29 August 2025

Reports and Research

🛢️📦Food systems are feeding fossil fuel expansion, report warns 

A new report from IPES-Food has found 40% of all global petrochemicals and 15% of fossil fuels are consumed by food systems, mainly through synthetic fertilisers and plastic packaging. The report – ‘Fuel To Fork: What will it take to get fossil fuels out of our food systems?’ – points out that petrochemicals are the largest driver of oil growth, so food systems are now fuelling fossil fuel expansion, even as other sectors begin to decarbonise. Read the full report.

🍽️🍔Schools and eating out dominate processed meat intake 

In response to the government Food Strategy and Climate Change Committee calling for reduced meat consumption, the Food Foundation has published a new report entitled ‘Meat Facts’. Key findings include that children consume more processed meat than adults, with 36% of their meat intake coming from bacon, ham, and sausages, compared to 29% for adults. Eating out also increases processed meat intake, with over a third (36%) of the processed meat consumed in the UK eaten outside the home. Read the full report.

🚜📏Global Farm Metric reveals trial results from over 240 farms

The holistic sustainability framework Global Farm Metric (GFM) has published trial results from over 240 farms in 23 countries that have tested its effectiveness and value. Feedback, including from farmers in South Africa and the US, has suggested the framework allows them to measure sustainability more holistically. GFM uses 12 different categories to measure a farm’s success on aspects including nature, nutrients, financials and community, with the aim of creating a shared language for farm sustainability that resonates with everyone from farmers to policymakers. It measures success according to outcome, rather than prescribing methods, and considers a farm’s specific context. Read more about the trials.

🎯🫘National targets and school pilots help governments change diets 

A policy review of demand-side food policy interventions from across Europe has highlighted successful examples of governments creating dietary change policy. The paper, by think tank IDDRi, has reviewed food policies from 11 countries in Europe, including the Netherlands’ National Protein Strategy, which aims to increase the share of plant-based protein in the national diet from 43% in 2023 to 50% by 2030 through a national target and funding R&D. In Sweden, a policy to combine healthy school meals with organic standards is driving progress towards a goal of 60% organic produce in school canteens by 2030. Meanwhile in Spain’s Canary Islands, the Ecocomedores programme, which promotes organic food procurement, has rolled out from seven to 60 schools. Read the key findings on the IIDRi website or on Agora Agriculture’s website.

News

🌲🐂Scottish government rejects some CCC guidance on peat and farming 

The Scottish Government has said it will go further than advice from the UK Climate Change Committee (CCC) on forestry but will not adopt all guidance on peatland and agriculture. Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Energy, Gillian Martin, said Scotland will “chart its own path on forestry, going further than the CCC suggests.” Read the full government statement, and how the NFU in Scotland welcomed the rejection of the CCC guidance on agriculture, in place of something more bespoke to Scotland.

🌱💪🏼Coalition calls for plant-rich diets to be part of climate strategies

A coalition of more than 100 international stakeholders, including city councils, campaign groups and NGOs, has issued a formal call for governments to adopt plant-rich diets as part of national climate strategies, during the UN’s June Climate Meetings in Bonn. Signatories to the letter include Compassion in World Farming, Mighty Earth and ProVeg International. Belem Declaration on Plant-rich Diets and  PPTI story about the declaration.

🚜🏭Agriculture spotlighted in UK Industrial Strategy

Agriculture has been mentioned within the UK’s new Industrial Strategy as a “frontier industry” with “potential for advanced manufacturing”. As Tom MacMillan (AFN Co-investigator, and CEO of Ag-Impact) writes in this LinkedIn post, the inclusion of agriculture in the strategy is an alignment with Defra’s direction on innovation. Plus there’s a mention for the new ADOPT funding scheme for grassroots innovation in farming, as well as climate resilience and investment in automation for horticulture. Read the full Industrial Strategy.

🙋🏼🍰New parliamentary inquiry into obesity

MPs are launching a new inquiry into the prevention and treatment of obesity, including why previous food policies have failed to tackle it, and NHS access and effectiveness of weight loss medications. Read AFN Network+ champion Ali Morpeth’s thoughts on the announcement in her LinkedIn post.

👶🏼🍼Pressure on baby food manufacturers grows

Following the high-profile BBC Panorama investigation into the nutrient content of baby food , the government has issued guidelines to food manufacturers. The voluntary guidelines say food companies must cut levels of salt and sugar in their products and stop promoting snacks for babies under the age of one. NHS advice for parents has now been updated to recommend not relying on baby food pouches for daily intake, while companies that do not make their food healthier within 18 months may face action. Government guidelines and BBC news story. Our Champion Ali Morpeth was involved in the original research and has written a blog about the new guidelines.

🌊🧊Atlantic current collapse causing global impact on food now thought more likely

The collapse of a critical Atlantic current (Amoc) can no longer be considered a low-likelihood event, a study has concluded, with huge implications for food production, a study has found.  Amoc collapse would shift the tropical rainfall belt on which many millions of people rely to grow their food, plunge western Europe into extreme cold winters and summer droughts, and add 50cm to already rising sea levels. The research found that if carbon emissions continued to rise, 70% of the model runs led to Atlantic current collapse, while an intermediate level of emissions resulted in collapse in 37% of the models. Even in the case of low future emissions, an Amoc shutdown happened in 25% of the models. Read more in this Guardian article  or the original letter to Environmental Research Letters.

🌧️​​​​​​​☀️60% of UK farmers have felt depressed by extreme weather events​​​​​​​

A survey of British farmers has found that 98% have experienced extreme weather in the past five years, and 60% have felt depressed as a result. More than 90% said they felt anxious during these periods of extreme weather, with a third saying they felt ‘very anxious’. Worries included potential loss of crops and livestock and the cost of recovering from extreme weather. More than half were not sure what to plant because the weather was too unpredictable, and over a third were worried they would have to treat more pests and diseases. Over 40% were worried they would not make enough money to continue farming during these periods of extreme weather. Many of these concerns became a reality: 87% of farmers said extreme weather had reduced their farm’s productivity, with many experiencing reduced yields, while almost a third suffered complete losses. Read more on the research, commissioned by the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) and conducted by Grounded Research.