Newsletter – August 2025
This is our newsletter for August 2025. Please note that this page is not updated, so deadlines may have passed and links may no longer work. To receive future newsletters, please join our network.
Events
WEBINAR: De-risking the transition
Friday 12 September 10:00–11:00am
Save the date for our next webinar, which will be looking at de-risking the transition. Watch out for an email from Jez soon.
DIGESTS: National Food Strategy
In case you missed them, we published not one, not two, but three digests on the announcement of the National Food Strategy:
- All you need to know about the National Food Strategy Announcement – a snappy summary from Jez
- Additional analysis from Ali Morpeth, our Food Systems Nutrition and Health Policy Champion, who was at the launch.
- The NFS and a just transition, by our Just Transition & Citizen Engagement Champion Rounaq Nayak
WEBINAR catch-up
If you missed our excellent webinar on weight-loss drugs and their impact on the food system, you can watch the video here. We have also published a couple of new briefings based on recent webinars. Dive into Animal welfare, net zero & the food transition – trade-offs & opportunities and AI risks and opportunities.
News from the wider agri-food sector
Balanced Bites salary sacrifice scheme
Our Year 3 Champion for Bioeconomy, Ifeyinwa Kanu, is putting together a proposal for The Balanced Bites-Food Security Fund Project. This aims to use salary sacrifice to improve access to good food. It combines employee benefits, structured meal planning, and coordinated public-private procurement to drive demand for local, regenerative produce. This creates a closed-loop system that shortens supply chains, reduces food waste and packaging, and supports soil health. She has launched four surveys to capture views on nature-friendly farming, healthy meal choices, and public and private sector food procurement. There is a survey for private sector catering, public sector catering, farmers and individuals/households – please help by completing the one that’s appropriate to you. The surveys close on Friday 12 September.
New AI platform delivers societal intelligence across entire UK food system
The Think Better World Initiative (TBW), developed through a Knowledge Transfer Partnership between Strategic Innovation Ltd and the University of Nottingham, has created an AI analytics platform that captures and analyses narratives across the entire UK food ecosystem—from government policy discussions to social media conversations, industry boardrooms to grassroots activism. This societal intelligence system operates at system level, revealing what society truly thinks, feels, and will respond to on complex food system issues. Appreciating the power imbalances this could create, TBW is building a consortium model that brings together diverse and even opposing stakeholders. The team is looking for AFN Network+ members to join the consortium and fund scaling of the initiative. If you’re interested, please contact p.frobisher@strategic-innovation.co.uk
Regen Food System Prize
This new prize organised by Regen Gathering Jersey will award £20,000 in cash with £5,000 reserved for a Channel Island winner. To apply, your business must be:
- Based in the Channel Islands, Isle of Man or operating at a UK regional level
- A social impact business or commercial business (e.g. Ltd, CIC, LBG, LTD, NFP — Charities not eligible)
- Committed to regenerative food systems
- Contributing towards local food security, environment, resilience, and health outcomes
Deadline: 25 October 2025
Funding
NERC urgency funding
Apply for funding up to £100,000 to respond quickly to transient, unexpected environmental research opportunities created by sporadic natural occurrences such as earthquakes, droughts, floods, or ephemeral events in ecosystems. The aim of this funding is to help researchers collect valuable data at the start of the event before other events and actions affect the data collection.
Innovate UK: Up to £2 million for farming, growing and forestry businesses
Deadline: 20 August 2025
Royal Society APEX awards
Deadline: 9 September 2025
National Geographical Society, Building Resilience in Agriculture
This funding opportunity will support innovative projects up to $150,000 that apply science and innovation in a real-world context, focused on feasible, nature-positive solutions. The projects should have measurable outcomes on the resilience of farms, farming communities, and natural ecosystems in the farming landscapes to the realities of changing climates and extreme weather events. Projects must have a predominant field or land component where solutions are applied and tested on a farm, in a farming community, or in a landscape adjacent to cultivated land.
Deadline: 30 September 2025
NERC, Pushing the frontiers of environmental research
Apply for up to £950,000 funding from a total fund of £28 million to pursue an ambitious, high risk and high reward curiosity-driven project in environmental research. You must be:
- based at a UK research organisation eligible for Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) funding
- in a role that meets the individual eligibility requirements
Deadline: 21 January 2026
Events
Eating Better Webinar – Changing the Narrative Producer sessions review
Thursday 7th August, 11:00am–12:00pm
This webinar will summarise Eating Better’s two Changing the Narrative Producer sessions held in June, ‘Farming and Dietary Change: Building Common Ground’. These involved a deep dive on farming in the context of dietary change. Reflecting on storytelling, lived experiences in farming and challenging conversations, the webinar will also be launching the publication of the next messaging guide in Eating Better’s Changing the Narrative workstream, focussed on suggested messaging to avoid and use around producers.
Sustainable Livestock Residential
8–10 August 2025, Kendal, Cumbria
Junk vs Jabs: our relationship with food
Friday 22nd August 2025, 12:45–2:15pm, The Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh
According to the World Health Organization, adult obesity levels have doubled since 1990 and quadrupled in adolescents. However, with ‘miracle’ diet drugs now available, Big Food could face challenges from Big Pharma as people eat less processed food. Or will Big Food merely adapt and produce convenient fibre- and protein-enriched foods? And where does a healthy relationship with cooking and eating food fit into the equation? An event in the Festival of Politics, the panel features AFN member Dr Stuart Gillespie.
Net Zero Food Systems Workshop
Wednesday 3rd September 2025, London
Emergent Generation are organising a one-day event bringing together young people (18-35 years) from across the food system to tackle the Net Zero challenge head-on. The key speaker is our own Neil Ward, AFN co-lead and Professor of Rural and Regional Development at the University of East Anglia. There are only 25 places available. The event is free, with some limited support available for travel costs etc.
Agroforestry Show 2025
10–11 September 2025, Maple Cross, Hertfordshire
Emergent Generation Summer Gathering
11–14 September 2025, Gloucestershire
Join Emergent Generation for three unforgettable days of connection, creativity & action – exploring how we reconnect farm & fork, town & country. Expect inspiring talks, farm visits, hands-on workshops, shared feasts & fireside conversations – all for 18-35-year-olds who are passionate about nature-friendly farming, food systems and how we can shape a fairer, greener, and more resilient future. (Some supporter tickets are available for over 35s too!)
Designing and facilitating meetings/workshops with non-academic partners
Monday 6 October 2025, 9:00–10:00am
Effective collaboration often depends on how meetings are structured and run. This webinar, run by Fast Track Impact, will offer tools to support inclusive, focused, and constructive engagement, making collaboration more effective and impact more achievable.
