This report summarises food waste research conducted by the Sustainable Consumption Institute (SCI), University of Manchester, and its implications for a transition towards a sustainable food system.

This report by the UK’s Land Use Policy Group discusses The Role of Agroecology in Sustainable Intensification and highlights agroecology as a method to safeguard UK food security. The report was prepared by the Organic Research Centre in collaboration with the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust.

This joint survey by the Food Standards Agency, Foodsafe and the Consumer Council in Northern Ireland finds that low ­income families need to spend at least one third of their weekly income on food if they want to eat healthily.  This percentage was the result when consumers were asked to select a realistic, healthy food basket that met the family’s taste requirements and included some special food items for visitors and social occasions.

In 2007/8 world food prices spiked and global economic crisis set in, leaving hundreds of millions of people unable to access adequate food. The international reaction was swift. In a bid for leadership, the 123 member countries of the United Nations’ Committee on World Food Security (CFS) adopted a series of reforms with the aim of becoming the foremost international, inclusive and intergovernmental platform for food security.

Germany has traditionally been a country with high meat consumption per capita, but a new study shows that young Germans are increasingly turning to vegetarian diets. The study market analyst company Mintel followed 1,000 people aged over 16 and their results show that nearly one in five (18%) Germans aged between 16 and 24 purchase meat-alternative products. This is comparable to the one in ten (11%) doing the same across all age groups.  A major challenge for this trend to consolidate however, is that only 14% of Germans say that they enjoy the taste of these products.

This paper provides a useful overview of the effects that measures to reduce GHGs from the livestock sector can have upon the welfare of farmed animals.  It argues that most approaches geared at seek to increasing the intensity of production via changes in breeding, feeding and housing may increase productivity per unit of GHG s emitted but they come at the expense of animal health and wellbeing.

This paper explores how food retailers assist consumers to make more climate smart food choices. 17 Swedish food retail representatives were interviewed and retailer websites studied and it was found that food retailers focus on their direct environmental impact as well as on organic food to drive more sustainable consumption.

A new paper published in Environmental Science and Technology finds that measures to mitigate agricultural GHG emissions potentially risk increasing global hunger more than the impacts of climate change on crop yields itself.  The study draws upon global models to quantify:  a. the impact of climate change on yields in the absence of mitigation, b. the impact of bionergy production (as one mitigation measure) on competition for land and associated food prices and c. finally, the costs associated with mitigating the impacts of climate change by introducing a carbon tax.  Introduction of this tax is assumed to lead to increase in use of renewable fuels (wind, power, geothermal, bionenergy) and ‘abatement from non energy sources’ – which presumably includes agriculture although they do not specify what sort of abatement this would be.

A new paper published in Global Change Biology looks into the effects of increasing CO2 levels on protein in crops. The study finds that not only can increased CO2 be a problem for food security through climate change, but it can also directly impact the nutritional value of crops.