Author Michael Carolan argues that cheap food is in fact exceedingly expensive. He asks whether we can afford cheap food by exploring what exactly cheap food affords us. He explores the breadth and depth of externalities produced by the global food system and argues for a more contextual view of food when debating its affordability.

This report by the Food Foundation argues that the health implications of shifting diets towards plant-based diets is nuanced in high income countries, depending on the substitution.It puts forward a categorisation of plant based foods looking at nutrition, environmental and price indicators to assess how categories and individual products compare to meat. 

This report by the Green European Journal argues concentration in the agricultural commodity market has allowed a handful of companies to maximise profits during a global food crisis. It suggests European regulators should step up their efforts to rein in harmful market dominance. 

This report commissioned by Farm Journal Foundation explores how climate change is affecting nutrition in low and middle income countries, where citizens tend to have a lower capacity to adapt. It outlines 9 suggestions for the US government to support global nutrition security. 

The paper explores to what extent ruminant farming can enhance and preserve biodiversity, and calculates what would be an equivalent level of consumption. It found that with biodiverse-friendly grazing production, an average person could consume 2.2kg of milk per year and 0.8 kg of red meat. 

The paper performs a content analysis of 164 public responses to the consultation of the European Commission’s Farm-to-Fork Strategy and finds 12 distinct narratives, mostly focusing on agricultural production. Ten of them showed clear connections to three established agricultural policy discourses linking them to key stakeholders; farmer’s associations, NGO’s and industry representatives. 

This paper finds that plant-forward meals in Germany and Indonesia have a lower climate and biodiversity footprint than typical meat-based meals. The paper argues that this highlights the importance of supply and demand side interventions to produce lower-impact ingredients and reshape consumption. 

TABLE interviews Tom Heap about his new book Land Smart in which he explores many difficult tensions and trade-offs in land use, from biofuels versus solar panels and regenerative farming to biotechnology, and tiptoes into the emotionally-laden debate of dietary change – revealing his penchant for pragmatism. 

The story from Vox Media investigates the relationship between environmental groups such as the WWF and the meat industry like McDonald’s and Cargill. It argues that companies use environmental groups to help greenwash their operations without having to commit to significant changes in practice.