In the UK, agri-food currently accounts for almost a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions. 

With the government committed to achieving net zero by 2050, the AFN Network+ is bringing academics and stakeholders together to explore different pathways for how the UK can help reach net zero through agri-food.

We cannot assume the future will be a simple, business-as-usual extension of recent trends. Geopolitics are shifting and this will have implications for trade, supply chains and national food security. The effects of climate change will also be increasingly felt on the food system.

The Roadmap for Resilience: A UK Food Plan for 2050, calls for radical transformation, at a scale and pace not seen since the Second World War. It says if we do not act now, change will be forced upon us by increasing pressures and the UK will lurch from crisis to crisis, including from food price shocks, climate disasters and weakening economic productivity.

The Roadmap is based on a quantitative model of the food system, the FixOurFood Future Food Calculator. The model enables us to see the impact of any proposed change, showing how it would affect greenhouse gas emissions, land use and UK self-sufficiency. This means each proposed pathway to net zero is calculated on the basis that the population can be fed on the land we have available, and we ensure there is no increase in imports.

In 2023 the AFN Network+ developed four future scenarios for how the world might look in 2050.