Roots of change: a just wilding transition for the agri-food system

Rewilding has gained attention as a way to restore nature and combat climate change, but it has often left farmers feeling excluded. Rewilding agricultural land, seeks to create solutions that benefit both farming communities and food security while also delivering the land use changes needed to meet environmental goals. This project will bring together various stakeholders to explore practical agricultural wilding (introducing and conserving wild crops and plants for agricultural purposes) options. It will focus on two farming systems—upland and lowland—to identify the barriers related to knowledge, policy, and funding, and the solutions to overcoming them. The findings will inform advocacy efforts, promoting agricultural wilding as a viable and fair solution at a critical time for farming and land-use policies at a local and national level.

Project lead: Lídia Cabral (Institute of Development Studies)

Project collaborators: Ruth Westcott (Climate and Nature Emergency, Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming), Will White, (Farming Coordinator, Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming), Lily O’Mara-Adembesa (Sustainable Food Places), Christopher Sandom (University of Sussex and Wild Business Ltd), John Thompson (Institute of Development Studies and Sussex Sustainability Research Programme), Pedram Rowhani (University of Sussex and Sussex Sustainability Research Programme)

Findings

• Rewilding, nature recovery, and regenerative food production are conceptually distinct, but their intersections offer important opportunities for collaboration and holistic development. Recognising both synergies and tensions is crucial to designing sustainable and equitable food systems.
• The UK policy framework for food, nature and climate remains patchy and disjoined, and there are recurring gaps between the stated ambitions of policy (which are sometime holistic in thinking) and the details which matter (which often are not).
• Integrating social justice considerations, such as fair access to land and food, alongside ecological goals is essential to ensure that transitions to sustainable food systems are inclusive and equitable, not just environmentally sound.
• A socio-ecological just transition is necessary and feasible, but requires: integrated policy frameworks that align food, farming, and nature recovery goals; adaptive, context-sensitive approaches to manage trade-offs and multifunctional landscapes; inclusive governance and equitable access to land, funding, and sustainable food; stronger data systems and cross-sector collaboration to monitor biodiversity and social outcomes.
• Structured engagement between farming, nature recovery, rewilding, and justice-focused stakeholders can overcome misunderstandings and build shared priorities, demonstrating that cross-sector collaboration is feasible and productive when carefully facilitated.
  

Suggestions for further research

Future research should focus on applying the advocacy tool and the ten proposed principles for a socio-ecological just transition to critically assess policies at the intersection of food systems, nature recovery, and climate action. This could involve systematic analyses of local, national, and international policies to identify gaps, tensions, and opportunities for integrating a socio-ecological justice perspective.

Also, there is scope to explore the international dimensions of rewilding and nature recovery, examining how these approaches interact with global food systems. Comparative case studies across different regions could investigate the ecological, social, and economic implications of nature-based interventions, and assess how socio-ecological justice principles can inform equitable implementation at scale. The research could generate actionable insights at the international level for policymakers, practitioners, and advocacy organisations seeking to align sustainable food systems and the right to food, with biodiversity restoration and climate resilience globally.