Nine members of the precision fermentation industry have announced the founding of a new trade organisation, the Precision Fermentation Alliance, to promote precision fermentation as a contributor to a resilient, sustainable food system. The technology, which reprogrammes microbes to make particular molecules, is well-established for making vaccines and enzymes such as rennet. It has recently been applied in the food sector, for example the dairy-identical whey protein made by Perfect Day (one of the founding partners) is already used in some products available in the United States, including ice cream and cream cheese.

As part of the Cycle to Farms project, political scientist Aisha Hassan and agribusiness professional Lukas Paltanavičius are cycling 7,000 km from farm to farm in the EU, the Middle East, and Africa. Their aim is to document regenerative agriculture practices and share their findings with policymakers. They are in the process of making a documentary.

This book explores contemporary food systems in Italy, covering landscapes, local practices and cultural history. It examines alternative supply chains, such as food cooperatives and community gardens, as well as the responses of large retailers to the environmental concerns of their customers.

Former TABLE intern Wendy Jenkins has recently contributed to an open-access book looking at the many visions on the protein transition, in which over 100 experts present their views on the transition to sustainable protein production and consumption. Their visions cover a wide range of transition directions, from radically rethinking protein production systems to levers of change in shifting protein consumption.

This report from Eating Better assesses the meat and dairy sourcing policies of 10 supermarkets in the UK against the “Sourcing Better” framework. It finds that progress is uneven across different impact categories, and that there are no commitments to raise fewer animals or reduce the amount of meat and dairy sold. Broadly, the report finds that retailers are more active in aiming for responsible antibiotic use, good animal welfare and no deforestation, and less active in areas including local pollution, water use, soil health and using less land for feed.

This Research Brief from the Centre for Food Policy, aimed primarily at policymakers, lists 45 actions that have a direct pathway to impact across five environmental sustainability dimensions (greenhouse gas emissions, chemical pollution, freshwater resources, biodiversity and soil health). It groups the actions into five domains: land use in agriculture; the environmental impacts of agriculture; wild fishery and aquaculture sustainability; food loss and waste; and dietary change.

This report by Friends of the Earth United States and the Open Markets Institute criticises US policies aimed at creating agricultural carbon markets where farmers can be paid for carbon sequestration. It argues that the scheme is unlikely to generate genuine emissions reductions because there is no cap on the emissions allowed, unlike in cap-and-trade schemes, and because the science around soil carbon sequestration is not yet fully settled. Furthermore, it notes that in some cases, farmers are paid by large companies to adopt farming practices that rely on data platforms or proprietary technology owned by those companies, potentially entrenching both their market power and “chemical-dependent” farming methods.

This report from IPES-Food finds that 60% of low-income countries and 30% of middle-income countries are in or are at risk of debt distress, with 21 countries facing both debt distress and food insecurity. The report identifies four ways in which food systems are contributing to pressure on public finances: dependencies on imports and the dollar; extractive financial flows; boom-bust commodity cycles; and climate change. It calls for policymakers to provide debt relief as well as support for food system reform.

This paper reviews the potential contribution of microbial foods to a healthy, resilient and sustainable food system. It covers three main categories: traditional fermented foods such as wine, yoghurt and kimchi; microbial biomass, where the microbes themselves are directly consumed, for example the mycoprotein used in Quorn products; and “cell factories”, otherwise known as precision fermentation, where microbes are genetically modified to produce certain molecules.