Late December last year Tara Garnett, researcher on food systems and climate change and coordinator of the FCRN, initiated a meeting that brought together Marian Dawkins, Prof in Animal Behaviour at Oxford University, Jude Capper, researcher and livestock sustainability consultant who has worked mainly in the US, and Elin Röös, Swedish LCA researcher and the initiator of the Swedish Meat Guide,  for an informal discussion on the subject of sustainable intensification of agriculture and what that entails for the animal welfare of farm animals.

In this blog-post for the The Institute of Food Safety, Integrity & Protection (TiFSiP) Tim Lang, Professor of Food Policy at the City University London and FCRN advisory board member, discusses sustainable diets. He argues that the pursuit of food integrity and authenticity is also the pursuit of sustainability.

This video portrays the work of Beyond Meat, a company focusing on creating plant-based meat. Their "chicken" and "ground beef" comes from a soy-protein-based hamburger patty.

An online overview of agroecology research is currently being conducted in the UK by the Ecological Land Cooperative. A mixed professional and volunteer research team was commissioned to: 1) review research on ecological agriculture in the United Kingdom; and 2) provide a database of existing research. The overview is freely accessible and it was developed to inform both on-going research work and those working in the field of agroecology.

WRAP has just published an assessment of how food waste levels have changed historically in the UK, and the potential impact of a range of ‘exogenous’ factors (such as population growth) and interventions (such as voluntary agreements with the food industry and campaigns such as Love Food Hate Waste) on food waste levels in the future (to 2025).

In her first report to the UN General Assembly (UNGA) the new UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Hilal Elver, said that a human-rights based approach to food security is necessary to provide access to affordable, nutritious food for all and to eliminate hunger.  The report describes renewed political commitment as essential to advance the right to adequate food.

The booklet The susDISH analysis method – Sustainability in the catering industry, taking account of both nutritional and environmental aspects in recipe planning is published by the Institute of Agricultural and Nutritional Sciences of the Halle-Wittenberg University.

The report Let's Talk About Meat: changing dietary behaviour for the 21st century is launched alongside a new YouGov survey, commissioned by the Eating Better alliance and Friends of the Earth, which looked into the awareness and attitudes on meat among the among the public in Britain. The survey found that around one in three people (35%) in Britain say they are willing to consider eating less meat, with one in five (20%) saying they have already cut back on the amount of meat they eat over the last year. Only 5% say they are eating more.

This new paper by Chatham House reports on a 12-country survey undertaken into public understanding of the links between  livestock and climate change. Livestock – Climate Change’s Forgotten Sector - Global Public Opinion on Meat and Dairy Consumption finds a major lack of awareness of the meat and dairy sector’s contribution to climate change.