The UK Government has released a summary of the likely impacts on business and trade if the UK leaves the European Union without a withdrawal agreement on 29 March 2019 (i.e. a ‘no deal’ Brexit). Several items are relevant to the food system. See also the draft of temporary rates of customs duty on imports that will apply to different goods in the event of a no deal Brexit.

In this latest instalment of the Food Brexit Briefings series by the UK’s Food Research Collaboration, the authors argue that the UK’s upcoming departure from the European Union presents an opportunity for Wales to reform its food and farming system, making use of both grassroots food initiatives and new legislation.

Research literature, policy indicators, and assessment tools use many different variables to assess sustainable agricultural land systems in Europe (for example soil loss, landscape diversity and food quality). Out of 239 of these variables identified in this paper, 32 have been covered by all three perspectives (i.e. research, policy and practice) while the remainder have only been considered by one or two perspectives.

This commentary from the US-based Breakthrough Institute argues that agroecology is not the best way of reforming agriculture in Africa, because most African agriculture already follows agroecological principles such as avoiding monocropping and not using much fertiliser or pesticide.

This booklet, by FCRN member Imke de Boer, sets out the scientific basis for the 2018 Mansholt lecture by Louise Fresco, President of the Wageningen University & Research Executive Board. The lecture discussed how the concept of circularity can be applied to agricultural production.

This report from the UK think-tank Chatham House explores the challenges of scaling up production and consumption of realistic plant-based meat replacements and laboratory-grown meat, both of which are intended to be indistinguishable from meat.

This report from IPES Food argues for a new approach to governing food systems in Europe, where sustainability goals are integrated across policies for different sectors, including agriculture, trade, food safety, environment and research.

The report Solutions Menu: A Nordic guide to sustainable food policy by the Nordic Food Policy Lab is now available in Spanish.

This book, edited by Jose Luis Vivero-Pol, Tomaso Ferrando, Olivier De Schutter and Ugo Mattei, engages with different schools of thought on how food can be treated as a commons rather than a privatised commodity.