This book chapter discusses creating frameworks to increase soil carbon, covering the biophysical evidence on how different practices affect soil carbon, policy options, measurement systems and integration of economic, social and cultural dimensions.

This report is a case study on the Greater Manchester city-region food system. It looks at how the city’s commitments on net zero and access to sustainable, healthy food can be met, drawing on interviews with 20 participants from across the food supply chain. The report discusses food waste auditing, procurement standards, procurement processes that enable small businesses to take part in contracts that otherwise have complex paperwork, collaboration between local caterers and suppliers, and investment in kitchen capacity in public institutions, urban agriculture such as allotments, and vertical farms to provide fresh food all year round.

This report from UK NGO Sustain examines how a proposed trade deal between the UK and Brazil - on which discussions are still only in the early stages - might increase harm caused by pesticides. Pesticide regulations have weakened since Bolsonaro took power in 2019, with harm to environmental or human health no longer informing whether a pesticide should be approved for use.

This report, by Dr Kelly Parsons from the University of Hertfordshire for the UK’s Food Research Collaboration, examines 12 ways in which food policy can become more coherent across UK government departments, including informal communications, redesigning ministerial portfolios, and multi-stakeholder advisory groups.

This policy brief from UK food waste NGO Feedback sets out recommendations for how to make the food surplus sector in the UK sustainable and inclusive. It stresses that the top priority should be to reduce food surplus in the first place, followed by effective redistribution of unpreventable food waste.

This paper assesses four recent influential publications on food - the EAT Lancet Commission, the World Resources Report, Growing Better from the Food and Land Use Coalition and the IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land. It argues that they do not give enough attention to the livelihoods of food producers, particularly poorer rural people. The authors note that only a limited subset of smallholder producers are likely to be able to escape poverty through growth in their agricultural productivity.

This study interviews urban Indians, mainly people living in Mumbai, on their meat consumption habits. It finds that there is a difference between public and private eating patterns, because of the social stigma attached to eating meat despite rising consumption.

This special issue of the journal Outlook on Agriculture, edited by James Sumberg and Ken Giller, focuses on biomimicry and ‘nature-based solutions’ in relation to food production. The introductory paper contrasts a technological approach to solving food system problems with the “(re)turn to nature” style of thinking seen in (for example) agroecology and regenerative farming. The rest of the special issue covers a range of topics including perennial grain crops and their downsides, the philosophical and conceptual underpinnings of nature-based agricultural practices, soil organic carbon, and the “epic narratives” that have been built around natural agriculture.

Current cropland use could be reduced by 37% to 48%, finds this modelling study of different land-sparing strategies. The paper looks at regional potentials for reducing cropland use and global impacts on crop prices and production levels, finding that more efficient use of land could decrease crop prices and increase global agricultural production by 2.8%. The authors argue that their results can feed into debates about the impacts of afforestation policies - see also the TABLE summary of the paper Land-based climate change mitigation measures can affect agricultural markets and food security.