This literature review, undertaken by the Food Climate Research Network and Chatham House, and in association with EAT who also kindly supported the work, considers what the evidence has to say about effective ways of shifting people’s consumption patterns in more sustainable and healthy directions.

In 2014, the FCRN released a major report entitled Appetite for change: social, economic and environmental transformations in China’s food system. This provided a detailed and integrative analysis of the dramatic changes in China’s food system over the last 35 years, explored emerging environmental, health, economic and cultural trends and challenges, and identified policy and research implications.  

This brief argues that rooftop gardens in cities could supply cities with more than three quarters of their vegetable requirements. The brief from the European Commission is based on evidence from a case study from Bologna, Italy.

This publication provides information on using price policies to promote healthy diets and explores policy developments from around the WHO European Region. It examines the economic theory underpinning the use of subsidies and taxation and explores the available evidence.

This paper focuses on the governance of food supplies and specifically discusses the increasing policy focus on engaging food industry in the international pursuit of sustainability. The researchers also look at policy actions aimed at achieving sustainable consumption and production of food.

Compassion in World farming has released the fifth and last part in a series of blogs by Peter Stevenson, Compassion in World Farming’s Chief Policy Advisor.  An extract from his post is included below:

This paper asks the question “Can agriculture be sustainable?”  It argues that, if we want to take a different path, we will have to make the choice to do so. It emphasises that we need to be clear that we have choices - options that need to be debated rather than subsumed in a dialogue of crisis and food shortages. The paper outlines some of these options in order to pursue a more sustainable pathway.

A paper published in the journal Cell argues that the current rate of increase in crop yields is insufficient to meet business-as-usual anticipated growth in demand for food (it cites one projection that the world will need 85% more primary foodstuffs by 2050, relative to 2013).