This report from the UK’s Food, Farming & Countryside Commission investigates how people who are experiencing food insecurity make decisions about what to eat. It focuses on Devon, with the report interviewing food producers, people receiving emergency food, and others in the food system. Buyers and producers want to see more investment in small and sustainable food production, food projects built around community access, sharing of resources, and collective food buying and preparation.

This policy insight from the UK’s Food Research Collaboration argues that the 2021 Independent Review for the National Food Strategy failed to address the specific nutritional needs of babies and young children. The report identifies eight policy recommendations, including supporting women who wish to breastfeed, regulating the composition, labelling and marketing of foods aimed at young children, and reforming the Healthy Start scheme.

This report from the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute explores how local authorities and non-profits across the UK responded to household food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on the period between September 2020 and September 2021. It finds that some existing initiatives were adapted for the pandemic, while other new initiatives emerged.

This report from the International Union for Conservation of Nature examines the links between wildlife and emerging human pathogens as well as the origins, drivers and risk factors of zoonotic diseases. It finds that around 99% of the human incidence of zoonoses come from domesticated animals or habitats disrupted by people (for example through the food system), as opposed to from direct exposure to wildlife.

This paper argues that animal-source foods are unjustly stigmatised as being harmful for health and the environment, and that nutritionism - focusing on the individual components of food rather than its broader benefits - is overly reductive. The paper criticises the use of narrow metrics such as emissions per kg of food, and instead calls for “wholesome and nourishing diets” rooted in values such as “conviviality and shared traditions”.

This paper examines how narratives with epic elements - such as heroic figures, a difficult journey and facing monumental challenges - have developed around several well-known personalities in the nature-based agriculture movement.

This paper quantifies the resources (raw materials, land, energy and labour) exchanged between the global North and South. It argues that despite the popular perception that imperialist extraction of resources ended when colonial powers withdrew from the global South, rich countries and large corporations exert power to depress the price of resources and labour in the global South. The result is “unequal exchange”: for each unit (defined below) of resources the South imports from the North, the South must export many more units to pay for it.

The UK’s Food Ethics Council has released a write-up and recording of its latest “Food Policy on Trial” event, which was held at the Oxford Real Farming Conference 2022. Four speakers, including dairy farmers and a commercial cheese buyer, discussed the fairness of rules governing the dairy sector and milk contracts. One farmer explained that the short shelf-life of milk puts farmers at a disadvantage when negotiating contracts.

UK anti-poverty campaigner Jack Monroe has drawn attention to the disproportionate impact that inflation has on the prices of the cheapest product lines, on which many lower income households rely. Monroe is working to establish a new inflation measure that will track the rising costs of the cheapest supermarket items in the UK.