare and currently co-chairs the Small Abattoir Task and Finish Group which works closely with Defra as well as running a Trade Alliance that seeks to set core animal welfare and environment standards for UK trade policy on agriculture.

What are your key concerns in relation to animal welfare among farm animals in the UK?

The increasing shift to industrial farming where animals are kept indoors and the demand for cheap protein in light of the cost of living, means people will not shift to ‘better’ meat where animals are reared on pasture as part of regenerative farming. Also, as consolidation continues to take place, animals will be transported further within the UK and often moved through collection points and, whilst this does not mean welfare standards are not met, it does raise the scope for stress and potential welfare issues to arise.

Why are small abattoirs important to our food security?

It is recognised that there are different business models for livestock rearing and slaughter. Farmers who are producing for large retailers who either own their own processing plant or have strong affiliations with large processors, will not have their needs – mainly based around throughput – met in small abattoirs. Smaller producers who are producing for specific markets will prefer to use small local abattoirs and will find their needs are better met within them. There needs to be choice to enable a strong functional and sustainable market in the UK that will ensure food security. The critical role small abattoirs can play in providing ‘private kill’ and the easy return of livestock products to farmers and collaborators to add value to those products, should be recognised as key to enabling the evolution of a self-sustainable rural farming economy, which is a real part of food security.

How do we protect British animal welfare standards in the face of trade deals?

Foremost, we need a trade policy that protects UK standards within every trade deal and makes it clear what is not acceptable in regards to imports via the setting of core standards, so farmers feel secure that the standards to which they are producing will not be undercut by cheap imports. We have good animal welfare standards in the UK and there is consideration of going further, with the potential ban on caged hens for example, but we can go even further through local food production and creating a risk based regulatory system that supports domestic local production. Clearly, we do not want to jeopardise our trading position, however there are measures which can be taken to support smaller producers and provide food aligned with even higher animal welfare including short transport distances and quick processing. 

Sarah Langford

Author and former barrister Sarah Langford has returned to her roots in farming. Leaving her life in London to run a small family farm with her husband, she wrote the recently published Rooted: Stories of Life, Land, and a Farming Revolution, which weaves her own learning as a farmer in with the narratives of farmers that she learned from. Rooted offers a picture of 21^st century farming and the difficulties farmers face, but it also looks at the great potential of regenerative practices to map a path to a sustainable farming future.

What have you learned from your land?

It taught me to see. Once you learn how to look at soil, wildflowers, the birds and creatures that live upon the land, even weeds, everything looks different. You can never go back.

You grew up in the countryside – what has changed about it since you moved back to the country?

I grew up with grandparents in the countryside where we spent all our spare time. They were in Hampshire, which is full of hills and woods. When I moved back to the countryside as an adult I did so to Suffolk, on the other side of the country. I’d never seen such huge flat fields before. Walking through a field where you genuinely couldn’t see where it ended or began was quite a strange experience.

Do you want your children to grow up to be farmers?

I would love them to have work which is creative, purposeful, intellectually challenging, enterprising and meaningful. So, I suppose, yes.

Neonicotinoids are the most widely used insecticides worldwide and despite being banned in the UK and EU, exemptions are being granted for their use. We also continue to manufacture and export large tonnages of them to other countries and import food crops that have been grown with them. SFT policy director, Richard Young, looks into the facts and draws some sobering conclusions.

Two related news items caught my attention last week. The first was a story in The Guardian claiming the Environmental Protection Agency in the US is poised to permit the use of neonicotinoids for another 15 years, despite recognising the negative environmental impacts this is likely to have. The second was coverage in Farmers Guardian confirming that the UK Government has agreed to allow the use of thiamexotham, a neonicotinoid sold under the brand name of Cruiser SB, to treat sugar beet seed this year.

Neonicotinoids were first introduced into agriculture in 1991. Globally, they are used on 140 different crops including oilseed rape, sunflowers, corn, soyabeans and cotton. They have become the most widely used insecticides, but prior to the EU ban, their principal use in the UK was to control pests on oilseed rape and sugar beet crops. As readers of the SFT newsletter will be aware, they were finally banned throughout the EU in 2018. This was despite concern being raised by PAN UK in 2012. The ban was only achieved after painstaking research and analysis by scientists in many countries, including by Professor Dave Goulson in the UK. Campaigns were also mounted by Friends of the Earth, the Soil Association, Greenpeace and other organisations.

As so often in the case of pesticides, the onus fell on groups and individuals in society to provide incontrovertible evidence of harm, rather than on the manufacturers to prove beyond doubt that they were safe to use. That was no easy task, due to the influence of other factors, but over time the scientific evidence of their harmful effects on honey bees, bumble bees and other important wild pollinators, such as butterflies, steadily mounted. There is also emerging evidence that they affect some insect-eating birds. That said, they appear to be less toxic to mammals and other vertebrates than many other insecticides.

In the ongoing research, discussions and debates on the role of livestock in our food systems, the SFT acknowledges the complexity of the arguments being made from a wide range of perspectives.

We believe that people have the absolute right to choose their own diets, especially those who for ethical, health or environmental concerns decide to eat a vegan or vegetarian diet. In the spirit of open exchange, the SFT feels that there are important issues to be explored around the question of moving to a wholly plant-based diet, globally, and in this piece, researcher Robert Barbour considers this in relation to the broader need for food security.

How are we going to feed an increasingly hungry planet, without crippling the life support systems on which we depend? It’s an existentially important question, the solution to which will require action on a myriad of fronts. Yet, whenever this issue is raised, there tends to be just one topic that dominates the discussion: the role of livestock.

There are very good reasons for this, of course. Anyone with even a passing interest in the subject will be well aware of the many ways in which livestock affect human and planetary health. But while there is no denying the immense harm that intensive production continues to cause, livestock can also be a tremendous force for good. Put simply, the social and environmental impacts of rearing animals for food are complicated and context-dependent – and nowhere is this more evident than with the relationship between livestock and food security (a measure of the extent to which people have ready access to a nutritious supply of food).

The role of animal-sourced foods

Animal-sourced foods (taken here to mean meat, milk and eggs from livestock, but not fish or wild game) are a key component of diets the world over. They supply us with a third of our protein and significant quantities of other essential nutrients that can sometimes be relatively difficult to obtain from plants – just one of the reasons why livestock are particularly vital in parts of the developing world where undernutrition remains a debilitating problem. Livestock can also produce food from grasslands and other resources that humans can’t cultivate or eat, while the manure they supply (although perverted into little more than a toxic waste stream in many intensive farming systems) remains a key and sustainable source of fertility across millions of acres of cropland – a positive relationship that could be reinstated across much of the developed world if livestock and cropping systems were to once again become better integrated.

Food-feed competition

At the same time however, the way in which we currently rear much of our livestock represents a massive and unsustainable drain upon the global food supply. The reason for this is ‘food-feed competition’, an often-overlooked trade-off between intensive livestock and crop production, brought about by the increasingly widespread practice of feeding human edible crops to animals. It’s an approach that generally improves the productivity of livestock systems, due to the high energy and protein concentrations of arable crops, and which many would argue also improves their sustainability, as it allows farmers to increase production while using less land and producing fewer methane emissions per kilo of product.

While this has enabled us to keep satisfying our near-insatiable appetite for animal-sourced foods, it comes at a heavy cost. All livestock (even pigs and poultry, which are often seen as being more sustainable because they can better convert grain into food) are highly inefficient at converting human edible crops into meat, milk and eggs, and this means we have ended up in a situation where vast quantities of calories and nutrients potentially available for human consumption are instead lost from the food system. The scale of this wastefulness is frightening: 40% of global arable land is now used for feed crop production, an area which, if it were to be used instead for human food cropping, could feed an additional 4 billion people.

This isn’t to say that giving any human edible crops to livestock automatically constitutes a crime against food security. Livestock can still make a positive contribution to our food supply when they are being fed a very limited quantity of human edible ingredients, as is the case as a global average with cattle, the majority of which obtain much of their feed from grass. (Pigs and poultry, on the other hand, represent a net drain on the world’s protein supply, as their inability to obtain most of their feed from grass – even when reared extensively – means they are much more reliant upon arable crops. This holds true, of course, for intensive beef systems as well.) Practical constraints, such as difficulties in meeting quality specifications due to poor harvest conditions, also mean that the feed market can sometimes be the only viable option for crop producers. In any case, food security is not the only lens through which to judge the sustainability of feeding edible crops to livestock. Nevertheless, there is no getting away from the fact that the vast area of arable land currently used for growing feed crops constitutes an unacceptably wasteful use of a finite resource which, when combined with the ongoing surge in demand for animal-sourced foods, threatens the conversion of the world’s remaining wildlands – an environmental catastrophe we must avoid at all costs.

Food-feed competition, therefore, represents a massive flaw in the argument that, for environmental reasons, we should intensify livestock production even further, and shift from eating red meat to pork and chicken, a case that has been made by the Government’s advisory body, the Committee on Climate Change. What, though, are the alternatives? One solution is to stop eating animal-sourced foods altogether. But while going vegan would clearly resolve the problem of food-feed competition, this argument has its own blind spot when it comes to the relationship between livestock and food security, in that it fails to account for the ability of livestock to produce nutrient-dense foods from grass and other feedstuffs, such as crop by-products and food waste, that we can’t or don’t want to eat.

The value of human inedible feeds

This so-called ‘upcycling’ of human inedible feeds is what livestock do best, and despite the widespread use of arable feed crops, it’s still a role that many livestock (especially in ruminant systems) fulfil today. The precise significance of this role to the global food supply is difficult to assess, as disentangling the relative importance of different feeds is not straightforward. Fortunately, a few studies have attempted to calculate the productive potential of a scenario where livestock are entirely limited to feeds that humans can’t eat, their numbers and output determined by the current grassland area and availability of crop and food waste. These studies estimate that globally, somewhere between 7-18 grams of protein per person per day could be provided by ruminants reared solely on grass – a much higher figure than the 1-gram total that is sometimes used, incorrectly, to disparage the contribution grasslands currently make to our food supply. (Their exact contribution isn’t known, but it is probable that a high proportion of the 13 grams of protein per capita produced by ruminants today comes from grass). Add the contribution from crop by-products and food waste, and feeding livestock solely on inedible feeds could produce somewhere between 9-23 grams of protein per person per day (around 20-50% of the world’s total requirements), as well as 10% of our energy and iron needs, 20% of our calcium and zinc needs, and a massive 75% of our vitamin B12 needs.

These are undeniably significant numbers, with the critical point being that they represent an additional and entirely complementary supply of food to that produced from croplands. There is, however, a catch. While the figures above would enable a much-needed increase in animal-sourced food consumption in parts of the developing world, they would represent a major reduction in the West. In Europe, for instance, intake would at least halve, from the current figure of 51 grams of livestock protein per person per day. Which animal-sourced foods would be hit hardest is less certain as this would partly depend upon how feed is allocated, although it’s safe to assume there would be an especially large drop in chicken consumption, the livestock species perhaps most reliant on arable crops and least suited to consuming waste feeds. Ruminants, on the other hand, would continue to be important because of their unique ability to turn grass into food, meaning red meat and dairy consumption probably wouldn’t have to decline so steeply, at least in countries like the UK which are particularly well-suited to grazing livestock.

Nevertheless, even where it proves possible (and desirable) to maintain consumption of some ruminant products, we will still have to eat much less in the way of chicken and pork. The simple fact remains, then, that if we are to turn the livestock sector into a wholly positive contributor to the food supply, the developed world is going to have to cut down dramatically on the amount of animal-sourced food it eats.

Are livestock an unnecessary environmental burden?

Some people would go even further than this, pointing to studies which have not only have suggested that the world could be fed on a vegan diet, but have also claimed this would use less land and produce fewer emissions than any scenario involving livestock. For these reasons, it is argued, a food secure future does not require livestock, and so we would be better off without them.

It’s a seemingly compelling argument, but does it stand up to scrutiny? To be clear, this question relates to the outcomes of a global conversion to veganism, not to the rights of  individuals to be eating a healthy, sustainable and ethically-sourced diet, whether or not it includes any animal-sourced foods, and it goes without saying that people have the absolute right to choose what diet works best for them. A full exploration of the environmental credentials of different planetary diets is beyond the scope of this article, but a few issues are worth raising here.

The key point to make is that a vegan future would lack the environmental benefits that well-managed livestock can deliver. Probably the clearest example of this comes with the vital role grazing livestock play in supporting a wide range of habitats and species. When integrated with crop production, livestock can also play a hugely beneficial role in the restoration of degraded arable soils, and in reducing nitrogen fertiliser and other agrochemical use, by enabling systems that generate and recycle much of their own fertility through rotations designed to break weed, pest and disease cycles naturally. In addition, although a vegan future may require less land overall, a food system including livestock fed entirely on inedible feedstuffs would only require 75% of the arable land needed for a vegan diet because of the additional supply of calories and nutrients made available, and so might provide more space for lower-yielding but less destructive systems of crop production.

A lesser reliance upon arable land might also afford a little more breathing space to deal with the threats posed to crop production by climate change, which brings us back to the question of whether livestock are necessary for future food security. Climate change is already hurting crop production in many parts of the world, and it’s a problem that is only going to get worse. The livestock sector will not be spared this trauma either – so becoming a society of carnivores is clearly not the solution: the point, however, is that with climate chaos increasingly threatening our ability to produce food of any type, surely it makes sense to have as wide a range of resources to call upon as possible? The worldwide adoption of a diet reliant upon an arable area confined to just 12% of the world’s ice-free land surface, which neglects a source of food that could provide us with 20-50% of our protein requirements and which would economically disenfranchise the 1.3 billion people whose livelihoods depend upon livestock, would therefore seem a risky prospect, especially in those regions less well-suited to crop production because of their poor climate and challenging topography.

Food quality and local perspectives

This local food security perspective becomes especially important when we look at food quality, rather than just quantity. Perhaps the clearest example of this comes with how different regions might achieve a sufficient intake of all the essential amino acids (the building blocks of protein) on a vegan diet. The only crop grown in globally significant quantities that has a complete amino acid profile comparable to that of animal-sourced foods is soya, which would therefore have to assume a critical role in the protein supply. This is particularly true when it comes to achieving a sufficient intake of lysine, the amino acid most difficult to obtain in a plant-based scenario. Soya production could certainly achieve this at a global level – in a sense it already does, it’s just that most is currently fed to livestock – but there is a major problem with this approach. Most of the world’s production is currently concentrated in Brazil, Argentina and the US, and while there is undoubted potential for continued expansion in more temperate climates (including, at least to some extent, the UK, where the area under cultivation has recently risen sharply), it’s unlikely that it will become a viable commercial crop in all areas. In the UK for instance, soya can’t readily be grown further north than the Humber.

Synthetic amino acids

It goes without saying that a diet which may necessitate imports for the supply of a key nutrient, raises some grave national food security concerns. Is there, then, an alternative way to provide a vegan diet sufficient in lysine in regions not suitable for soya production? Synthetically produced amino acids are one possibility with undoubted potential, although it’s far from certain that the public would be happy for these products to form a key component of their diet – just one of the reasons why lab-grown foods more generally may not be the silver bullet some claim. Another option is to meet our amino acid requirements by consuming a range of crops which, although individually deficient in one or more amino acids, when eaten in combination enable a complete protein intake. However, a recent paper which modelled this possibility in Scotland – a country with relatively little croppable land – suggests that while it would be theoretically possible to achieve a sufficient intake of all essential amino acids from a mixture of domestically grown cereals and pulses, in reality this would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, due to the various practical constraints involved in growing the peas and beans necessary for supplying lysine.

Whether it would be socially and environmentally sustainable for arable-poor countries like Scotland to achieve protein self-sufficiency without the use of any livestock is even more questionable. Of course, 100% self-sufficiency is probably not an achievable (let alone desirable) aim for any country, and there are at any rate a host of other factors unrelated to livestock that are critical to ensuring national food security. Nevertheless, as climate change increasingly disrupts the global food trade, maintaining at least some level of domestic self-sufficiency is going to become an increasingly key consideration.

Determining the value of livestock to food security is, then, in part a question of resilience, especially in the face of climate change and the slew of problems it will inevitably exacerbate. Rising undernutrition, increased barriers to trade, steadily degrading arable soils and declining crop yields: all of these are likely outcomes over the coming century that point strongly towards a continued need for livestock – providing, of course, the animals are reared in ways that augment, and therefore relieve the pressure upon, what will be an increasingly stressed supply of plant foods. Achieving this positive vision of livestock production won’t be easy. Quite apart from anything else, it will require a major reduction in intensively produced animal-sourced food consumption in a society hooked upon cheap meat. If we succeed, however, then we will have taken a major step towards building a food secure and sustainable future.

Photo: Angus D. Birditt

The rows of colourful seed packets on display in large garden centres in the UK may look as well stocked and tempting as ever, and big seed companies too, continue to offer a wide choice of conventional, mostly hybrid varieties. But gardeners and growers looking for open pollinated and organic seed are having a harder time.

The seed market is highly concentrated and there are only a few independent companies producing and selling organic seeds, several of which are based in the EU. Buying from them used to be quick and easy: place an order and wait for a few days for the delivery to arrive.

Brexit has fundamentally changed things: apart from reams of paperwork to be filled in, there is now also the need for a phytosanitary certificate. ‘Large companies will have a dedicated team dealing with EU orders,’ says Sinéad Fortune, programme manager at the Gaia Foundation, ‘for small seed companies with just two or three staff it’s really hard, dealing with the paperwork is a full-time job.’ Deliveries take a lot longer these days, too. Fortune knows of one case where it took four months for the order to arrive. ‘That has a knock-on effect for growers,’ she says, ‘the planting season may be over by the time the seeds arrive.’

Extra work and extra costs

The Seed Co-operative produces and sells organic, biodynamic and open pollinated seed in the UK and Ireland. ‘We are working to extend the network of seed producers here in the UK, but we still have to import a substantial amount from the EU,’ says Seed Co-op chair Henry L’Estrange. And doing so has been extremely time consuming and expensive. Costs have increased by a factor of 10, says L’Estrange, and a delivery that used to arrive within a week now takes six. Once the order has been placed, the EU seller instructs a courier who delivers the seed parcel to a UK port; after checking the paperwork, the port authorities hand the consignment to customs, and once they have completed their work the parcel is released to another courier for final delivery.

The problem is that things can go wrong at any of these stages. Any attempt to locate a delivery can fast turn into a nightmare of unanswered emails and/or dealing with friendly but clueless call centre staff. Occasionally whole consignments get lost in the process; L’Estrange says they had one seed order from the EU that was sent, but now cannot be found by the port authorities or customs. A considerable financial loss for the Seed Co-op.

Since January, all goods arriving from the EU have to be physically checked in the UK, a requirement the British government postponed several times in order to ease transition. It is too early to say whether delivery times will increase further, but L’Estrange worries: seeds should be stored in a temperature-controlled environment, keeping them for weeks in a hot warehouse at a port could affect their viability.

Things will get worse

In July 2022, additional border checks for organic goods coming from the EU will come into force, says Lee Holdstock, supply chain business development manager at the Soil Association. The organic certificate will be added to the existing requirement for phytosanitary documents, export and customs declarations. Organic goods from the EU will be treated like any organic product coming from a ‘third country’; even with the right paperwork the consignment cannot just be delivered. Instead, there has to be an organically certified ‘first consignee’ – an importer with organic certification – who is authorised to ‘receive’ the shipment from customs and deliver it to the customer. The paperwork is extremely complex, says Holdstock, it even requires details such as the registration number of the vehicle used for transporting the goods in question.

Coordinate and plan ahead

Dealing with seed imports from the EU since Brexit is ‘slow, tricky and a pain,’ says Kate McEvoy, co-founder of Real Seeds, which carries open-pollinated seeds, both organically certified and conventional.  Since the start of the pandemic, seed companies have seen demand grow exponentially. There are delays and shortages, says McEvoy, but it is hard to say what is the result of Brexit and what is caused by the pandemic – people are off sick or self-isolating everywhere, and with increased demand things just take longer. Import costs have increased slightly, maybe by 10%, but certainly not tenfold, she says. And McEvoy is optimistic: ‘In one or two years everybody will know what they are doing, there will be clarity how exactly the forms have to be filled and things will return to normal.’

Real Seeds has some twenty years of experience importing seeds from the US – for which ‘third country’ regulations apply. After Brexit, the same now goes for imports from EU countries. ‘We had a fair idea what needs doing,’ says McEvoy. But she mentions stricter controls for notifiable diseases such as the Tomato Brown Rugose Fruit Virus (ToBRFV) which will make imports more difficult.

These new mandatory APHA (Animal and Plant Health Agency) checks will be prohibitive, says Tom Hartley, Senior Certification Officer at the Soil Association. Because of Brexit, EU plant health certificates are being replaced by a UK plant passport. And Britain no longer accepts EU seed health certificates – instead, there is a growing list of varieties which have to undergo testing by APHA before they can be released from customs. This adds considerable costs, which may not be a big burden for large seed companies but disadvantages small sellers ordering modest amounts of seed from different varieties. The regulation is relatively new and there is little information on how much seed APHA will require for testing – the estimates vary from 20,000 to 50,000 tomato seeds, for example. It is unclear what tests will cost and by how much this will delay imports.

Not so easy: growing seeds in the UK

Theoretically, everything that grows in the UK can be grown for seed, says Phil Sumption who works with the Organic Research Centre, the Organic Growers Alliance and the Seed Cooperative. Until now, many UK seed companies had outsourced a lot of their seed production to countries in southern and eastern Europe because it is warmer and drier there: seeds have a better chance to fully ripen and the risk of disease that comes with damp conditions is reduced. Ideally, many UK growers would like to have open pollinated and locally adapted seeds, but production costs in the UK for some varieties will be a lot higher. ‘We will not be able to produce 100% of all the seeds we need in this country’, says Sinéad Fortune from Gaia, ‘not because it is impossible, but some Mediterranean vegetable seeds and some herbs just can’t be produced efficiently here.’

Real Seeds is working with a number of UK growers and Kate McEvoy hopes they will be able to increase the amounts they produce. The Seed Co-op is already growing as much and as many varieties in the UK as possible. But it is challenging, says L’Estrange. ‘Some seeds are easier to grow than others,’ he says. It takes two seasons to grow leeks for seed, growing carrot seeds is difficult because they are tiny and scatter easily…Most seed producers have one or two varieties they really like to grow, often it’s a retirement project for people who ran a market garden’, he says. ‘At present, there is no money to be made with seed production, but if we want to scale up production, we have to make it financially viable.’ And that is extremely difficult: more growers need to be trained, they have to have access to certified organic land, and they need space for drying, equipment for cleaning and sorting – all of which costs money.

And yet more Brexit costs…

As it turns out, a ‘UK plant passport’ is not only needed for imported seeds but for home grown ones too. It is ‘an official document you need to move plants…within Great Britain’, it says on the UK government website. ‘We needed to register as a professional operator last year,’ says L’Estrange. The licence has to be renewed annually – for a fee, of course. But in addition to that, before seeds from UK growers can be sold, they have to be inspected and meet standards for the UK plant passport. Not all vegetable varieties are on the Defra test list yet, but more species are being added and eventually all seed will need to be tested.

The additional costs put pressure on seed growers to produce bigger volumes of fewer varieties of seeds. ‘In future, we will try to get our tomato seeds from one grower rather than five,’ says L’Estrange, ‘It may also mean we will grow larger quantities of each variety, but only do so every couple of years and aim to bank more seeds to spread the costs.’ Yet another challenge seed growers have to contend with and an additional cost factor to consider for those contemplating growing seeds for a living.

Please note than an earlier version of this piece stated that Real Seeds also produced hybrid seed; this has been corrected as Real Seeds does not produce hybrid seed.

In a press release published today, the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics has drawn attention to a developing divergence between food production standards in the UK and the EU. From today, livestock farmers in the EU’s remaining 27 member countries will face greater restrictions on the use of antibiotics than farmers in the UK.

Intensive livestock farmers in the EU will no longer be permitted to use antibiotics routinely or to compensate for poor hygiene or animal welfare. Such use will, however, continue to be allowed in the UK.

As concern has grown about the alarming rise of antibiotic-resistant infections globally, farmers in the UK have managed to reduce their use of antibiotics by 49% since 2014 and many farmers are continuing to go further. Yet use per pig in the UK is still 250% higher than in the Netherlands and Denmark, two major pork-producing countries.

Of even greater concern to UK consumers – while the EU has also banned the importation of meat from countries like the US and Australia, where the use of growth-promoting antibiotics long-banned in the EU and UK is still permitted – the UK government has so far refused to follow suit. This inevitably gives rise to concern that the government gives a higher priority to rushed trade deals than to the safety of UK consumers.

This is an issue which we exposed in our report, ‘Maximum Growth: Whatever the Cost’ in December 2020.

SFT Policy Director, Richard Young said, ‘Antibiotic resistance is a major, developing problem caused by the overuse of antibiotics in both human and veterinary medicine. The Sustainable Food Trust fully supports calls for the UK to keep its veterinary medicines legislation fully in line with the EU. This would help to protect UK consumers and it would also help to prevent UK farmers being undercut by imports produced in other countries with antibiotics used to make animals grow faster. If this is allowed to happen, decades of hard-won progress could go into reverse. UK farmers could be forced to increase their use of antibiotics, in order to compete and stay in business, rather than reduce them further, which is what needs to happen.’

Press Release

From today the UK will have weaker farm antibiotic regulations than the EU. Farmers on the continent will no longer be allowed to give preventative group antibiotic treatments or use antibiotics to mask poor living conditions and standards for farm animals. This will remain legal in the UK. The Alliance to Save our Antibiotics says this threatens to undermine recent improvements in the UK and increases the risk of antibiotic resistance.

New legislation in the EU has banned all forms of routine antibiotic use for farm animals. They have also banned imports of meat, dairy, fish and eggs that have been produced using antibiotics to stimulate rapid growth in the animals.

Antibiotic resistance is increasing at a faster rate than previously realised and, as reported in The Lancet in 2019, it was directly responsible for the deaths of more than one and a quarter million people worldwide and linked with the deaths of nearly five million people. The overuse of antibiotics in humans and farm animals is to blame for this crisis. Worldwide about two thirds of antibiotics are used in livestock.

The new EU legislation was agreed in 2018, and since then the UK government has repeatedly said that it largely supported the new regulations and would introduce similar laws here. However, over three years later the Government has still not published its own legislative proposals for ending excessive farm antibiotic use. This leaves the UK exposed and means that rules here are weaker. It remains legal in the UK to:

• give antibiotics to farm animals routinely, rather than when they are sick or have an infection
• give preventative group treatments to farm animals
• give antibiotics to farm animals to compensate for inadequate welfare standards, lack of care or poor hygiene
• import animal foods produced with antibiotic growth promoters

Campaigners are calling for the UK government to honour its repeated commitments and the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics (ASOA) has written to Environment Secretary George Eustice MP urging the Government to act swiftly to improve the UK’s farm antibiotic laws in line with the EU.

Cóilín Nunan ASOA Scientific Advisor said: ‘British farmers have voluntarily reduced their antibiotic use by 50% in recent years. But much larger cuts can still be achieved if the Government introduces new laws ending preventative antibiotic group treatments and increasing minimum animal health and welfare standards. On the other hand, if the government pursues a trade policy which cuts tariffs on the importation of meat and dairy produced with extremely high antibiotic use, including the use of antibiotic growth promoters, then in order to compete, British farmers could be compelled to reduce their own animal health and welfare standards and increase their use of antibiotics.’

As we near the end of the first week of COP26, I thought it would be worth reflecting on what has been a busy but productive few days.

Late last week we put out a press briefing entitled ‘Why is food and farming missing in action at COP26?’ This was also the name of the session we hosted at Goals House on Tuesday morning alongside US Farmers and Ranchers in Action, WWF and Regen10.

As arguably the most significant nature based solution to climate change, it seemed to us completely absurd that this wasn’t being addressed on the main agenda. However, I’m pleased to report that the message seems to have got through. We’ve heard it coming from all sides, from smallholder farmers to the CEOs of companies like McDonalds and Mars – it must be front and centre at COP27 and we must start making global commitments to transition agriculture away from our current extractive and exploitative models to circular and regenerative alternatives.

I was sitting in a session yesterday being moderated by James Harding, Editor of Tortoise Media. On the panel were Ertharin Cousin, former Executive Director of the UN World Food Programme and Hayat Sindi, Chief Scientific Advisor to the Islamic Development Bank. During the session, the idea of COP27 as the COP for food and farming was discussed and James asked the panel what they thought governments around the world should commit to first, if that were to come to fruition. Without meaning to sound critical, because we’re all grappling with this question at the moment and solving the agriculture problem cannot be achieved with one silver bullet solution, neither really had an answer.

From our perspective, to be able to set international targets for agriculture (and be able to monitor how successful these are over time), we first need a common understanding of where we’re starting from and where we need to go. If at COP27, all governments signed up to using a common framework to measure the impact of farming in their respective countries, and an independent body was set up to govern that framework, it could be a huge driver of change. Again, this message is really getting through – in almost every session we’ve attended, the urgent need for common metrics and reporting standards has come up.

With the Global Farm Metric, it feels like we’re making steps towards achieving this. There’s obviously still a long way to go, both in refining the metrics, aligning with other frameworks and building support. But after this week, it’s starting to feel like a globally common framework for measuring the impact of farming is a goal that’s not just in reach, but is fundamental in getting us to the next stage of this conversation.

Just some of the things team SFT (myself, Patrick, Fabia, Megan and May) have been up to this week in Glasgow:

Hosted ‘Why is food and farming missing in action at COP’ at Goals House – this session was live-streamed and can be watched again here.

Took part in a Tortoise Media ‘ThinkIn’ with the Global CEO of McDonalds and CEO of Gro Intelligence, ‘How can we get businesses, governments, suppliers and customers to net zero?’ Watch again here.

Attended a session with Al Gore on ‘The data we need: Enabling climate solutions’. Watch here.

Supported the launch of Regen10.

Attended ‘Financing forward – thinking agriculture’ event at Goals House.

Attended and spoke at a number of sessions for HRH The Prince of Wale’s Sustainable Markets Initiative including sessions on ‘The power of enterprise’ with NatWest Group, ‘How do businesses help their customers understand their impact on the planet?’ with the John Lewis Partnership and co-hosted a session on ‘Shattering barriers to action with data’ with HowGood.

Attended ‘Recipes for resilience’ events organised by Nourish Scotland.

Attended a film screening and panel discussion organised by the Eating Better Alliance.

Attended ‘Sheep for the climate’ with pastoralists from Africa, Mongolia, Europe and Scotland.

Attended ‘Indigenous peoples of the Amazon and climate change: new solutions for energy from the indigenous territories in the Green Zone’.

Attended ‘The need for collaboration to transform global supply chains’ at Goals house with Mars, PepsiCo and Guidehouse.