This briefing paper from the UK’s Food Research Collaboration argues that accepting United States food safety and animal welfare standards as part of a post-Brexit trade deal would imply “significant risks to public health and a radical decline in food quality standards which would be unprecedented and unacceptable in the UK”. 

This report sets out the plans of the UK’s NFU (National Farmers Union) to make emissions from agriculture in England and Wales net zero by 2040. It calls for collaboration between farmers, government and NGOs to reduce emissions through improved production efficiency, carbon capture through land management, and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS).

In our 24th September Newsletter, we mentioned that the EU is considering plans to limit crop-based biofuels to 5% of transport fuel. Biofuels have been promoted in recent years, largely because of the belief that they will help reduce transport’s impact on the environment, and particularly because of its contribution to climate change. But the indirect effects of growing crops to make fuel have seriously challenged these assumptions.  

FCRN member Peter Alexander has co-authored this paper, which finds that incremental improvements in several areas of the food system (including production efficiency, reducing food waste and changing diets) could reduce agricultural land use by between 21% and 37%, depending on adoption rates. 

FCRN member Gesa Biermann of Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich has co-authored this paper, which analyses trends on a popular German recipe website, finding annual growth rates of 16% in vegetarian recipes and 3.5% in vegan recipes between 2005 and 2018. 

The World Resources Institute has released its full and final report on “Creating a sustainable food future”. The report addresses the question “Can we feed the world without destroying the planet?”, specifically asking whether the food system can feed nearly 10 billion people adequately by 2050, without expanding the area of agricultural land, and while avoiding dangerous levels of climate change.

This Business Forum Report from the Food Ethics Council explores the ethical implications of the food industry’s involvement with food charity projects such as school breakfast clubs or donations of food and money by supermarkets. 

The FAO’s 2019 edition of its “The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World” report finds that the number of hungry people is increasing, with around 820 million people worldwide experiencing undernourishment. This year’s report also finds that around 2 billion people experience either severe or moderate food insecurity, with the phenomenon found in low, middle and high income countries.

This report from the US non-profit Croatan Institute quantifies the current US landscape of investments in regenerative agriculture, including in-depth analyses across asset classes (such as farmland and venture capital), and presents a series of recommendations for investors and stakeholders to build soil health and community wealth through regenerative agriculture.