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

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

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

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

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

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

This brings us back to the current moment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Featured image by Diana Salloum.

In February 2026, a new Prison Food Policy framework comes into force for all prisons across England and Wales. SFT’s Senior Research Officer, Imogen Crossland, takes a closer look at the framework and explores what it could mean for the quality and procurement of the food served in prisons.

For years, prison inspections have painted a bleak picture of the food served behind bars, with serious and wide-ranging consequences for those who eat it. Unlike schools or hospitals, prisons are responsible for providing virtually all the food that people eat, often for months or years at a time. What ends up on the plate, therefore, matters enormously.

However, for the past 16 years, the guidance available to prison governors and their catering teams has been shockingly minimal. A four-page document published in 2010 set out plenty of food safety regulations, but as far as the meals themselves were concerned, the advice was lifted from the ‘Prison Rules’ legislation written in 1999: 

“The food provided shall be wholesome, nutritious, well prepared and served, reasonably varied and sufficient in quantity.”

Unsurprisingly, this did little to guarantee a healthy, balanced and enjoyable diet for people in prison.

That may now be about to change. In July 2025, the Government published an updated Food in Prisons Policy Framework, due to take effect in February 2026. The new document is ten pages long, accompanied by a 106-page guidance manual. While the document’s length does not guarantee better food on the plate, clearly a little more thought has gone into it this time around.

Ultra-processed foods are everywhere – and now some of the world’s biggest food companies are being called to account. Victoria Halliday, the Sustainable Food Trust’s Communications Manager, looks at the evidence behind the health risks, cultural impacts and rising scrutiny of these products.

Recently, the city of San Francisco sued 10 leading food makers over their ultra-processed products. The accusation is that these companies are knowingly selling foods that have been linked to a rise in serious diseases, with comparisons being made to the tobacco industry. These ultra-processed foods (UPFs) make up an ever-increasing proportion of our diets – now accounting for over half of the food we’re eating in the UK and 60% in the US. Given that the latest research shows UPFs are associated with rising ill-health across the globe – from heart disease to depression – this raises urgent questions.

While our appetite for highly processed products is seemingly growing, it’s encouraging that the subject of better food and farming is breaking into both mainstream and fringe cultural discourse, from prime-time TV to post-punk poetry. Confrontational ‘no-wave’ poet and musician, Lydia Lunch (pictured), speaks of how heavily processed foods mean “we end up consuming so much poison”, while Happy Mondays’ lead singer, Bez, talks about replacing processed juices with fresh oranges, “preferably organic so there’s no pesticide sh*t in them”. And the issue is being covered through more mainstream channels too – from Joe Wicks’ Licensed to Kill on Channel 4, to Tim Spector’s popular science work on gut health and diet.

These voices can be incredibly powerful in helping to shape opinions and behaviours – most of us are much more likely to pay attention to a cultural figure whose work or opinions resonate with us, than to the earnest words of NGOs, politicians or policy experts. But whoever might be delivering the message, the facts on UPFs are becoming hard to ignore. As San Francisco’s case makes its way through the courts, it highlights three core claims that sit at the heart of the growing challenge to ultra-processed foods.

1. They’re engineered to be addictive

UPFs are designed to reel us in and keep us hooked. Food companies pour vast sums into engineering foods – or “food-like substances” as author Michael Pollan refers to them – that light up our brains’ reward centres due to their ‘hyper-palatability’. Combinations of high levels of sugar, salt and fat, as well as softer textures and artificially intense flavours, lead to cravings and a desire to eat more – so we end up eating too many calories but not enough nutrients.

The corporations behind these ‘foods’ are using increasingly aggressive tactics to drive consumption, influence research and prevent regulation. Although these companies put a lot of resources into advertising, seeking to persuade us that we have endless choice and novelty, the proliferation of UPFs means that we are, in fact, finding ourselves with fewer and fewer real options – just picture a supermarket shelf stocked with 20 different brands of ultra-processed, plastic-wrapped bread.

While addiction and craving are baked into the UPF business model, we’re encouraged to push blame onto each other (and ourselves) for not making better food choices as individuals. Our personal choices are powerful, and we can advocate for the type of food system we want by directing our spending accordingly – but the reality is that ultra-processed foods make up an ever-increasing proportion of what is available to buy in many supermarkets, especially in lower-income areas. The finger-pointing narrative serves as a smokescreen, diverting our frustration away from those making vast profits at the expense of public health and wellbeing.

2. They’re harming our bodies – and more

UPFs have been linked to harm in all our major body organs. The Lancet recently published major new research showing that the more UPFs we eat, the more likely that we will suffer from obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, Crohn’s disease, kidney disease, depression and many more conditions that result in ill-health and mortality. Professor Carlos Monteiro, one of the Lancet series authors, says this latest evidence “strongly suggests that humans are not biologically adapted to consume [UPFs]”.

Of key importance is the impact that UPFs have upon our gut microbiome – an intricate community of around 100 trillion microbes that live in our intestines. This microbiome is a major modifiable factor in our health and wellbeing, as explained by Tim Spector on the SFT Podcast: “A lot of the chemicals in your brain that transmit mood – and other states like fullness and hunger – are produced as chemicals, as your microbes digest plants. [These chemicals] go up into the bloodstream, into your brain, into the vagus nerve and can make the difference between you feeling happy or sad.” As well as mood, our gut microbiome influences many other aspects of health, including immunity, metabolic health and disease prevention.

While consumption of gut-damaging UPFs is on the up, the amount of fresh produce we consume is falling – a big problem for the health of our gut microbiome which depends upon a wide diversity of fresh foods. Fresh foods that have been grown in healthy soils and without agrichemicals provide us with unique fibres, polyphenols, and nutrients that feed different beneficial gut microbes. Which leads us to…

3. They’re crowding real foods off our plates

UPFs are pushing whole foods off our plates. This is a pattern being repeated across the globe – with the UK and US leading the charge. The impact on our health alone should be reason enough to resist this trend, yet the effects extend beyond this.

Food processing used to be mainly concerned with preservation of whole foods, as well as making them easier to use in the kitchen. Processing techniques varied from place to place – from fermenting cabbage to produce kimchi in Korea, to jellying eels in London’s East End. Now, industrial food processing is increasingly aimed at creating food-derived substances that take the place of whole foods entirely.

Long-established methods like freezing, drying, canning, pasteurisation and salting, largely preserve the natural composition of foods, whereas UPF technologies significantly alter them, mixing in industrial additives like plant protein isolates, mechanically separated meat, modified starches and oils, artificial colours, flavour enhancers, non-sugar sweeteners and emulsifiers.

As UPFs become ever more ubiquitous, they flatten regional food cultures, replacing distinctive local cuisines with the same globally standardised products. Food that once reflected place, season and tradition is reduced to a uniform commodity – weakening local food economies, eroding cooking skills and severing the connection between people and the land that feeds them.

Will 2026 dish up a moment of reckoning for UPFs?

So, as the evidence mounts against UPFs, what comes next? Putting limits on the influence and reach of UPF manufacturers through regulation and taxation is essential; the ban on pre-9pm junk food adverts, which came into effect this week, is a small but significant step forward.

The costs of the harm caused by these foods – or, at least, a significant proportion of those costs – needs to be borne by those who profit from them, not by the public, an approach that the SFT advocates through its True Cost Accounting work. We as citizens also need to be educated, encouraged and supported to make healthier food choices – and those healthy choices must become the easier, more affordable option.

While the outcome is yet to be decided, the San Francisco lawsuit marks a significant escalation in how local governments are challenging food industry practices on public health grounds and could be the beginning of serious change. With mounting evidence, stronger regulation and growing public awareness, UPF manufacturers may finally be facing a crunch point.

Interested to learn more about what’s in our food? We recommend this episode of the SFT Podcast where Patrick Holden and Stuart Oates discuss UPFs, chemicals in food and what we can do about it.

Image credits: Image 1 (Lydia Lunch): Creative Commons; Image 3 (serving food at market): Mike Swigunski

Access to healthy, affordable food is one of the most pressing challenges facing our society today. At the Sustainable Food Trust, we believe that everyone should have the freedom and dignity to make positive food choices, yet millions are held back by a distorted pricing system that makes fresh, healthy foods more expensive than processed and ultra-processed options. Here, food policy expert, Honor May Eldridge, explores the history and politics of food vouchers, the growing potential of social prescribing, and the role farming can play in improving public health and wellbeing.

Fresh fruit and vegetables are not affordable for those who would most benefit from it. Healthy foods are nearly three times as expensive per calorie as less healthy foods. Often, processed foods are the most affordable and accessible foods for low-income communities to purchase while fresh produce is too expensive. In the Global North, healthy foods cost, on average, twice as much per 1000 calories than processed food. For many with limited resources to purchase food and other everyday items, price rapidly becomes the deciding factor and processed (and ultra-processed) foods are cheaper. According to an analysis by the Office for National Statistics’ Consumer Price Index, conducted by the University of Cambridge, the poorest fifth of UK households would need to spend 47% of their disposable income on food to meet the cost of the Government recommended ‘healthy diet’. For households with children in the poorest fifth of the population, 70% of their disposable income would be needed to achieve a healthy diet. This has significant knock-on impacts to public health, with healthy life expectancy in the most deprived tenth of the population, 20 years less for women and 18 years less for men, than in the least deprived tenth. It also has an economic impact since it leads to higher rates of sickness and inability to work, further compounding poverty.

Food vouchers as a tool for change

All citizens should have the freedom to choose what they want to eat and experience the dignity that comes with empowered food choices. There are two key approaches to making healthy food more affordable to low-income consumers. The first approach is food vouchers. Food vouchers have a long history as a policy tool to address hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity by giving targeted groups access to essential goods. Early versions appeared in wartime economies. For example, during the Second World War, ration coupons entitled households to limited amounts of butter, meat and sugar. Outside of wartime, voucher schemes evolved toward supporting vulnerable populations rather than managing scarcity. They became a common feature of welfare systems, used to provide nutritionally important foods like milk, bread or infant formula. In the UK, the Welfare Food Scheme (1940s–2006) provided subsidised milk and vitamins to pregnant women and young children. This was later replaced by the Healthy Start voucher programme that supports low-income pregnant women or families with children under four to purchase healthy foods, such as fresh, frozen and tinned fruit, vegetables and pulses, as well as milk and formula.

In the UK, one of the leading examples of food vouchers today is Rose Vouchers. Run by the Alexandra Rose Charity, it provides families with £4 per child (or £6 for children under one year old) each week, redeemable at local markets and greengrocers. This initiative operates in various locations, but in Tower Hamlets in London, they are committing additional resources to pilot how an increase to £8 per week with an additional £2 per household member, impacts the success of the scheme. Results after eight months showed that 90% of participants experienced improved physical health, GP visits were nearly halved and adherence to the ‘five-a-day’ guideline increased from below 30% to nearly 80%. Additionally, 75% of participants lost or maintained their weight, and over half reported improved mental health.

The politics of food vouchers

The history of food vouchers shows them as tools issued by the state or municipal government to low-income individuals, designed to alleviate poverty by tackling the hunger that stems from it. From their inception, they have been embedded in social welfare policy and are often associated with the political left, which tends to favour redistributive measures to support vulnerable populations.

Nowhere is this more visible than in the United States, which operates the world’s most prominent food voucher scheme. Food stamps were first introduced in the 1930s under Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal but in 1964, they became known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which has since become a cornerstone of US welfare policy. Yet, more recently, SNAP has also become a lightning rod for political debate: advocates on the left point to its proven role in reducing food insecurity, improving health outcomes and stimulating local economies, while critics – particularly on the right – frame it as an unsustainable government handout that fosters dependency. This tension highlights the way food vouchers have become contested symbols of the over-reach of social welfare programmes and the role of government in addressing poverty.

Social prescribing: food as medicine

Increasingly, the preferred model of making healthy food more affordable and accessible to low-income communities is through social prescribing. This positions food as medicine, as opposed to a social welfare concern – citizens access to healthy food as a healthcare-based intervention that recognises the link between diet and health outcomes. In this approach, medical professionals, GPs, community carers, midwives and other frontline staff, are able to distribute vouchers specifically for fresh fruit and vegetables to individuals whose poor health is linked to diet-related conditions. The prescription is based on medical need, as opposed to income. The idea is that, just as a doctor might prescribe medication, they can also prescribe access to nutritious food, helping patients take practical steps toward better health.

The framing of subsidising access to fresh produce as a medical intervention, rather than as a traditional social welfare programme, makes the idea of social prescribing more politically palatable. By locating the intervention within the healthcare system, it is presented not as a handout or redistribution of resources, but as a preventative health measure designed to reduce long-term costs to the state and improve public wellbeing. This reframing is important because welfare-based food vouchers often carry the weight of political baggage: they are associated with the legacy of social assistance, poverty relief and debates around dependency. Social prescribing, by contrast, situates the intervention in a clinical context, where doctors are empowered to act directly on the social determinants of health. The outcome, however, is broadly the same as voucher schemes: both models aim to increase access to healthy food among low-income groups, thereby reducing diet-related illness and inequality. Yet, because social prescribing lacks the long and often polarised history of food voucher programmes, it appears less ideologically charged. This makes it a more approachable option for policymakers across the political spectrum, including those on the right, who may resist welfare expansion but can support interventions framed as targeted, evidence-based healthcare solutions.

Green social prescribing and the role of farms

The SFT is taking this framing even further, acting as a catalyst to inspire change. Since 2022, the SFT, in partnership with the College of Medicine and the University of Bristol, have run a pilot project to connect GP practices with nearby working farms, inspired by the belief that engagement with nature and food production can support health and healing. Framed as ‘green social prescribing’, the project uses nature-based interventions, like gardening or farming, to improve wellbeing.

Now in its third year, the project continues to work with several farms in the Bristol and Gloucestershire area, with six-week programmes in the spring, summer and autumn aimed at local residents from urban and other more deprived areas. Activities typically include farm walks, interaction with animals, foraging, wildlife identification, harvesting and quiet reflection in nature. The results continue to be positive, with participants reporting better mental health, reduced isolation and high enjoyment, especially from animal contact.

The project highlights the potential of farm-based social prescribing to improve public health and wellbeing while supporting sustainable farming. Given the proven health gains and wider social value, the next step must be to expand this model across the country, ensuring that communities everywhere can benefit from the healing power of farming and nature.

To find out more about the SFT’s green social prescribing project, click here.

Members of the SFT team share some of their top food and farming reads for 2025.

 

The Accidental Seed Heroes: Growing a Delicious Food Future for All of Us

Author: Adam Alexander; Publisher: Chelsea Green

Reviewed by Amy Warner

Adam Alexander’s The Accidental Seed Heroes is a powerful and timely exploration of the quiet revolution reshaping the future of our food. He embarks on a global journey to uncover the individuals and communities who are saving, breeding and innovating seeds outside the grip of industrial agriculture.

At the heart of the book lies a simple but radical premise: that every grower, from backyard gardener to traditional farmer, has the potential to be a “seed hero”. Through vivid storytelling and immersive reportage, Alexander introduces us to an inspiring cast of twenty-first-century plant breeders from places as varied as southern Albania, Ethiopia’s Great Rift Valley, rural India, and his own garden in Wales. These are individuals who understand that biodiversity, flavour and adaptability are not luxuries but necessities in the face of a climate crisis and corporate control of seed stock. He also delves into the fascinating genetic lineage of different cultivars, how they developed in popularity and became so dominant in global production for better or, in some cases, for worse.

Alexander’s style is equal parts investigative and affectionate. He blends scientific rigor with enthusiasm as he explains plant breeding techniques both ancient and modern, from phenotype selection to genome editing and marker-assisted selection.

What makes The Accidental Seed Heroes especially engaging is its political urgency. Alexander pulls no punches in exposing the dangers of seed patenting, corporate monopolies and the commodification of food. He critiques a global system that marginalises traditional knowledge and breeds genetic homogeneity at the expense of resilience. But he does so with a hopeful spirit, arguing that alternative systems – rooted in open-source breeding, farmer-led innovation and public good – are not only possible but already thriving in small pockets around the globe.

Whether you’re a seasoned grower, a food systems advocate or simply a curious reader concerned about the future of what we eat, The Accidental Seed Heroes will inspire, educate and move you. It’s not just a book about seeds – it’s a manifesto for food sovereignty, biodiversity and ecological justice.

 

From the Ground Up: The Women Revolutionising Regenerative Agriculture

Author: Stephanie Anderson; Publisher: The New Press

Reviewed by Alice Frost

Stephanie Anderson’s From the Ground Up explores the roles of 13 different women across the US – from California to North Carolina – unknown to one another but connected by their commitment to transforming America’s food and farming systems for the better.

From the Ground Up is divided into eight chapters, each of which sees Anderson visit a woman or group of women who have a role to play in the regenerative agriculture transition. In South Dakota, Kelsey Scott, a fourth-generation rancher and descendent of the Lakota Nation, practices regenerative rotational grazing in an effort to transform the drought-ridden prairie lands. Meanwhile, in San Francisco, Bu Nygrens, Mary Jane Evans and Karen Salinger are heading up Veritable Vegetable, a regional food hub which supplies consumers with a diverse produce list of various fruits and vegetables, courtesy of a diverse growers’ network. We also meet the women who are working as outreach workers to support farmers who are beginning to transition to more regenerative methods, and the women who are sourcing investment to finance this transition, along with those who are pedalling the policy to take it to scale.

It’s 2022 when Anderson meets the women of From the Ground Up – at the same time, the Supreme Court draft decision to overturn Roe v. Wade is leaked, a shocking moment in American history. It’s a stark – if not rather unpleasant – reminder that makes this book feel all the more urgent and necessary reading, to hear from the women who refuse to be held down and turned away. Anderson explains how the ruling motivated her that much more to write the book: “The part of me feeling low needs to witness this kind of strength right now … [the need] to hear from women who thrived in harsher circumstances than my generation faces.”

Each of the women in this book are rejecting the idea of what the modern American farmer, food distributor, executive or policymaker should look like. Not only are they women attempting to break the mould, but they’re also women of colour, they’re queer women, women from marginalised communities who aren’t often given a seat at the table. Their presence in a traditionally male-dominated field will embolden others to participate and make sure their voice is heard, and as Bu Nygrens puts it “It’s not enough to criticise the paradigm. You have to be the thing that you want to replace the paradigm with.”

 

Milk into Cheese: The Foundations of Natural Cheesemaking Using Traditional Concepts, Tools, and Techniques

Author: David Asher; Publisher: Chelsea Green / Rizzoli

Reviewed by Rachel Kehoe

Milk into Cheese is more than a cheesemaking manual – it’s a meditation on our relationship with milk, tradition and time. With the authority of someone who has lived the process, David Asher guides readers through the rhythms of nature, dairy and fermentation.

Structured in three parts, the book blends history, culture, microbiology, chemistry and culinary technique. It invites us to question the assumptions of the modern dairy industry – its reliance on pasteurisation, refrigeration and industrial production – and instead rediscover the slower, more intentional craft of traditional cheesemaking. From sourcing milk to aging wheels, every step is explored in detail, with practical advice and troubleshooting throughout.

Asher opens boldly: “Here I am in France, teaching the French how to make cheese.” As the book unfolds, his deep knowledge and lived experience shines through, and you begin to see why. His ethos is clear – a return to a more grounded, artisanal way of working with milk. He paints vivid scenes of a time when cheese was made twice daily, not for novelty but for necessity, and milk was treated as the precious, living food it is.

Though centred on cheese, the final section branches out into recipes for other cultured staples – cultured butter, sourdough bread, wine, cider and the caramelised Slavic yogurt ‘ryazhenka’. These additions make the book both an inspiring read and a practical kitchen companion.

Whether or not you plan to age your own Comté, Milk into Cheese will likely change the way you see dairy – and may just have you dusting off that yogurt pot.

 

Nuggets of Gold: Further Processed Chicken and the Making of the American Diet

Author: Patrick Dixon; Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Reviewed by Imogen Crossland

Nuggets of Gold tells the story of one of America’s most loved – and most controversial – foods: the chicken nugget. Without casting heavy judgment, Patrick Dixon examines the political, social and economic forces that helped processed chicken become a staple of the American diet.

In the 1930s, US farmers rarely kept more than 200 chickens, often as a side venture to make use of the farm’s by-products. But after the Great Depression, as farmers sought new, more prosperous income streams, feed mills and agribusinesses seized the opportunity to expand production. A World War II campaign urged Americans to “Eat more poultry and conserve beef and pork for the armed forces,” propelling chicken to become a mainstream meat. Within a few decades, millions of chickens were being processed annually, accompanied by a host of ecological, social and animal welfare consequences.

Dixon sheds particular light on the inner workings of poultry processing plants – an industry largely hidden from public view. While the demographics of poultry workers have shifted over time, working conditions have, shockingly, changed very little – it remains a low-paid job with a heavy physical and emotional toll. Dixon also points out that animal welfare concerns rarely extend beyond the farm gate and into the “hidden realm of the abattoir”. It’s a stark reminder that these are issues which should be central to conversations about the future of livestock production.

The nugget made its official debut (as the McNugget) in 1983. Positioned as a lighter, healthier alternative to the beef burger, its popularity soared in an era of cost-cutting and weight-watching. One question that springs to mind is whether the rise of the nugget (and its further processed cousins) can be attributed solely to consumer demand for such products, or whether corporate sales strategies and aggressive marketing played a greater role. As one former Taco Bell CEO put it: “We’re really not in the business of making food. We’re in the business of feeding people.”

What Dixon leaves to the imagination is where we go from here: will industrial chicken nuggets persist for another 50 years? Will they be replaced by lab-grown alternatives? And what about the health and wellbeing of the chickens, the workers and the people who eat them?

 

The Blue Plate: A Food Lover’s Guide to Climate Chaos

Author: Mark J. Easter; Publisher: Patagonia

Reviewed by Alicia Miller

The Blue Plate by Mark J. Easter is part odyssey, part exploration and part a search for answers. Its premise is a simple one – Easter asks “Can we transform agriculture from a system that literally consumes the planet to one that nurtures and respects this home that is all we will ever know? Can we cultivate from the Earth meals that nourish us, a Blue Plate of sorts, rather than the Earth being the meal itself?”

Easter is an ecologist who comes to the table wanting to find answers to this simple set of questions. He also likes his food and wants to understand better how we can create a more sustainable food system as we move towards the impending climate chaos we are all beginning to witness. Agriculture is at the heart of his quest, and he seeks to banish the industrialised food system that is wreaking havoc across the globe.

For Easter, it is a journey through past practices that have been renewed and sometimes reinvented. “Growing cover crops to feed the soil, preventing erosion, feeding livestock on pastures integrated with food crops, composting food waste and livestock manure to cycle nutrients back onto fields and pastures, and purchasing from one’s local ‘foodshed’ all were common-sense aspects of ag­riculture in times past,” comments Easter. These practices are focused on ‘drawdown’, locking up our emissions in our soils, leaving them undisturbed and on top, utilising cover crops, composting and the wonders of grazing livestock. There is much promise in the regenerative practices that more and more farmers are adopting, especially in the US, and change could make all the difference.

How do we end the burning of fossil fuels? We are a long way off still from realising this, but reworking our food system could offer a meaningful way forward towards a better world. The book ends with some simple suggestions: keep carbon in the soil and minimise tillage; bring our food closer to home; take care of our rivers and seas and don’t fly fish and other food around the world; finally, compost as much as you can.

 

Food Fight: From Plunder and Profit to People and Planet

Author: Stuart Gillespie; Publisher: Canongate

Reviewed by Mali Gravell

Food Fight is the latest contribution from global nutrition expert Stuart Gillespie. Gillespie’s global experience, rooted in decades of work on nutrition shines through this powerful read. It provides an eloquent overview of the modern, global food system and takes the reader through the transition of the food system from its colonial roots through to the current era of corporate dominance.

The first parts of the book – titled ‘Cascade’ and ‘Regime’ – chronicle the journey of the food system to one which is dominated by profit maximisation leading to widespread malnutrition, obesity and environmental degradation. It reiterates that the current food system is not broken; it is functioning as it has been designed to – enabling a few to make large profits. It is not focused on nurturing people or planet.  The book takes the reader through an assessment of where and why the system is failing, providing a deep diagnosis of the structural issues, laced with on-the-ground examples from individuals and organisations across the globe.

Food Fight provides a unique blend of realism and hope – the urgency of the situation is made clear but the opportunity for hope leaves you feeling slightly daunted. Real world solutions that are already in action are highlighted alongside personal stories of successful change. Although published amidst a proliferation of food system narratives in recent years, this felt like another piece of the puzzle rather than a re-writing of the same story.

For anyone interested in health, nutrition, climate, sustainability and social justice, this book provides a thorough overview of where our food system is now and of the deep and systemic changes required to shift our food system back into balance

 

Carbon: The Book of Life

Author: Paul Hawken; Publisher: Viking Press USA

Reviewed by Alicia Miller

Paul Hawken’s book Carbon: The Book of Life is a call to all of us to sit up and pay attention to what is happening to our planet and all that lives on it. We are in the midst of a world that is at risk in every way imaginable and most of us are looking the other way and pretending not to notice. In the opening paragraph, Hawken reminds us that “Carbon’s increase in the atmosphere moves in tandem with the loss of the living world.” And that loss, if it is left untended will be our demise. It’s a stark warning.

Carbon, says Hawken, is “a window into the entirety of life”, and through the book, he follows the strands of carbon. He explores the early investigations into climate change as it arose in the 19^th century, through the prescient studies of scientists who began to think the climate was warming. “Humankind,” Hawken writes, “created a new geological era by burning ten billion years of fossilised carbon in a few centuries.” Here in the 21^st century, we are faced with the consequences, but the problem is that “Most of humanity doesn’t talk about climate change because we don’t know what to say.”

Carbon, Hawken tells us, is “the keystone element of sentience”. But biology is more complicated than we think, and Carbon illustrates some of the complications of ‘life’, more broadly. For starters, biologists have ceased to define what it is, leaving its finality still waiting at the door. There are infinitesimal beings like the tardigrade and rotifers that can survive in ways unimaginable to other lifeforms – reanimating themselves with a bit of water after decades or even millennia. These are wonders to behold!

Hawken tells both extraordinary and terrifying stories – his description of the ongoing decline of insects that will lead to the end of the planet if our attitude towards bugs doesn’t change, is just one of them. Hawken begs for a more caring world that encompasses all of life, not just human life, and begs us to see sentience not only in ourselves.

On Gold Hill: A Personal History of Wheat, Farming, and Family, from Punjab to California

Author: Jaclyn Moyer; Publisher: Penguin Random House

Reviewed by Isabel Eaton

Writer and organic grower, Jaclyn Moyer grew up in California, distanced both geographically and culturally from her family’s roots in the Punjab region of India. Unable to speak the language of her grandparents and with few insights into the shape of their lives prior to their move to the US in the 1970s, she arrives in her mid-twenties increasingly troubled by this disconnection from her ancestry.

However, when she and her partner Ryan take on the tenure of an organic small holding in Gold Hill, California in 2012, the land provides an unexpected opportunity to explore her family’s past. Through the growing of Sonora wheat, a landrace grain once commonly produced in California and whose origins can be traced back to Punjab, Moyer begins to form an ever-closer connection with her heritage, culminating in a visit to the village where her grandmother grew up.

Combining an honest and personal account of the challenges of running an organic farm with insights into the turbulent history of her family, and an exploration of the impacts of the Green Revolution, US international food policy and the organic movement on food systems in India, the US and beyond, on the surface On Gold Hill may appear to be covering rather a lot of ground. But Moyer cleverly weaves all these elements together into a cohesive debut book, which is touching, eye opening and well worth a read.

 

 

Regenerating Earth: Farmers Working with Nature to Feed Our Future

Author: Kelsey Timmerman; Publisher: Patagonia

Reviewed by Victoria Halliday

Regenerating Earth takes us on a global journey to visit some of the world’s most inspiring farms and rural communities. Coming from a long lineage of farmers and prompted by his own move to a smallholding in Indiana, author Kelsey Timmerman sought to deepen his understanding of how farming can rebuild our health, our sense of belonging and the planet’s ecosystems.

Timmerman’s home is surrounded by industrial agriculture – seemingly endless stretches of single crops that depend on vast amounts of agrichemicals, water and oil. It is a form of farming that is squeezing out many smaller and medium sized producers, while also damaging the environment and feeding the centralised, ultra-processed food system that is undermining our health. Timmerman emphasises that it isn’t farmers who should be blamed for this – they include his friends and family, many of whom are at the frontline when it comes to bearing the ill-effects.

Resolving not to succumb to despondency, Timmerman sets off on a journey that sees him visit regenerative farms in the US, agroforestry operations in Brazil and the cattle herding communities of Kenya. He seeks to uncover the universal principles that underpin a regenerative approach to farming, while sharing the very human stories of the people behind these places – people who often fiercely battle corporate interests in order to protect their way of life and enjoy a more connected existence.

While ‘regenerative’ has become a popular buzzword of late, Timmerman reminds us, “Regenerative agriculture isn’t an exciting new thing. It’s an exciting old thing. As it’s been practiced by Indigenous people for thousands of years, it’s not centered on extraction but on relationships with the natural world; it is not just about farming, but our relationships with science and technology, each other, and ourselves.” Through a mix of first-hand conversations, thoughtful reflections and photography, Regenerating Earth combines the practical and the philosophical to show how we can embrace a more joyful way of living, farming and eating – not just in the future, but in the here-and-now.

Setting a Place for Us: Recipes and Stories of Displacement, Resilience, and Community from Eight Countries Impacted by War

Hawa Hassan

“An enthralling, intimate collection of essays and over 75 recipes exploring the history of eight countries to understand the impact of geopolitical conflict and its outcomes on cuisine and food system, from Somali refugee and James Beard Award-winning author of In Bibi’s Kitchen.”

Banana Capital: Stories, Science, and Poison at the Equator

Ben Brisbois

“An urgent call to action, unveiling the power dynamics of life in the banana industry. Ultimately, the book provides a roadmap toward social justice and sustainability in the uncertain future of banana production.”

Our recent Grazing Livestock report featured several farmers located around the UK who are taking a holistic approach to how they farm. Here, we take a more in-depth look at some of their farms and the benefits of a holistic approach to farming – including the integration of grazing livestock – for animal welfare, soil health and nature.

In our era of bitesize content, simple sells. Whether it’s a product or an idea, silver bullet solutions delivered with snappy straplines flood our social media and news feeds. The problem is that, when it comes to food and farming, these supposed solutions fail to reflect an infinitely complex reality, only serving to further distort the picture.

This is never more evident than during discussions about livestock. We often hear that animal agriculture is bad for the climate and for nature, yet the reality isn’t so straightforward. Recognising the difference between livestock farming that is part of the problem and that which is part of the solution, is a first step in moving towards a more holistic approach to our food system – one that grasps the interconnectedness of soil, plants, animals and people.

But what does this holistic approach look like in practice? Here, we share a snapshot of some of the farms featured in our recent Grazing Livestock report – farms where animals form part of a living system that operates within planetary boundaries while still producing the food that we need. Some of these farms are also part of the SFT’s Beacon Farms Network, which is working with farmers to harness the power of ‘seeing is believing’ experiences and, in doing so, build a body of informed public opinion on how our food is produced.

Hafod y Llyn | Teleri Fielden, Ned Feesey and Ianto Glyn

Teleri and Ned’s farming business is based upon producing and selling slow grown, pasture-fed red meat. The native breed cows are used for conservation grazing on various National Nature Reserves (NNR), Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and Special Areas of Conservation (SAC), whilst the sheep mainly graze the home farm’s floodplain rush pasture and are on parkland in the winter. The animals live outdoors year-round, generally in one large family group or ‘mob’, which has benefits for animal welfare, soil health and nature. Surveys show around 70 different types of grasses and forbs (flowering plants) per field, and nearly 45 different types of birds, including rare species. Grazing by the livestock also helps to control Himalayan Balsam, an invasive, non-native plant species. A ‘closed loop system’ is in operation, with no artificial fertiliser or bought-in feed crops required as the livestock feed entirely off pasture, shrubs and trees. Insecticides and anti-parasite drugs are not used on the cattle, and by checking animal dung for eggs, the need for wormers is reduced, the intention being to feed the soil microbiology with the livestock’s dung, as opposed to damaging it. Teleri and Ned are very lucky to have a local, family-run abattoir and butchery 20 minutes away, and they generally sell their meat locally.

Yatesbury House Farm | Richard Gantlett

Richard Gantlett is an organic and biodynamic farmer, with a herd of around 350 Aberdeen Angus beef cattle incorporated into a rotational mixed farming system, along with crops, including wheat, barley, rye and oats. The cattle graze on diverse herbal leys, containing up to 29 species of plants. These provide nectar for wild pollinating insects as well as the bees that provide honey for the farm. Richard has also embraced a ‘forest farm’ approach, allowing his cattle to graze the trees and shrubs on 64 acres of native woodland, which provides shelter from sun and rain. In return, grazing by the cattle increases the plant variety under the trees. The whole farm supports an abundance of species, from bluebells and orchids to hares, tree sparrows, corn buntings, quail and short-eared owls. One of the most important goals for Richard is achieving a ‘zero fossil fuel farm’ and he continues to find ways to work with electric vehicles as well as generating and storing electricity on the farm. In 2019, a Farm Carbon Toolkit audit found that the farm was sequestering 10 times more carbon than it was emitting. While this carbon balance is extremely positive, it was not initially a farm goal. Increasing the life in the soil, by growing diverse leys and grazing cattle, has been the route to carbon storing, nutrient cycling and water absorption.

Home Farm | Sophie and Tom Gregory

Sophie and Tom Gregory are first-generation organic dairy farmers. Their focus is on producing nutrient-dense milk from grass – milking a herd of 400 Jersey, Friesian and Shorthorn cows. They have been farming organically for over 10 years, motivated by animal welfare as well as the economics of an organic approach, but more recently deciding to take a step further in improving soil health by moving towards regenerative principles, including mob grazing and the introduction of diverse herbal leys. Alongside the benefits to the soil and biodiversity that farming regeneratively has brought, Sophie and Tom are especially dedicated to maximising the social value of farming in this way, something which is much harder to measure (see the Global Farm Metric’s website for more on measuring social outcomes). Part of the SFT’s Beacon Farms Network, Home Farm serves as an educational platform, regularly hosting visitors, from school children to farming discussion groups, in order to inspire more people to become involved in regenerative farming, especially those from non-farming backgrounds.

Edinglassie | Malcolm Hay

The name Edinglassie is derived from the Gaelic ‘Eudanglasaich’ meaning ‘steep grazing’. It is an upland estate with sheep and native breed cattle. Twenty-five years ago, Malcolm’s farm system was heavily reliant on artificial fertiliser, producing large amounts of silage to see their heavy continental-breed cattle through the winter. These practices, along with a succession of wet winters, resulted in damage to the fields, which sparked their conversion to organic and the use of native breeds better suited to the steep, wet ground. Edinglassie is a good example of a Highland estate where grazing plays a crucial role in helping to maintain habitats, including grasslands and wetlands of high biodiversity value. Well-managed grazing has enabled a wide variety of small plant species to thrive, many of conservation interest, without being outcompeted by more dominant, common species. The quality and diversity of habitats on the estate support many other endangered species, including birds like black grouse, snipe and curlew. Crucially, the transition to organic has also brought financial savings through the elimination of expensive inputs and breeding their own replacement stock, along with the premium received for organic beef and lamb.

Want to see sustainable farming in action? Join us for our Beacon Farms weekend event on 11^th – 13^th July at Holden Farm Dairy. The programme will include workshops, panel discussions and experiential farm walks, with locally sourced food and live music. For more information and to book your ticket, click here.

Our food & farming reviews of 2025 are here – what’s been cropping up this past year and worth watching?

 

The Grab

Directed by: Gabriela Cowperthwaite

Where to watch: Available to rent or buy via select streaming services. For anyone interested in hosting a screening of The Grab, please contact ROCO films to find out more, at contactus@rocofilms.com.

The Grab is a must-see film for anyone interested in the shape of things to come as we face climate change and all that it will bring. The future does not look friendly and across the globe a land grab is slowly and quietly mapping terrain that will benefit the rich and powerful and devastate the poor. “The priority is not the people,” says one commentator and this is played out around the world.

The Center for Investigative Reporting has been tracking what’s been happening over the last decade or more – a growing contingent of companies and countries that are buying up land in places where there are ample and available resources, especially water.

China, in particular, is concerned with the future of their food and water having lived through the Great Chinese Famine – three devastating years between 1959 and 1961. The impact of the famine led to an ongoing concern for the food security of China that continues to this day. In response to these concerns, the Chinese government is exploiting Africa’s land and water, like many other countries with depleted or limited resources.

What results from these land grabs is the loss of land, water and valuable resources taken from small communities and countries around the world that have been pushed aside and pillaged by bigger corporate and governmental interests, slowly creating a world of have and have nots –  an imbalance that may generate future global wars. “It’s inequity. It’s seeding future conflict. It’s destabilising the world,” says lead reporter Nathan Halverson. The situation as portrayed in The Grab urges us to be wary of what lies ahead.

 

One Last Farm

Director: Nikki Dodd

Where to watch: Details of upcoming screenings will be available here. Alternatively, if you’d like to host a screening, you can contact Nikki to find out more.

One Last Farm is the story of Yew Tree Farm – the last working farm in Bristol, England. Over the past half century or more, farming has disappeared from the city. Catherine Withers has been fighting hard for 22 years now to keep the farm going, facing an array of threats to its existence during that time. The farm is small with a remarkably diverse array of landscapes – woodland, ancient meadows, a stream that runs through the farm drawing a broad range of creatures and birds. The farm is now a Site of Nature Conservation Interest and a testament to the value of farming with nature.

Withers does not own all of the land on the farm, and this has left her vulnerable. She’s already lost 13 acres to a private landowner and now the city of Bristol wants to take back 20 acres that have been leased to Yew Tree Farm since the 1960s. The potential impact on the farm’s wildlife could be devastating and concern for this is ongoing.

Catherine is in for the long fight and she’s got a growing band of supporters who share her concerns. There isn’t an end yet to her travails, but the film is a reminder of how easily things can be lost and that they are worth fighting for.

Sadly, while Catherine Withers has fought fiercely for years to keep Yew Tree Farm as it has been, she has agreed to reaching a settlement with other family members that means she will ultimately leave her residence on the farm.

The number of farms in urban fringes has decreased considerably over the last decade and it is unclear what will ultimately happen to Yew Tree Farm. The demands of growing cities are increasingly impinging on farmland. That Yew Tree Farm has survived as long as it has, is, in many ways, a testament of Catherine’s commitment to the land and its creatures.

 

Heal the Land

Directed by: Tom Francome and Hayley Smith

Where to watch: Heal the Land will be screening at TCN, Newark Works in Bath on Thursday 8^th May – click here for more information.

Within the first few minutes of Heal the Land, we’re told that England is one of the most nature-depleted countries on Earth. England ranks in the bottom 3% of 240 countries and territories – a statistic that reveals the tragic plight of much of the country’s wildlife. But Heal the Land isn’t a story about despair and loss, rather, it’s one about optimism, determination and reasons to feel hopeful for the future of nature in England.

The film tells the story of Heal Rewilding’s journey to restore a 460-acre site in the Somerset countryside. Formerly a hunting forest in the 14^th century, the land is now a grasslands site, home to trees, hedges, rivers and an array of wildlife.

Dan, a young ranger at Heal Rewilding sets up camera traps along one of the rivers on the land in hopes there may be beavers, and reviewing the footage, finds indeed that not just one but two beavers are working away on a den. He shares the footage he’s captured with Ruby who oversees Heal Rewilding’s communications and social media work. Like Dan, when she sees the beaver, she’s ecstatic and the passion and excitement at seeing even a glimpse of the wildlife onsite is not only infectious but reassuring – there is a next generation enthusiastic, engaged and inspired about restoring nature.

Heal the Land serves as an exciting and accessible entryway for anyone hoping to find out more about rewilding and the small things we can all do to help support and restore nature. It evidences the potential of what can be realised, given care and commitment. With the US President’s attack on climate policy, the rollback of SFI payments in England and the steep decline in global wildlife, it can be difficult to stay hopeful, but what Heal Rewilding is doing to restore and revive nature on its Somerset land makes a difference.

Now what we need, is to see this sort of hope and enthusiasm applied to nature-friendly farming practices to ensure that nature is respected and supported as a vital, integral and valuable part of what farmers do.

 

Wilding

Director: David Allen

Where to watch: Available to stream on BFI Player.

The story of the Knepp estate, is a story of renewal and regeneration and one that is deeply inspiring. Coming from a background of industrial farming, Isabella Tree and Charlie Burrell tried for years to make the family farm viable, but it wasn’t until they completely turned away from how they were farming, that things began to change on the estate. Starting with the estate’s ancient Oak trees, they began to recognise how their industrial farming practices were damaging the land, damaging the wildlife and much more.

Early on in the film, Charlie comments, “What we were seeing in the early stages was absolutely no sign of anything – and that was a real ‘wow’. What had we been doing before? What were we thinking…that feeling of guilt…we have presided over a period of real destruction and we need to think again…” The realisation was transformative as Charlie and Isabella began a kind of rewilding of the land in a way that embraced both farming and nature, allowing both to thrive.

It takes some extraordinary bravery (not to mention quite a bit of cash) to realise the transformation of Knepp into such an extraordinary site. But there are real lessons to be learned from the project – the most important is that farming and nature can co-exist in ways that are beneficial to both, if the land is cared for organically and holistically. Charlie and Isabella sought to step outside of the proverbial box, in order to realise something far more meaningful – that we share this world with myriad other creatures without whom, we would instigate our own demise.

 

Hope in the Water

Director: Brian Peter Falk

Where to watch: Hope in the Water is currently unavailable to stream in the UK – for the latest updates, click here.

This PBS series which started running in 2024, tracks the potentiality of the sea to feed us more sustainably. It’s a big ask in this day and age, when seabeds are regularly dredged and most fish are in significant decline. It takes looking well outside of the box to see what might be possible – and this is exactly what Hope in Water is about. Can our oceans and waters offer us a greater range of foods, without us inflicting greater damage upon them? And what alternative foods can sustainable aquaculture offer?

The series starts with shrimp – one of the most popular seafoods, eaten widely across the globe – and tracks a broad range of issues affecting fishing and fisheries and how to move to more sustainable practices. In the US, the Gulf of Mexico has long been laced with hatcheries along the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida, but the devastating impact of run-off from the Mississippi delta has made this increasingly difficult. However, there are alternatives for shrimp production, to be found, remarkably, in Minnesota. Farmer Paul Danhof started producing salt water shrimp when his parents shut down their dairy business. It’s an unconventional transition, but one that has become successful.

The fishermen and fisherwomen in the series are looking for ways to preserve the bounty of what the sea offers without destroying it. And this is surprisingly easy to do in many cases – take the purple ‘zombie’ sea urchins that overrun the shallow seabed off the California coast to their detriment. These completely edible urchins have not the kudos of the larger red urchins, but they are phenomenally plentiful and harvesting them keeps the seabed in balance.

It’s imperative that if we want to save our fish stocks and seafood, we eat more diversely – kelp, for example, is a hugely nutritious food and it can be delicious, and dog fish are plentiful and tasty. But key here is that we must keep sustainability at front the of our minds if we are to avoid inflicting yet more damage upon the world’s oceans in our search for food.

 

Featured image courtesy of Rob Carmier.

Our Global Farm Metric Project’s Officer, Olivia Boothman, recently took a visit to Somerset House where ‘Soil: The World at Our Feet’, is currently exhibiting in London. Reflecting on her visit, Olivia writes about the impact of overlooking the ground beneath our feet and the power of soil to better connect us to the Earth.

“ ‘Look up’ we are often told, an invitation to pause chaotic lives and cast our eyes skywards to appreciate the wonder of the world. But what if instead of looking up, we looked down?”

This was the question posed to me by the writing on the wall as I stood in the opening room of the exhibition Soil: The World at Our Feet at Somerset House.

As the curators encouraged me to imagine taking off my shoes and allowing my toes to sink into the soil, I stood there, disappointed in myself, thinking ‘when was the last time I felt the soil?’ The only memory that sprung to mind was a dramatic skid down a steep hill on a rainy day at Hampstead Heath… very Bridget Jones-esque.

I glanced around and wondered how many of my fellow gallery goers – who likely also rushed from their last meeting, hopped on the tube and navigated the mycelial network of Somerset House’s underground hallways to get to the exhibition on time – were asking themselves the same question?

I continued reading: “Is it crumbly and aerated? Does it clump together? Is it cool on your skin?” These were almost exactly the same questions I asked farmers as we carried out a VESS (visual examination of soil structure) test as part of our trials of the Global Farm Metric framework. I was astounded by the lack of knowledge some farmers had of the most basic and intuitive indicators of soil health.

With the advent of advanced laboratory soil testing, have farmers become reliant on technological tests and lost the skills of interpreting the look, feel, smell or even the sound of soil? I have sympathy with them – in my previous career as a farm vet, I would have been far more confident reaching for the ultrasound scanner to rapidly detect pregnancy than rely on physical examination and palpation alone.

“As the curators encouraged me to imagine taking off my shoes and allowing my toes to sink into the soil, I stood there, disappointed in myself, thinking ‘when was the last time I felt the soil?”

But what has been the impact of us all overlooking soil for so long?

The answer was highlighted in my favourite piece in the exhibition. In 1983, the artist David Nash cut a circular patch of turf from the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park and transplanted it in a field in North Wales and vice versa, taking turf from North Wales back to London. Botanists counted just three species in the field from Hyde Park, compared to 27 in the Welsh field. In 2024, artist Mike Perry decided to repeat the experiment, taking the patch of urban ground from Springfield Park, in my home borough of Hackney, and swapping it with a patch of farmland in Pembrokeshire National Park in West Wales. This time around, botanists counted 39 species in the urban turf, and only four in the Welsh turf. Of course, the amount of biodiversity is hugely dependent on what sort of farming has taken place. As the SFT recently showcased in a new film about a farm in Snowdonia, regenerative grazing practices can help to support a staggering abundance of wildlife.

I can attest to the biodiversity of Hackney’s parks. Every June, I watch – slightly bemused – selfies being taken against a backdrop of wildflowers. The photos make a splash on Instagram for sure, but I refuse to believe that the wildflowers feature for aesthetics only. I think these selfies represent people’s desire to be reconnected with nature. In the same way, I am sure that many visitors to the Soil exhibition are doing so to learn about the ‘the world at our feet’ – this matter which sustains us – and what they can do to better understand it, increasing a connection with it. The power of seeing-is-believing experiences can be transformative in engaging with the natural world, which is why the SFT is developing the Beacon Farms Network. The Network brings together sustainable and regenerative farms acting as educational platforms to inform and inspire young people and adults about the story behind their food and to get their hands back in the soil.

Although it can be easy to despair of our growing disconnect – between rural and urban, farmer and consumer, wild and cultivated, our needs and wants – the closing room of the exhibition offered a reminder that food can be the cure to all of these. We make decisions about what to eat three times a day, and our food choices matter.

Thanks to this exhibition, this weekend, you will find me in my tiny garden, getting my hands stuck in the soil!

Soil: The World at Our Feet is on at Somerset House until 13^th April.

SFT’s Head of Policy and Campaigns – and lead on our small abattoirs work – Megan Perry, explores the decline in people opting to work in skilled labour roles in the food sector, including slaughtering and butchery. From systemic shocks like Brexit and COVID-19 which have affected labour supply and demand, to a lack of funding for training, Megan takes a deeper look at the reasons behind this decline and what can be done to protect the future of the UK’s small abattoirs and butchers.

While many organisations are working to reconnect people with where their food comes from, educating children through farm visits and reviving an interest in food production as a viable career, there is an important part of the food chain that often gets overlooked. For sustainable livestock farming and local meat production to be viable, we need a network of abattoirs and butchers. However, the decline in people opting to work in the local meat sector and the loss of heritage and artisan skills such as butchery, has widespread implications for food security, sustainability and rural economies. This was the focus of a recent paper by the Sustainable Food Trust and the Abattoir Sector Group presented to Defra’s Small Abattoir Task and Finish Group.

The UK’s food supply chain contributes over £128 billion to the UK economy every year and provides employment for over four million people. The meat processing sector employs around 97,000 people and directly supports 50,000 farmers, with skilled butchers making up 40% of the workforce, according to the British Meat Processors Association.

However, according to the Food Standards Agency (FSA), systemic shocks such as Brexit and COVID-19 have affected labour supply and demand. The number of workers going into voluntary redundancy and early retirement doubled in recent years. In 2021, the impact of COVID was clear – there were 953,000 job vacancies in the UK, over half of them in the food and drink sector.

Estimates suggest that one in four food and drink industry workers are due to retire within the next 10 years, which amounts to over one million people leaving the industry. The BMPA has highlighted that the rise in worker losses has mainly affected skilled worker roles such as veterinarians and butchers. These roles are also some of the hardest to recruit and training is extensive and takes a long time.

Staff shortages have been a concern for some abattoirs, disrupting operational capacity and contributing to closures. National Craft Butchers’ (NCB) 2023 survey found that 20% of respondents had changed their business hours in the previous 12 months, with 22% pointing to staffing issues. For those looking to set up new abattoirs, the availability of staff can be a concern.

The average age of small abattoir operators is between 60-70. The NCB survey found that 56% of respondents do not have a succession plan, yet 50% were aged 56 or above and 26% plan to retire in the next five years.

Despite a clear need for workers in the sector, since 2019 only 22 abattoir apprentices completed their apprenticeship – that works out at about five per year, an all-time low. Only 33% of respondents to the NCB survey were currently employing an apprentice, although 82% said they would welcome one.

This problem is not helped by lack of funding, with Level 2 Butchery apprenticeships receiving £10k funding each, but only £6k available to the equivalent level in slaughtering apprenticeships. This makes it economically unviable for training providers, particularly if they must travel to remote rural abattoirs. Further, there is now only one training provider in the whole of the UK for smaller abattoirs.

“For sustainable livestock farming and local meat production to be viable, we need a network of abattoirs and butchers. However, the decline in people opting to work in the local meat sector and the loss of heritage and artisan skills such as butchery, has widespread implications for food security, sustainability and rural economies.”

There are many reasons why people are not choosing to go into a career in the slaughtering and butchery sector, not least because it can have a negative public image and gets little acknowledgement despite being an incredibly important and skilled role.

However, the decline of small abattoirs due to rising costs and a challenging regulatory environment means people are reluctant to begin a career in the sector, and family businesses are not being handed down. When we surveyed small abattoirs in Wales recently, one owner told us he had wanted to pass the business on to his son, but he felt it was not viable and his son had gone to work elsewhere.

There is also a disconnect between education, careers advice and staffing needs. With the Food Technology A-Level scrapped in 2016, there has been a lack of emphasis on food supply chain careers and training.

In our aforementioned paper on the skilled labour shortage, we reported recent conversations between the Association of Independent Meat Suppliers (AIMS) and a small group of young people under the age of 22 who are at the beginning of their further education and career paths. They highlighted how little the food sector is regarded as a viable ‘job for life’, despite living in an area dominated by food manufacturers, including two local butchers. They said the food industry was never presented as a possible career path at school. There was also an attitude that butchery was male-dominated.

However, some progress is being made. The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IFATE) are now looking to review the slaughtering apprenticeship and are positively engaging with the sector to get their ideas and input.

Some members of the Abattoir Sector Group are also holding conversations with educational institutions and experts to explore new ideas for connecting young people with the full range of career options. This could include better connections between agricultural colleges and the processing part of the supply chain, with livestock farmers also being able to train in butchery or slaughtering, if this was something they were interested in.

Ultimately, a resilient small abattoir network is essential for the future of local meat production. And it’s the unsung heroes who work in abattoirs that are providing the vital services that so many farmers, retailers, restaurants and countless other businesses benefit from.

For more information, please see our paper.

The Sustainable Food Trust is working to connect people with the story behind their food, including promoting careers in food and farming, through our newly launched Beacon Farms Network. We are also working as part of The Agroecology Learning Collective to signpost agroecological learning opportunities (including training and apprenticeships) and support the development of new courses which fill gaps in current training provision.

The following is an extract from Marianne Landzettel’s new book, The Sustainable Meat Challenge: How to Graze Cattle, Slaughter Humanely and Stay Profitable. Here, Marianne writes about the experience of a number of farmers in Germany, who discuss the most humane methods for handling and slaughter, on pasture and amongst the herd.

A good life and death within the herd

Farmer Herbert Siegel had already found a way to slaughter his animals on farm, but the new EU framework and the guidelines issued by the state of Bavaria has made things easier. He has a herd of about 60 beef cattle, most were born on one of his pastures. He works with a trained hunter who knows the animals and they know him. That allows him to shoot from a very short distance. In the past, once the animal had been shot, there was a narrow time frame to sling a rope around the hind leg and winch the animal up so that it could be bled out in the slaughter box. The new EU framework and the guidelines by the state of Bavaria allow for the bleeding out of the animal in a lying position. For transport to the abattoir, Siegel uses a very simple slaughter box. It is a steel box with a lid and a grid onto which the animal is placed. Bavaria allows one hour for transport without cooling; in other states farmers have two hours.

On pasture, slaughter involves additional costs: for the hunter, for the vet who has to be present and for the butcher who has to sever the carotid artery of the animal. Siegel is lucky, his brother is a butcher and a community owned abattoir in the village of Seltmans is just seven kilometres away. In Bavaria in the 1990s, many butchers and small abattoirs in need of investment closed down. In Seltmans, 256 farmers from several villages came together and pledged to contribute financially to the building of a new facility, a statement of intent that meant the State of Bavaria would cover a large chunk of the overall costs.

Today, the abattoir is used regularly by 30 to 40 farmers. The only employee is a caretaker who is responsible for the upkeep of the building and for organising the schedule; farmers have to book the facility and bring their own butcher or team of butchers for slaughter and/or processing. The farmer members still pay a small annual fee, based on the number of cattle they keep. In this area, too, butchers are hard to find, but Siegel knows of several apprentices and within a 50 kilometre radius there are still six or seven abattoirs, he says.

Once the sides of beef have been hung in cold storage for two weeks and the cuts have been matured in special ripening boxes, Siegel posts online that he has meat for sale. Customers place their orders and collect them at the abattoir on a given day. Prices are ‘mid-range’ for organic meat, says Siegel; he wants organic meat to be affordable for anyone, not just rich customers. “The real problem is that customers only want steaks and a few other cuts. I can only sell about half of the meat that could be used.” For him, keeping beef cattle and slaughtering it humanely does not create enough income, he also runs a small car tire business in order to make a living.

Vets, farmers, butchers and animal rights experts agree: killing animals on farm, on pasture, among the herd and with a rifle is the most humane form of slaughter possible. But even under the 2021 EU framework, only animals that are out on grass year-round and not housed, not even in winter, may be slaughtered using a rifle. Animals that are housed over winter, or dairy cattle which may be indoors for calving can be slaughtered on farm, but they have to be fixated and stunned with a bolt gun.

Mechthild Knösel farms near Lake Constance and spent years trying to find a solution for on-farm slaughter. Knösel keeps ‘Schweizer original Braunvieh’, a sturdy dual-purpose breed originating from neighbouring Switzerland – the border is just a few miles away. The farm is part of Hofgut Rengoldshausen. The estate was founded in 1932 and has been run according to biodynamic principles from the beginning. It is now owned by a trust, overseeing educational facilities, research, and biodynamic seed breeding. The land is leased to several farmers who run independent businesses, producing fruit and vegetables, eggs and chicken. Mechthild Knösel runs a dairy herd and twice a month an animal is slaughtered for meat. She farms 220 hectares, of which 100 hectares are permanent pastures. The arable land is farmed in a multi-year rotation including fodder crops such as lucerne, grains and vegetables such as carrots, potatoes, beetroot and parsnips.

Knösel was born in Hamburg and initially wanted to train as a nurse. In the end, she felt she didn’t want to spend her life caring for sick people, but rather look after healthy, living, growing things. Going into farming seemed like an obvious career choice. She did an internship at Hofgut Rengoldshausen, became an apprentice, and after several years of managing different farms, took her exam as a master farmer. She didn’t necessarily intend to come back to Rengoldshausen, but in 2008 a farm position became available and she and her husband decided to take it.

In most dairy herds, conventional as well as organic, separating the calves from their mums shortly after birth is common. For Knösel, humane handling of animals begins at birth. She dreaded having to listen to newly separated cows and calves calling out to each other for hours on end, and she was one of the first farmers in Germany who decided to stop the practice. Two weeks before their due date, the pregnant cows join the mother and calf herd. In summer, the 62 cows within the herd give birth on pasture, in winter they are moved to a spacious calving box with deep straw bedding in the barn. All new mums stay there with their calves for at least two days until they have properly bonded. Only then will they return to the mother and calf herd. The calves stay with their mums for three months and are allowed to drink as often and as much as they like. Twice a day, cows and calves return to the barn. While the cows are being milked, the group of calves waits in a special pen with deep straw bedding.

After 12 weeks the calves naturally spend most of their time with their peers. They remain in the ‘kindergarden’ area of the barn and enjoy time with their mums twice a day when they come in for milking.

The Sustainable Meat Challenge: How to Graze Cattle, Slaughter Humanely and Stay Profitable is available to purchase at any good book store.