Europe’s imports of palm oil are decreasing while the region remains a top market for sustainable palm oil, according to this report which is targeted at Europe-based retailers and manufacturers of palm oil products. The report sets out how industry users of palm oil in Europe can strengthen the sustainable palm oil movement globally, including: improving traceability in their supply chains; committing to sustainable sourcing policies; joining a sustainable palm oil initiative; using certification schemes; and joining landscape-based sustainability initiatives.

This paper sets out the case for a sugar tax, arguing that it can achieve both health and climate goals. It analyses the greenhouse gas savings of three different approaches that could follow a 75.5% reduction in sugar consumption in the European Union (to align with World Health Organisation guidelines): afforesting excess EU sugar beet farmland; using excess sugar beet grown in the EU for biofuel; and the EU exporting sugar from its own sugar beet production, thus displacing Brazilian sugar consumption on the global market, and importing an equivalent amount of sugar cane ethanol from Brazil to use as biofuel.

This report from IPES Food explores the factors underlying the increase in global food prices, which in April 2022 were 34% higher than a year previously. It focuses on the impacts of the Russian invasion of Ukraine as well as broader structural issues in the global food system, including heavy reliance on food imports, barriers to changes in production systems, excessive speculation in grain markets, and vicious cycles of climate change, poverty, conflict and food insecurity.

Developed economies such as the UK, Germany and Japan could suffer the greatest economic losses from sudden declines in pollinator populations, due to their dependence on imported crops, according to this modelling study. The paper estimates the changes in production levels and market prices that would occur for 74 animal-pollinated crops following sudden pollinator loss due to three causes: high use of pesticides; natural disasters such as drought; or countries being unable to pursue sustainable agricultural policies due to high levels of debt.

A number of media articles have raised concerns about the potential food security impacts of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, not only for Ukraine but for other countries that rely on food exports. We have put together a round-up of relevant news articles.

In this paper, George Cusworth, Tara Garnett and Jamie Lorimer of the Oxford Livestock, Environment and People (LEAP) project explore six narratives about the role that legumes can play in the future European food system. They identify three issues that these narratives are responding to as well as three areas of consensus about the potential of legumes.

Table members Martin Persson and Simon Bager have co-authored this paper, which offers 86 policy options through which the European Union could address deforestation associated with imported commodities such as palm oil, soybeans and beef. The paper finds trade-offs between the political feasibility of each option and the potential impact: the policy options that are most politically feasible tend to have a weaker theory of change.

This report, commissioned by UK wildlife charities WWF-UK and RSPB, finds that an area of overseas land equivalent to 88% of the UK’s land area is needed to supply the UK’s demand for beef and leather, cocoa, palm oil, pulp and paper, rubber, soy and timber. This area is increasing over time.

This article by Caroline Grunewald and Dan Blaustein-Rejto, both of of the US Breakthrough Institute think-tank, argues that the environmental movement fails to appreciate the environmental benefits that can result from free trade, by enabling producer countries with lower environmental impacts per unit of food to displace products from countries with higher environmental impacts.