Reporting from Spain’s ancient droving routes, farmer Julie Baber shows how transhumance offers a different way of thinking about food production: one shaped by place, seasons and ecological limits. As climate change intensifies drought, wildfire and other pressures on farming, these age-old systems have much to teach us in the face of rising food security concerns.

“She carries a gun to fight snakes and hyenas”.

I was heading to the airport for a flight to Madrid and my Somali taxi driver was telling me about his 90-year-old pastoralist grandmother.

“She has 2,000 camels, goats, sheep and cows and she walks 45km to find new grass.”

It seemed a serendipitous meeting, given that I was on my way to Spain to learn about transhumant pastoralism and to take part in the annual shearing festival of the Los Apisquillos Collective in La Sierra del Rincón, which sits in the north-east area of the Madrid mountains. The collective was formed 26 years ago in the mountain village of Puebla de la Sierra, its aim to reinstate traditional rural practices and preserve the continuity of knowledge. The collective runs a flock of around 500 sheep and goats, mainly Rubia de El Molar and Negra Castellana, both rare breeds of sheep native to the region. Along with providing meat and dairy products, the flock is used for the sustainable management of mountain pasture and forest.

Lawrence Sudlow is an Englishman with a passion for the ancient droving routes of Spain and an environmental consultant and media advisor for Trashumancia y Naturaleza, an organisation dedicated to the “conservation of drovers roads as ecological highways that connect, from north to south, the entirety of the Iberian Peninsula.” He attends the shearing festival each year.

Despite the challenges, Lawrence is in no way despondent and does not see transhumance as a thing of the past. He explains how transhumant pastoralism is making not only a major contribution to high value ecosystems, but deserves to be recognised as a cultural right. As for the argument that it makes better modern economic sense to transport livestock in trucks, he is dismissive, asserting that shepherds should continue to move their flocks on foot because: “it’s the right thing to do”.

Juan García is on his knees beside the stream with an assortment of other people, felting the back of a Rubia fleece. His enthusiasm for Spain’s transhumance traditions is contagious. Working with Ecologists in Action and a key player in the transhumance campaign, he defends “both the extensive ancestral culture of transhumant livestock farming and the sustainable use of the 125,000km of livestock trails.” He points out that the ancient drove routes were given official recognition in 1273 by King Alfonso X “The Wise”, and that at this time the “Royal and Honoured Council of the Mesta,” was founded, an association of transhumant livestock farmers, with considerable de facto power.

Felting a fleece at Puebla.

Juan García and Lawrence make a formidable team; along with the charismatic Álvaro, one of the founders of the collective and whose quiet authority guides its work.

The shearing festival is a joyous occasion, with music and dancing and the sharing of food. Exactly when the sheep get sheared seems to be fairly random, but the slow start gives us time to have breakfast and spend time with other members of the collective – learning how to use Sergio’s French carding machine and improvising drop spindles with bits of doweling rod and Marta’s onions.

It also gives me time to consider Lawrence’s words on the purpose of transhumant pastoralism and it being the right thing to do. For hundreds of years shepherds have exercised their right to move livestock on foot along the extensive network of drove roads or ‘cañadas’ throughout Spain. The seasonal movement of thousands of grazing animals has shaped the landscapes and contributed considerably to the high-value ecosystems of those routes, much as the migration of wild herds do in other parts of the world. In modern times the continuation of this age-old practice has become more challenging, not just for reasons such as lack of investment, rural depopulation and foreign imports, but also because of physical obstructions on the traditional routes.

Today, most shepherds use lorries to transport livestock to and from their summer and winter grazing grounds. This has led to a loss of biodiversity and a significant increase in the risk of uncontrollable wildfires due to the scrubbing up of the cañadas that formerly acted as fire breaks. Manuel Bahíllo, secretary for Trashumancia y Naturaleza, explains: “Transhumance controls the overgrowth of scrubland”. If it ceases, “all that biomass that the livestock neither eat nor trample remains in the landscape” acting as “fuel that only needs a spark to ignite”. Other transhumant farmers agree. “Fires can be stopped, that’s been proved time and again”, says Javier, a farmer from Sanabria. “The fire attacked, more or less, depending on the amount of forest fuel it encountered”.

Juan García also points to depopulation of the rural areas facilitating the “spectacular growth of forest and scrubland throughout Spain”. People like Lawrence and Juan García work hard, through their respective organisations, to keep the drove roads open, for the shepherds and for the rural population as a whole. But economics, biodiversity and fire management are only part of the picture. “The right thing to do”, encompasses all these elements but there is something else, less tangible, more instinctive and primitive, that drives it. Maybe it is an ancestral pull or just that our souls need a slower, more connected way to move across country. “Solvitur ambulando”, as the saying goes: “It is solved by walking”.

Alvaro, one of the collective’s founders, herding sheep.

Every autumn, Álvaro, Sergio, Marta and other members of Los Apisquillos, leave Puebla de la Sierra with their dogs and several hundred sheep. Over a couple of weeks, they walk the 240kms to Casa de Campo – the largest public park in Madrid. The sheep manage the park through the winter months and take advantage of the grazing at a lower altitude, leaving the mountain pastures to rest.

At a time when drought and wildfires are affecting Spain, and many other countries as never before,  it is essential that the old transhumance routes stay open. Livestock needs the cooler mountain pastures through the hot dry summers; tinderbox lowland pastures need the scrub cleared by grazing livestock. The country as a whole meanwhile, needs the protection of the cañadas that cut through forests and plains.

In May, after lambing in the shelter of the park, the flock of Los Apisquillos will head home to Puebla de la Sierra, where they will be shorn and the annual cycle of extensive livestock farming continues. From the Somali grandmother to the shepherds of Spain, there are lessons here for all of us in the resilience of food systems that are shaped by place, that adapt to seasonal cycles and that support the long-term health of the land.

Learn more about transhumance and its role in wildfire management in this article by Juan García. For more about sustainable grazing livestock in a UK context, you can read our Grazing Livestock report here.

Once a thriving UK industry, leather production in the UK had all but disappeared. So why are global luxury brands suddenly so interested in it again and what does it mean for fashion (and farmers)? Brodie Crouch investigates.

Not that long ago, leather was a fairly ubiquitous part of our lives and wardrobes, used for everything from sofas to shoes. The rise of cheaper synthetic materials and overseas textile manufacturing however, quietly changed that, wiping out demand and with it, the tannery businesses that converted raw hides into leather.

The result? Many hides in the UK are now either shredded, fed into biodigesters, or dumped in landfill. There’s a tragedy here in the waste itself, but also in the loss of jobs and a once vibrant British industry. There is also the sizeable knock-on impact on the UK’s local abattoir sector – a vital part of a secure UK food chain already in steep decline. Lose the abattoirs and you lose access to local meat, protected provenance and more local jobs – not to mention the impact on animal welfare when livestock are forced to travel miles to slaughter. Read more about the importance of why local abattoirs matter here.

Be all that as it may, industries and technologies change with the passage of time, and with it, the jobs we do and how we live – societies have never been static. We only need to look to AI to know that. Which brings us to the question of whether and why we should care about the decline of British leather at all? Is it an industry that has run its natural course and if so, why are luxury brands such as Mulberry suddenly fanning the flames of a revival? What would a revival even look like?

What we do know, is that British leather in 2026 still faces the same economic headwinds that first drove its decline. It also faces sustainability criticisms, not to mention its links to meat consumption. There are broader concerns too around leather in any context, with global supply chains linked to deforestation, poor animal welfare, toxic working conditions and climate impacts. A recent academic journal article published in ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering highlights that the global average emissions attributable to one kilogram of finished bovine leather product is more than twelve times higher than vegan alternatives.

But before you reach for that pair of pleather trainers, there is a more nuanced story to tell. What if we could create leather products in Britain made from hides that would otherwise go to landfill, with complete farm-to-product traceability, and where supplying farms maintained the highest standards of animal welfare? What if the cattle grazed species-rich pastures that supported biodiverse landscapes, and the resultant hides were tanned using traditional vegetable-based methods instead of conventional (damaging) chromium approaches? What if using those hides were to support a reduction in the climate impact of our food system, create jobs and support a devolved food and farming system that would underpin increased food resilience for all of us? Is it all an impossible dream?

“What if we could create leather products in Britain made from hides that would otherwise go to landfill, with complete farm-to-product traceability, and where supplying farms maintained the highest standards of animal welfare?”

Utilising a network of pasture-based cattle properties, a local abattoir, and a traditional tannery, British Pasture Leather (BPL) has demonstrated that this is in fact, already very much a reality. In a unique partnership with Mulberry, the leather is already being expertly crafted into high-end products in Mulberry’s Somerset factories.

BPL is not alone. Through their Service for Farms, any UK farm can have leather from their own hides, and Wiltshire farmer Andy Rumming is using leather from his beef cattle too, even offering on-farm workshops for people to make their own shoes.

The production systems from which these hides come are not new; rather they follow a style of cattle farming that has been practiced for generations in Britain: species-rich grasslands grazed by native breeds, interspersed with hay meadows, hedgerows and woodlands. The farms produce high-welfare, high-quality, grass-fed beef and premium value hides.

And the tanning process? Famously rich in toxic chemicals that pose a threat to people and planet, are heavy on the water usage and create plenty of difficult to deal with waste, the industrial leather process faces significant and justifiable criticisms that haven’t gone away.

In small UK tanneries such as Thomas Ware and Sons in Bristol (used by BPL) and Great Cotmarsh Farm in Wiltshire, however, things look rather different. Here hides are transformed by highly skilled craftspeople into premium leather using centuries-old methods. In stark comparison to the conventional chromium-based tanning approach that takes days or weeks, naturally occurring tannins from vegetable matter (like the bark stripped off branches) tan hides over a period of months. These traditional approaches also remove chromium from the equation, decoupling production from the problematic mining of raw chromium ores.

Separating supply chains – industrial from craft –and then communicating what that difference is and why it matters, is the next crucial step in this story if it is to be a successful one. Upon this narrative, rests the foundation for demand and justification for an inevitably higher price-tag.

Robust proof is equally crucial, and this is perhaps where the Global Farm Metric can really make a difference: a measurement framework that allows us to look more accurately at the environmental and social sustainability of different farming practices. In the context of a re-emergent leather industry, this would help brands to source traceable leather from farms demonstrating positive outcomes for biodiversity, animal welfare and climate. The proof not only justifies the price tag, but will only become more important as scrutiny over sustainable sourcing increases, both in fashion and beyond. It is only with such evidence that that this British leather will be able to show its true value, and convince the buying public that this is a product that they can both invest and trust in.

Find out more about British Pasture Leather here. And for more about local abattoirs and why we need to protect their future, click here.  

Solutions for Local Slaughter: Small Abattoirs in Local Meat Supply Chains – Groundswell 2026

The Sustainable Food Trust organised a session at Groundswell 2026 – ‘Solutions for Local Slaughter: Small Abattoirs in Local Meat Supply Chains’. Chaired by SFT Head of Policy and Campaigns, Megan Perry, the panel featured experts from across the sector:

• Eleanor O’Brien, Managing Director of National Craft Butchers
• Kevin Maher, Head of Operations, Food Standards Agency (FSA)
• Claire White, Senior Veterinary Advisor, NFU
• Phil Gordon-Jones, Manager, Fir Farm
• Tom Bowling, Owner, Edge and Sons Abattoir
• Andy Gray, small/mobile abattoir consultant

The well-attended session involved break out groups for in depth discussion and questions with the speakers. The following anonymised summary brings together the key questions and discussion points made during these breakouts.

Summary

Setting up an abattoir

• How hard is it to achieve? Key challenges include financial viability, staffing and managing by-products and wastewater (see below for more detail). The question of how to finance a new project must be looked at closely and with legal advice as there can be issues surrounding this. Drawing on the expertise of those in the industry, including trade associations, consultants and the FSA, is crucial. Establishing that there is a clear need for the abattoir is also a critical first step. Deciding on the size of the abattoir will depend on demand, species, number and availability of slaughtermen and their capability.
• Economic factors to consider: Speakers made clear that an abattoir must run efficiently and that comes at a cost – the farmers who will use the abattoir must be prepared to pay full market value for the service, otherwise the abattoir simply won’t be viable. Running an abattoir is different from a farm business with its own core product. You must be prepared to work extremely hard. There are busy periods (autumn through to December, for instance) and quiet periods, and you need to keep the business ticking over through both.

Finance and business structure

• What type of business structure works best? That depends on your business model. If you are focused on community benefit rather than profit, a CIC is probably the structure you’re thinking of — there’s a regulator you’d need to apply to. It works well for some businesses, including some farm-based ones. Equally, a limited company with shareholders can work. There’s also a co-operative/mutual ownership model. It really comes down to your objectives, and taking independent financial and business advice is recommended, because there isn’t one straightforward answer. The NFU is worth mentioning too — beyond membership, they provide services, and there are some small funds available to support early feasibility work, which can help you through the early stages if cash is tight. There are also finance specialists such as Tim Field at Oxbury Bank who can help advise. Strict rules also govern how businesses can solicit investment from the public.

Funding

• Are any grants available? While the Smaller Abattoir Fund has now ceased, this was extremely beneficial and de-risked investment significantly – Andy Gray and Fir Farm both made good use of it. The Abattoir Sector Group are pushing for more funding to be made available in the future. Other potential options include the Levelling Up Fund, Farming Equipment and Technology Fund and Farming in Protected Landscapes (FiPL), which some groups are currently exploring.

Recruitment and training

• What are the issues with skilled labour? Training a competent slaughterman takes a long time (months to become basically competent, a couple of years to be fully proficient), and the sector faces recruitment and retention challenges. Apprenticeship schemes are being developed with industry training bodies to help address this. They need a temporary Certificate of Competence and license to slaughter. The challenge is getting people through the door in the first place (i.e. attracting people into the industry), the second issue is retaining the people you have spent time and money training.

Official Veterinarians

• How does official veterinary (OV) provision work for a small abattoir? Every red meat abattoir must have an OV present at all times when slaughtering, to deliver Official Controls (an inspection carried out by the vet and meat hygiene inspector). It’s rarely done through the local vet, as they need to be officially designated by the FSA to carry out the role. Historically, some local providers charged relatively high rates for this work; over the years, contracting arrangements have been modernised and consolidated, and prices have generally come down. There’s no fixed rota as such, but contracts are structured to provide cover, essentially, around the clock, and there is provision for subcontracting — so if your usual provider can’t attend, someone else meeting the necessary qualifications can step in. Recognising the right level of experience for this kind of work in a rural area, where caseloads can be quite different to elsewhere, is part of the challenge.
• Is there a vet shortage? There is not currently a shortage in vets in the way that was experienced during Covid and post-Brexit.

Regulation

• Can you say more about charges for Official Controls? There was a recent court case that’s given the FSA an opportunity to look again at how regulation and cost recovery for Official Controls is delivered proportionately. The FSA say they take seriously the principle that official controls and what they charge for them, should be fair and reflect what’s actually needed. It is worth being clear about roles: the FSA is the enforcement authority — they don’t set the underlying legislation. If people want to see the regulatory burden itself reduced, that is a matter for Defra and Ministers rather than the FSA. The FSA are often asked to explain and justify their own efficiency to ministers, which they do regularly.
• What about the alignment with EU regulation and the ‘5% rule’? A key discussion point was the EU-derived “low-throughput abattoir” derogation, which allows abattoirs to operate with reduced regulatory requirements (e.g. not needing an official vet present at all times), provided the combined throughput of such abattoirs doesn’t exceed 5% of national throughput. The UK has not historically been able to take advantage of this flexibility, and the sector has been lobbying for the 5% rule to be implemented in the UK. It would make a real difference for small abattoirs’ ability to grow and would give smaller operations flexibility to kill a bit more some years and a bit less in others, without immediately triggering the higher regulatory tier. The EU itself has reportedly been looking at raising its own threshold towards 10%, partly because they want the small-abattoir sector to grow. As the sector has consolidated, the abattoirs that remain could in principle do more, but the regulatory burden constrains that. It also affects related services — for example, private-kill services for farmers tend to be the first thing an abattoir stops offering when under pressure, which particularly hurts smaller producers who rely on it.
• Is there any prospect of a specific small-scale, low-volume allowance to be processed without full regulation? There’s discussion of something along those lines — comparable to arrangements in some European countries — allowing a small, defined number of animals (for example, a modest number of sheep) to be processed locally under a lighter regime. It hasn’t been secured here yet, but it is part of the broader conversation. The rationale for the current system is that approved slaughterhouses guarantee proper checks — animal health and food safety — and there’s understandable caution about diluting that as more processing moves on-farm.
• What about the potential for remote inspection technology and AI in reducing the amount of official veterinary time required on-site? It’s an interesting area, and one that is being discussed. It is possible that if more abattoirs are built in remote areas, this will make camera-based inspection more appealing, so infrastructure and appetite may end up developing hand-in-hand. However it is, of course, important not to compromise on standards while developing these technologies.

Mobile Abattoirs

• How mobile are they? Mobile units are, in reality, only as mobile as their hubs or licensed sites enable them to be. Mobile units still need to be licensed in the same way as a static abattoir, and each site the unit goes to also needs to be separately licensed and have the correct facilities, which can make being truly mobile a challenge. However, the new Orkney Tiny Trailer Abattoir (TTA) will likely be more mobile than previous models as it is smaller and primarily for sheep only.
• More about the hub concept: Orkney will be using hubs – sites that are licensed and have the correct lairage that the mobile unit will dock into. This can be simplified so that existing infrastructure such as sheds, toilets and offices (needed for vets) can be used. Water collection can be done with an IBC. Scottish government (Food Standards Scotland) have tended to be more relaxed than England.
• How long does it take to build? The time taken to establish a mobile abattoir varies depending on several factors including location, design, availability of parts and engineers, funding and project management. Fir Farm’s Mobile Slaughter Unit took 18 months for the initial unit to be built.
• How much does it cost? The Orkney TTA cost £100k, Isles of Scilly will cost around £200k and the Fir Farm unit cost £240k – but more was spent on lairage, chiller, etc. More funding for infrastructure is needed. Running costs vary but Fir Farm costs around £1,500 per kill day.
• What happens to waste and by-products? This is context specific and varies a lot. For example, Fir Farm waste is currently going as category 1 at 50p per kilo. Andy Gray is developing a fertiliser business that can utilise waste. On the Scilly Isles new sewage treatment works are being built which will be helpful for managing waste water from the abattoir unit being constructed there. At Fir Farm, underground pits are used to store the hides, which go to a local tannery. Hides and skins are a major challenge, but there are people working to revive small-scale traceable tanning in the UK, such as British Pasture Leather, which may provide more opportunities in the future.
• Do you need a vet? Yes, all red meat abattoirs, including mobiles, require an Official Veterinarian to deliver Official Controls.
• Can you get a return on capital when being run at capacity? This is unlikely but depends on throughput and hanging capacity.
• What are the regulatory issues of a mobile unit? Mobile units are regulated in the same way as static abattoirs. There is a difference between a fully mobile abattoir (like the TTA) and a mobile slaughter unit (like Fir Farm) – you will also need to think about regulation around butchery services, lairage, etc. Planning permission for lairage and a cutting room on-farm can be easier to achieve first, rather than an abattoir.

Casualty and emergency slaughter:

• What are the options for using meat from emergency or casualty slaughter? For casualty slaughter of fractious or dangerous animals — for example, difficult cattle or buffalo — there is a recognised route: the animal is shot in the field, then winched onto a trailer or into a box for transport to the abattoir within the required time window (two hours). Because the animal is shot and bled promptly, there is very little compromise to the carcase. Many slaughterhouses already have the facilities to receive casualty animals killed this way. It is important to note that this route is for acute injury or an accident — it can’t be used for a chronic condition such as long-standing arthritis; the animal must be genuinely unfit to travel due to an acute event.
• Is there any prospect of extending this to animals in the field with more general acute welfare needs? There is an ongoing conversation about broadening the ability to shoot animals in the field in a wider range of acute situations, since it is arguably a considerably better welfare outcome for the animal than transport followed by conventional slaughter — even accounting for how things look from the outside.

Poultry and game slaughter

• What are the regulations around on-farm poultry slaughter? Farmers can slaughter poultry on their own farm without a licence provided they stay within set thresholds (up to roughly 150,000 birds per year), and without needing veterinary supervision. Selling the meat, however, requires registration with the local authority, inspection of facilities, and evidence of appropriate training. Red meat does not currently benefit from an equivalent on-farm derogation. Game handling establishments operate under a different (somewhat more relaxed, but still regulated) set of rules to conventional abattoirs. Wild game such as shot squirrels or rabbits generally needs to go to an approved game-handling establishment rather than directly to a restaurant.
• How does the regulation work for game — for example, squirrels or rabbits shot on my own land? If you’re operating as an approved game-handling establishment, there are a fair number of derogations in place compared with standard abattoir rules — particularly around fur and feather game destined for local butchers. Local authorities generally have good, longstanding working relationships in this area, and the rules — while still rules — tend to be more relaxed, for example around inspection of shot game for signs of the shot itself.

North Cotswold Abattoir

• Will it serve only the local private kill market? No, North Cotswold Abattoir is aiming to do more than private kill. Their key challenge is ensuring market/slaughter prices work for farmers and supply chain.
• How are you setting up the structure for the Cotswold Abattoir? We have three directors and shareholders with equity shares.
• What financial advice can you give? There are two types of tax relief you can look into – 30% and 50%. It is illegal to solicit investment directly, so people looking to invest must come to them directly via the website. They’ve had 400 expressions of interest from a spectrum of people including local farmers and bigger investors.

For more information on setting up an abattoir, take a look at the ‘Playbook’ put together by Claire White which can be found on the Abattoir Sector Group’s website – ‘Small Abattoir Development Support’.

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

What kind of food system are we building?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The SFT team have picked out some of their personal recommendations for the year ahead – find out what films and TV series need to be on your radar and where you can find them.

Having recently spent some time in Egypt, our Global Farm Metric Trials Manager, May Wheeler reflects on what she learnt about the country’s agricultural practices and sustainability efforts, and how companies like SEKEM are working to ‘regreen’ the desert.

Driving through the outskirts of Cairo, the Egypt I had imagined since childhood – an ancient land of mystery, mummies and desert civilisations – flickered past the open taxi window. Warm air, glimpses of the Nile and the hazy glow of the city began feeding the kind of curiosity that often borders on romanticism.

Yet after an hour bumping along potholed roads through dusty midnight streets, surrounded by concrete tower blocks, stray dogs and clusters of young men smoking shisha, I began quietly preparing myself for the inevitable disappointment that sometimes follows the collision between childhood imagination and reality – an Egyptian version of Paris Syndrome, perhaps.

Eventually, after a few wrong turns and late-night pit stops for black tea brewed with fresh mint and sugar, the roads widened and the concrete began to thin and palm trees interrupted the sand. We had arrived at a gate welcomed by two men with the warmth and familiarity that I would later learn characterises so much of Egyptian hospitality.

Inside was another world entirely. Corridors of hibiscus bushes and trees frame softly curved buildings and fields of green. The air felt cleaner. We had arrived at SEKEM, a project founded in 1977 by Ibrahim Abouleish with the seemingly impossible ambition of regreening the desert and creating fertile farmland from sand.

I had travelled there through a volunteer scheme at the Sustainable Food Trust, where I’ve spent the last five years working on the Global Farm Metric; a framework to capture the social, economic and environmental factors important to farm sustainability across the world. Driven by a constant fascination with how other parts of the world live, work and eat, I wanted to understand what farming looks like in the desert. How can food possibly be grown on such sandy soils? How much has industrial agriculture transformed Egypt? What can Egypt teach us about sustainability, culture and farming systems? And, of course, I wanted to see the pyramids.

Now, I should say from the outset that I am far from an expert in Egypt or Egyptian agriculture. What follows is drawn from conversations, observations, reading and a short time spent at SEKEM. If anything here is incorrect or incomplete, I would genuinely welcome corrections and reflections.

Egypt’s agricultural inheritance

As with the pyramids themselves, Ancient Egyptian agriculture holds an element of mysticism.

Agriculture was not peripheral to civilisation: it was deeply embedded within culture, religion and everyday life. The annual flooding of the Nile deposited nutrient rich black silt across the landscape, transforming the surrounding desert into one of the most fertile agricultural regions on Earth. Bread and beer fuelled daily life and were the backbone of the Egyptian economy. Wheat and barley were grown and stored in communal silos, with harvests meticulously measured by scribes and protected by guards. Bread was so central to Egyptian life that loaf shapes became embedded within the written language itself, symbolising sustenance, offerings and survival.

Livestock provided milk, cheese, meat and labour, while cows were sacred to goddesses including Hathor, associated with joy, fertility and love. How do we know all this? Miniatures and hieroglyphs discovered in tombs depict idealised rural scenes of ploughing, harvesting and food preparation. Food was not simply fuel or commodity, but spiritual continuity, with grain, animals and produce buried with the dead to sustain them in the afterlife.

Weight-loss drugs are reshaping how we think about appetite, health and what it means to eat well. These medications, often hailed as breakthroughs, are changing lives and offering new hope in the face of chronic disease. But as the focus shifts towards eating less, is a fundamental question being overlooked? Here, Dr Lucy Williamson — award-winning public health nutritionist, author and former vet — draws on 30 years’ experience across soil, livestock, food and human health to explore what’s being left out of the conversation.

The rapid rise of weight-loss drugs has sparked a global conversation about appetite, health and how we eat. For many, these medications are life-changing, supporting weight loss and improving metabolic health, in particular, type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Where other approaches have fallen short, they are offering new hope and the potential for longer, healthier lives. That matters.

Currently:

• The hidden cost of chronic disease in the UK attributable to the food system is £268 billion
• Ten percent of the NHS budget is spent on diabetes, the majority on type 2
• Over 50% of UK energy intake comes from ultra-processed foods (UPFs), rising to nearly 70% in 11-18-year-olds

But as this conversation gathers pace, it risks narrowing our focus. Much of the attention is on eating less – on appetite suppression, portion control and reduced intake. While this is part of the picture, it leaves a more fundamental question largely unasked: what is the quality of the food we are eating, and where does it come from?

At the centre of this discussion is GLP-1, a hormone naturally produced in the gut. It helps regulate appetite by slowing digestion, balancing blood sugar and signalling fullness. The latest medications work by mimicking or enhancing this process. But if the focus remains solely on suppressing appetite, without improving food quality, we risk overlooking the very systems that support health in the first place: our biology, our vital gut microbiome, our food and the soils that grow it.

Appetite, food and the gut

Appetite is not simply a matter of willpower, but a biological process shaped by signals between the gut, brain and metabolism, and influenced by our environment. At the heart of this system lies the gut microbiome, the vast community of microbes living in our large intestine; it supports our wider health, protecting it from immunity and inflammation, against allergy, overweight and obesity, cholesterol imbalance, cognitive decline and even cancer.

A healthy gut microbiome depends on a diverse diet rich in plant fibres and ‘bioactive’ compounds like antioxidants. UPFs in which nutrients have been displaced by high energy sugars and fats, reduce this diversity, weakening its protective role in overall health, including its influence on appetite. Food itself is more than nutrients – it should be a multi-sensory experience – a complex ‘matrix’ of structure and chemistry that determines how quickly its nutrients are absorbed, how full we feel and how long that fullness lasts. When this matrix is disrupted by processing or lower nutrient density, our biology no longer recognises this ‘food’ and our finely tuned appetite system just doesn’t work for us.

The gut microbiome and GLP-1

Our gut microbes are constantly producing probiotics for us – healthful compounds that work closely with our biology, for example stimulating cells in our gut wall to produce GLP-1, directly contributing to feelings of fullness. Prebiotics in our diet (types of fibre) further support this process by encouraging certain microbes to increase GLP-1 production. There is also emerging evidence linking our natural production of GLP-1 with higher levels of butyrate-producing gut microbes. Butyrate is our natural anti-inflammatory compound.

In this way, beneficial gut microbes help regulate appetite by enhancing GLP-1 signalling. In contrast, diets high in processed foods can reduce microbial diversity and weaken these mechanisms. Appetite, then, is not just about how much we eat, but what we eat, and how that food interacts with our internal ecosystem.

Inflammation: the root of chronic disease

Many of the chronic health conditions of our time – obesity and metabolic illness, allergies, cancers and digestive disorders, share a common root – inflammation. While inflammation is designed to be short-lived and protective, it is now often persistent. The gut microbiome is deeply involved in regulating this process.

The goal, therefore, is not simply to override appetite, but to restore the body’s natural ability to regulate it and in doing so protect our long-term health. To do that, we need to look beyond the plate.

Soil: where the story begins

To fully understand the connection between food and health, we must look to the soil in which our food is grown. The “soil to gut” connection is largely invisible, yet fundamental to the quality of our food and, ultimately, our health.

Healthy soil is a living ecosystem, rich in microbes, fungi and organic matter. These organisms support plant health and influence the nutrient content of crops and pastures being grazed for meat and milk. When soil is healthy, plants are more resilient and better nourished. In turn, foods grown in these systems can provide a richer array of nutrients and compounds that support our gut microbiome.

Antioxidants such as polyphenols and carotenoids, linked to reduced inflammation and improved heart and metabolic health, are often found in higher levels in crops grown in healthier soils. This emerging research shows a trend that organic produce often contains significantly higher levels of certain polyphenols, including flavanols and anthocyanins. Vitamins such as C, E and A are also often higher in food farmed in harmony with nature, reflecting the ability of microbe-rich soils to unlock nutrients for plants.

In contrast, the use of agrochemicals has been linked to poorer gut microbial health. Exposure to pesticides is linked with inflammatory changes in the small intestine, shifts in the gut microbiome and disruption to the gut’s mucous layer, an essential barrier that helps protect against inflammation.

It’s not only food that shapes our microbiome. Increasing evidence suggests our environment plays a role. Time spent in nature, such as gardens, green spaces or farmland, has been linked to greater microbial diversity. Contact with soil and plants exposes us to a wider range of microbes, helping to build a more resilient internal ecosystem. We don’t just eat to support our microbes; we live among them.

There’s still much to understand about these complex ecosystems, with soil health shaping the gut microbiome and, ultimately, human health, via food. Our microbiome is not separate from the wider ecosystem and in many ways, it is an extension of it.

Reconnecting the system

All of this brings us back to appetite and weight. Reducing overconsumption, particularly of ultra-processed foods, will undoubtedly benefit health. For some, weight-loss drugs are an important and necessary intervention.

But eating less of a poor-quality diet is not a long-term solution. If we focus only on suppression, reducing intake without improving food quality, we risk overlooking the systems that sustain our health.

The goal is not simply to control appetite, but to support it. That means looking beyond the individual to the wider system, from the food we eat to the soil it grows in.

Food produced from healthier soils, within farming systems that prioritise diversity and ecological balance, has the potential to better support the gut microbiome and the biological processes that regulate appetite and our metabolism. This is not a quick fix, but a shift in perspective.

It moves us away from seeing health as something to control, and towards understanding it as something to cultivate. Human health does not exist in isolation. It’s shaped by the health of our soils, our food systems and the environments we are part of.

If we want to improve public health, we need to look beyond the plate and reconnect the system from soil to gut.

Register to pre-order Lucy’s upcoming book, Soil to Gut: https://mailchi.mp/cfb2bb5b34ac/soiltogut

Connect with Lucy: https://lwnutrition.co.uk/

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In the 1970s there were 2,500 abattoirs in the UK – today there are only 203. Wicked Leeks’s Anna Zuurmond takes a closer look at the ways in which farmers have been affected by the loss of their local abattoir, as well as what this means for consumers and access to higher-welfare, organic meat.

This article was originally published in Wicked Leeks magazine.

The number of abattoirs in the UK has diminished from 2,500 in the 1970s to just 203 today, meaning animals are travelling further and longer to slaughter and fewer farmers are able to sell quality meat direct to consumers.

A recent survey of over 850 farmers by the Sustainable Food Trust (SFT) found that many small farmers would struggle to sell direct to consumers if their local abattoir were to close – smaller abattoirs offer services like private kill, where farmers’ own meat is returned to them by the abattoir for them to sell.

In the absence of this service, many farmers would be forced to sell their meat directly into wholesale markets, which over 58 per cent of farmers in the SFT’s survey deemed to be unprofitable for their business; the knock-on effect then being that consumers have less access to quality local meat.

The survey found that, as a direct result of small abattoir closure forcing them to use larger facilities, 18 per cent of farmers have already been forced to sell off their livestock, and almost a fifth of organically certified respondents (19%) said they have had to stop selling their meat as organic due to lack of access to organic abattoir services.

Challacombe farm, based on Duchy of Cornwall land on Dartmoor, Devon, has 20 Welsh Black Bullock cows and 200 Shetland X Icelandic sheep, a small, hardy and non-commercial rare breed which they keep mainly to manage their land.

They use local abattoir Gages, just nine miles down the road in Buckfastleigh, for all of their private kill, and then send on the skins to Devonia Sheepskins tannery, a further two miles down the road and the oldest tannery in Britain, to be made into rugs.

“The only journey the animals take off the farm is to the abattoir, and we know exactly what happens to them,” said farm co-owner Mark Owen, who runs the farm with his wife, Naomi Oakley.

Meanwhile, 10 per cent of the 850 farmers surveyed travelled more than 60 miles with their livestock, and many voiced concerns about how, if animal travel time to abattoir increased, it would undermine high on-farm welfare standards, which consumers also want and are willing to pay more for.

“The local abattoir is essential. We take the sheep in the morning, in the afternoon the skins are ready to pick up. You go down there and you see how hard everyone is working, the care that is taken, nothing is hanging around for too long, it’s very quiet in the holding pens – no banging and crashing,” said Owen.

Challacombe Farm’s livestock is organic and 100% grass-fed, with welfare approved by ‘A Greener World’, a strict certification only given when livestock have all-year-round access to fields.

As a result of their local abattoir, which they travel to most weeks, and the tannery next door, Challacombe is able to sell skins and meat direct to people “who understand how we produce [our meat], the impact on the environment, and animal welfare”.

The Lang family, who have run Gages abattoir alongside Dartmoor Butchers for more than 80 years through multiple generations, explained how they offer a mixture of private kill to local farmers, particularly rare breeds, as well as selling local farm meat at their Butchers, and to Riverford.

“Obviously we have complete control in what we’re getting”, said the Lang family, “we didn’t want to start just buying in stuff. We’ve always done our own thing.”

Succession issues

One of the greatest challenges to both their abattoir and Butchers is staffing, particularly with finding young people who are interested, and the Langs said this is something that is “unlikely to improve”.

The average age of abattoir owners in the UK is between 60-70, and getting young people into the industry and succession planning has been a key issue for many small abattoirs, and a factor in the closure of some.

Everything from the lairage, where livestock are held in pens before slaughter, to moving animals and carcasses, makes working in an abattoir a very physically demanding role, particularly with an ageing workforce, even with mechanisation of certain elements.

There are specialised government-funded meat apprenticeships for roles such as butchers, meat processors and abattoir technicians, however between 2019-2025 only 22 abattoir apprentices completed their apprenticeships (just five a year) despite the fact that 82 per cent of abattoirs and butchers said they would welcome an apprentice according to a 2023 National Craft Butchers survey.

A big part of the battle, perhaps unsurprisingly, is making the meat sector an attractive place for young people to want to work, despite the fact it’s a highly skilled job.

Sarah Dyke, Lib Dem MP for Glastonbury and Somerton, who is responsible for securing a debate in parliament for small abattoirs, said: “There should be more on the curriculum on food and farming – all that connection with food, but with rearing animals as well.”

Perhaps abattoir trips for school children would be a step too far, but some kind of secondary school education on how meat is produced is integral to an understanding of food provenance as well as forming a surer route into the meat industry and its potential career paths.

Sheepskins for sale

The falling price that abattoirs get for sheepskins and hides has also been a key driver in small abattoir collapse. The Lang family told me that 15 years ago, you would get £6-8 for a sheepskin, whereas now you have to pay £1.60 per skin to have them taken away, whilst cow hides have reduced from around £45-50 per hide to £4-5 in the last 15 years.

Over this short period of time, skins and hides have gone from a valuable byproduct, that many farmers say covered the operational costs of slaughter, to an additional cost-to-bear for farmers, particularly as collectors and renderers charge small abattoirs more to carry out small scale collections of skins and hides.

The Langs commented on how this is largely a result of the Chinese and Turkish markets which account for 84 per cent of the value of all worldwide sheepskin exports, adding that, “There’s no UK market for it now.”

As a result of this cost, only around 1 per cent of UK sheepskins are believed to be used, with over 15 million discarded every year, and some abattoirs even paying for hide shredders to effectively dispose of it themselves.

Owen told me how people “absolutely love” their organic sheepskin rugs, produced at Devonia Sheepskins, one of few remaining of 21 UK tanneries; a small-scale example which shows how skins and hides could be viewed as a valuable and beautiful byproduct once again and help the meat industry close that loop.

This is before we factor in the other costs that consumers don’t see – all the waste, such as entrails, that gets sent to renderers to be processed into biofuel and pet food, as well as the compulsory staining and later incineration of certain parts of the animals for disease prevention.

Whilst it’s not the loveliest conversation to have over your Sunday roast, it’s another reason, along with how an animal is reared, that a consumer may consider paying a bit more for your small-scale butcher-bought lamb that was killed in a small abattoir, rather than something that was both industrially produced and killed.

Support for local abattoirs

A huge win for abattoirs this year was the retention of the FSA (Food Standards Agency) 90 per cent discount on veterinary charges for small abattoirs – a massive relief when the hourly rate of on-site vets, who must oversee the abattoir at all times, increased by 17.7 per cent in 2025 alone.

Now the Abattoir Sector Group (ASG) are calling for more ring-fenced funding support for this sector.

This could include the reopening of the Small Abattoir Fund, a £4m budget opened under the conservatives, of which just over a 1m has ever been allocated, and has now been discontinued.

This is particularly important in keeping small famers in business, but also in keeping prices of quality meat accessible for consumers, with one third of farmers surveyed by the SFT saying they will have to push meat price hikes onto consumers if slaughtering charges by the FSA continue to rise.

Sarah Dyke MP has said that the whole relationship with the FSA must go further:

“I want to see a marked change in the FSA’s relationship with these businesses. Yes, of course food safety is paramount but we’ve got to look at it differently. Small abattoirs do a different job to high output abattoirs. They deal with rare breeds, organic, bespoke slaughtering – that job needs to be recognised.”

She criticised the punitive nature of surprise arbitrary inspections by the FSA, and the lack of administrative co-operation in working with smaller businesses.

“You need big abattoirs for supermarkets and small abattoirs for small producers”, says Mark Owen from Challacombe, as a larger facility is not designed to take the 2-3 animals that he’ll bring to slaughter.

This debate becomes paramount as we see an influx of international trade deals on meat, including a trade deal with the US that will lift tariffs and open up the UK market to US beef, whilst ASDA has proudly started stocking Uruguayan beef.

These threaten to undercut the prices of UK meat, just as milk and butter imports did in late autumn last year, causing a tumbling farmgate price, and many consumers unknowingly buying US butter and milk from supermarkets.

It’s therefore all the more integral that we support our local infrastructure – from farm to abattoir, to butcher, to tannery – and ensure that the small businesses working together to provide consumers with high-welfare British meat will not become a figment of the past.

To find out more about the SFT’s work with local abattoirs, click here.

Featured image by Christian Kay.

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.