The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) has launched Paddock to Plate: policy propositions for sustaining food and farming systems. This is the second and final phase of the Future Food and Farming project, commissioned by the ACF and undertaken by Andrew Campbell of Triple Helix Consulting.

This report, published in March 2009 by the Australian government proposes that organic soil carbon can be divided into at least three ‘pools’ according to how fast it breaks down and is replaced. The pools are commonly divided into: fast (e.g. annual), slow (e.g. decadal) and passive (e.g. millennial). For carbon sequestration (long-term storage) and carbon trading purposes, it is especially desirable to increase the total amount of carbon in the pools that break down slowly (e.g. the slow and passive pools).

Dairy UK and the Carbon Trust are announcing major plans for an industry-wide carbon footprinting guide, as a new report shows strong progress towards environmental targets in the Milk Roadmap. Work is just beginning with the Carbon Trust to develop the detailed footprinting guide for dairy, with strong support from dairy companies and other industry stakeholders, including the farming sector. The intention is to build on general work completed last year under Publicly Available Specification 2050.

The Food Standards Agency has published a systematic review which it commissioned which sought to determine the size and relevance to health of any differences in content of nutrients and other substances in organically and conventionally produced crops and livestock products. The focus of the review was the nutritional content of foodstuffs.