The International Journal of Health Policy and Management has released a special issue on the political economy of food systems, including an editorial, eight review articles and 11 original articles. 

This paper analyses the concept of “trust” in relation to engaging “Big Food” in food systems transformations. Drawing on case studies on plastic packaging and the United Nations Food Systems Summit, the authors argue that the role of large multinational corporations should be limited to responding to requests for information and adhering to regulation. “Big Food” should not be involved in setting research or policy agendas, says the paper.

This paper compares the costs of various dietary patterns (including flexitarian, pescatarian, vegetarian, and vegan) in 150 countries. It also estimates diet-related healthcare costs for each diet as well as climate change costs. The cost of these alternative diets compared to current diets varies strongly by country as well as by whether healthcare and climate costs were included.

This paper analyses six themes that emerge from discourse on regenerative agriculture and identifies three opportunities for how to use discourse to transform “industrial-productivist” agriculture.

This paper examines trends in the consumption of plant-based alternative foods (PBAF) in the UK between 2008 and 2019. It defines PBAF as products made from plant or fungal ingredients that aim to mimic animal-based equivalents such as meat or milk. It finds that the proportion of people reporting any consumption of PBAF has nearly doubled to 13.1%.

A global youth coalition has published an open letter calling for governments and businesses to prioritise healthy and sustainable diets. It targets COP26, as well as the UN’s biodiversity COP, the Nutrition for Growth Summit, Stockholm+50 and other global fora. 

This story on Apples and People - a digital exhibition telling the stories of apples from around the world and their importance to people and culture - draws links between apples and the Sustainable Development Goals, covering health and wellbeing, carbon footprints, production standards, transport, and employment on orchards.

In this article for The Counter, author Sarah Mock describes her research with farmers across the United States. In writing her book, she originally set out to prove that agriculture should be organised around small family farms, but found that few farms of this type were financially stable. Instead, she delves into why small family farms are romanticised in the United States, discussing the history of land enclosure and subsidies.

Carbon Brief has published a summary of the key outcomes from 2021’s COP26 climate conference held in Glasgow. The Glasgow Climate Pact agreed by the summit “resolves to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C”. TABLE readers may be particularly interested in the summary’s coverage of the Koronivia joint work on agriculture, deforestation pledges, and the global methane pledge.