In this report, the Nature Friendly Farming Network argues that, if given enough financial support, UK farmers can produce food in a way that both protects wildlife and reduces the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. The report also suggests that having a diet of “less meat and dairy but of better quality” could be environmentally beneficial.

This working paper from the UK-based policy research organisation International Institute for Environment and Development explores how fishing subsidies could be reformed to promote social equity and better environmental outcomes.

The UK government has published its Agriculture Bill, which reforms how farmers will receive subsidies. Under the current system - the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy - the amount of money that farmers receive is linked to the amount of land that they farm. Under the new system, payments will be linked to producing “public goods” such as protecting habitats, reducing flood risk and improving water quality.

This new report by the Sustainable Food Trust, ‘The hidden cost of UK food’, presents an analysis of the price of the externalities (and subsidies) of the UK food system, which they compare to the amount of money spent on food and non-alcoholic drink at consumer outlets. 

This Research Handbook, edited by Mary Jane Angelo, Fredric G. Levin and Anél Du Plessis, brings together scholars from across disciplines and across the globe (including FCRN member Jonathan Verschuuren) to untangle the climate-food web and critically explore the nexus between climate change, agriculture and law, upon which food security and climate resilient development depends. It is a useful introduction to the research which is being undertaken in the area of climate change and agricultural law.

Scientists from national academies across Europe are calling for urgent action on food and nutrition in a new independent report published by the European Academies’ Science Advisory Council (EASAC). This analysis can be relevant for policy-makers working on food, nutrition, health, the environment, climate change, and agriculture.

Eating Better, an alliance of British organisations working together to help people move towards eating less meat and dairy, has published a policy report entitled ‘Beyond the CAP: policies to support better UK meat and dairy production post-Brexit’.

This study presents estimates of how changes in climate might affect the value of European farmland. Based on data for over 41 000 farms, the results suggest that their economic value could drop by up to 32%, depending on the climate scenario considered. The models represent severe, moderate and mild outcomes, respectively.  Farms in southern Europe are particularly sensitive to climate change and could suffer value losses of up to 9% per 1 °C rise.

In this paper, a coupled agriculture and health modelling framework is used to estimate the mitigation potential and global health impacts from emissions pricing of food commodities. The analysis suggests that levying an appropriately designed GHG tax on food would be a health-promoting climate change mitigation policy in all high-income, middle income and most low-income countries. It is suggested that sparing healthy foods from taxation, selectively compensating for income losses from the tax, and channelling the subsequent revenues to health promotion could avert potential negative health impacts on vulnerable groups.