This report, authored by the UK government’s former food policy advisor Henry Dimbleby and public health expert Dr Dolly van Tulleken, draws on interviews with an unprecedented number of former prime ministers, health secretaries and other senior ministers to offer practical advice and insights on how today’s politicians can tackle to UK’s obesity crisis.
European Commission: Strategic Dialogue on the Future of EU Agriculture
The Strategic Dialogue on the Future of EU Agriculture brought together 29 major stakeholders from the European agri-food sectors, civil society, rural communities and academia to reach a common understanding on the further development of a core area of European life and economy in a new format of political discourse.
Environmental Research – Food Systems: Estimating methane emissions from manure – a suitable case for treatment?
Methane from livestock is a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. This paper concludes that the scale of emissions and the potential economic value of lost biogas are sufficient to warrant urgent research and action to reduce emissions from manure management with the beneficial prospect that a valuable new income stream for farm businesses could also be realised.
The Food Foundation: Rethinking plant-based meat alternatives
While the environmental case for eating less meat in higher income countries is clear, the health implications of shifting diets towards more plant rich diets is more nuanced, depending on what is being substituted and by whom. This report takes a closer look at plant based meat alternatives – for health, planet, and affordability – and the gives some recommendations.
Nature Climate Change: Reducing climate change impacts from the global food system through diet shifts
This paper evaluates the unequal distribution of dietary emissions from 140 food products in 139 countries or areas and models the changes in emissions of global diet shifts. Consumers with higher expenditures generally cause more dietary emissions due to higher red meat and dairy intake. Such inequality is more pronounced in low-income countries.
Royal Agricultural University: Culture clash? What cultured meat could mean for UK farming
Could growing animal cells in factories cut meat’s environmental footprint? That is the promise of companies developing cultured meat, and the hope of those advocating for policies and investment to back it. But what could this mean for livestock farmers? Might there be any benefits? What do farmers think about it?
Green Alliance: A new land dividend – the opportunity of alternative proteins in Europe (country profiles)
This report presents the ten European country profiles from Green Alliance’s report A new land dividend (May 2024). The report analyses the potential for alternative proteins to substitute meat and dairy and release land for other purposes. The countries profiled are; Denmark, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Sweden and the UK.
Nature: Circular food systems can support current European protein intake, reduce land use and GHGs
This paper models animal-sourced protein to plant-sourced protein ratios within a European circular food system, finding that maintaining the current animal–plant protein share while redesigning the system with circular principles resulted in the largest relative reduction of 44% in land use and 70% in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions compared with the current food system.
AFN Network+: Agroforestry as a tool for net zero in the UK
A prominent policy option for carbon sequestration is large-scale tree planting, but the UK is falling far behind on its tree-planting commitments. This report provides an introduction into agroforestry, its benefits for climate and food production, and its role and context in potential futures of the UK agricultural sector.
Green Alliance: A new land dividend – the opportunity of alternative proteins in Europe
This report explores the impacts alternative proteins could have on land use in ten European countries. Under a high innovation scenario, alternative proteins could displace about two thirds of the meat and dairy consumed in Europe by 2050. This would allow the ten studied countries to reduce their reliance on overseas land by 75% and create space for nature recovery and carbon storage.
World Bank: Recipe for a livable planet – achieving net zero emissions in the agri-food system
Recipe for a Liveable Planet is the first comprehensive global roadmap for mitigating the agri-food system’s contributions to climate change. It shows how the agriculture system that produces the world’s food can cut greenhouse gas emissions while continuing to feed the world.
AFN Network+: What should the research and policy priorities be for reducing emissions from the UK agri-food system?
This report was produced after the network’s first 18 months of activities. It sets out the suggested priorities for research and policy that have emerged from our work under six themes. The focus is on the emissions from UK agri-food system, and not the global environmental footprint of UK-based food consumers.