The Sixth Carbon Budget from the UK’s Climate Change Committee sets out the UK’s permissible emissions between 2033 and 2037. Food-relevant recommendations include reducing consumption of meat and dairy by 20% by 2030, adopting low-carbon farming practices while raising productivity, and shifting some land use towards reforestation and bioenergy production.

The journal EuroChoices has released a special issue, “Towards more Resilient Agricultural Systems in Europe”, which showcases findings from the Horizon 2020 SURE‐Farm research project which was coordinated by Wageningen University & Research.

This paper, by the Wellcome Trust-funded Oxford Livestock, Environment & People (LEAP) programme, finds that non-meat eaters, particularly vegans, have a higher total risk of bone fractures and some specific fracture types, such as hip fractures. After controlling for various confounding factors, the study finds that, relative to meat-eaters, vegans have a 2.31x higher risk of fractures; vegetarians have a 1.25x higher risk; and fish eaters have a 1.26x higher risk.

This paper presents a global analysis of the greenhouse gas balance of the world’s grasslands - both managed and natural - between 1750 and 2012, aiming to separate the direct effects of management by humans and the indirect effects of climate change. It finds that in most world regions, managed grasslands (those grazed by livestock or mown for grass forage) have a net warming effect on the climate, while sparsely grazed grasslands (natural grasslands not affected by livestock, but which may be grazed by wild animals) have a net cooling effect. 

This paper uses data from 19 countries to test the link between climate and dietary diversity in children. It finds that higher temperatures are generally associated with lower diet diversity, while higher precipitation is generally associated with greater diet diversity.

This paper argues that the threats to humanity and the biosphere from environmental damage is much greater than is usually acknowledged, and that current political and economic solutions do not match the scale of the danger. The authors call for scientists to speak “candidly and accurately” to policymakers, businesses and the public about the risks to our future.

The research programme ‘Resilience of the UK Food System in a Global Context’ has launched an online hub. The programme aims to identify the major vulnerabilities of the UK food system and assess how its resilience can be improved. The hub gives details of its 13 research projects, lists programme outputs, and has sections for news and blogs and events.

This blog post, co-authored by Table member Ken Giller, summarises the final session of the eDialogues series What Future for Small-Scale Farming? This session explored policy implications for the inclusive transformation of small-scale agriculture in challenging times.

This book discusses a set of legal cases that have been settled recently within the United States Department of Agriculture regardings its treatment of farmers from different ethnic and gender backgrounds. It explores how these cases link to current trends relating to food justice in the wider food culture.