Newsletter – January 2025
This is our newsletter for January 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.
News
Book now for our Big Tent
The Big Tent is the main meeting of the year for the AFN Network+, where stakeholders from across the agri-food sector come together for two days of learning, collaboration and networking. The event will also offer delegates the chance to engage and contribute to the AFN Network’s roadmap (mentioned above).
This year’s event will be held on the 11 and 12 March in Manchester. Attendance (including catering and an evening meal on 11 March) is free. Delegates must have an interest in the AFN Network+ and experience in the agri-food sector. We have some funding available to support your travel and accommodation if your organisation is unable to provide this for you. Early Career Researchers are eligible for 100% funding, anyone else is supported at 80%. If you would like to request this please provide explanatory details when you register and specify whether or not you are an ECR.
Last year’s Big Tent was fully booked, and more than half of this year’s tickets have already gone, so please register soon to avoid disappointment.
Last chance for Stakeholder FlexFund funding
The AFN Network+ operates a rolling flexible fund for UK-based stakeholders to implement activities that support our mission to build a community working towards achieving net zero through the agri-food sector by 2050.
The fund is open to members of the AFN Network+ and is for any UK-based activity that explores, develops and trials solutions to reduce and sequester greenhouse gas emissions through agri-food. This could be at any point: from primary production (agriculture, horticulture and aquaculture) and food processing (food and drink manufacture) to food retail, consumption, and waste management.
All activities should be based on knowledge exchange and engagement. Activities are member-devised and led and should contribute to identifying and shaping the research, innovation and policy development required to deliver a net zero agri-food system for the UK .
Activities funded could include (but are not limited to): events and workshops; discussion panels and roundtables; podcasts; arts/theatre; street activism; farm-led field trials; digital or technology based activities; toolkits and guides.
The total amount you can apply for is between £1,000 – £5,000. If you have thought about applying, but haven’t got around to it yet, now is your last chance. The final round is now open, and will close on 1 February 2025.
Two Surveys from our Champions
Have your say on carbon emissions! A survey for farmers and those who work with them…
We know farmers across the country are experiencing huge challenges from changing agricultural policy, new tax regimes and extreme weather – to name just a few. They are also being pressured by supply chains, government and lobby groups to cut their carbon emissions.
Farmers are in a difficult position. Some actions they take could benefit the farm business as well as reducing carbon emissions – for example, cutting waste and losses, or reducing the need for fertiliser. But they might view other actions as onerous, costly, risky, or just unnecessary.
It’s rare for farmers as a wider community to be asked what they think about climate change, which activities they would consider getting involved in, or which they feel would make a difference in terms of carbon emissions. Amy Jackson, Year 2 AFN Champion for Behaviour Change, has developed this survey to give farmers that voice – with the aim of informing policymakers, supply chains and the broader public
Please consider spending 10-12 minutes taking this survey. It runs until 17 January, and three luxury farmhouse hampers worth £200 each are being offered as prizes in a draw for participants.
If you’re not a farmer but work with farmers, your voice matters too – there are options on the survey specifically asking your opinion. Please also circulate to your contacts in farming – the results will be informative to all!
Please complete the survey. Thank you!
BCBC industry survey
In connection with the British Cattle Breeding Conference (see Events below), AFN Network+ Champion Caeli Richardson and colleague Madeleine Post, AbacusBio, are currently conducting an assessment of the different livestock and horticulture sectors in the UK. They are focusing on industry emissions and how genetic improvement can reduce emissions per unit of produce (e.g. litres of milk, kilo of wheat etc).
Their survey aims to understand the opportunities, attitudes, and scale of the different sectors from an industry perspective. Your contribution in this survey will help to ensure that the insights gathered reflect the experiences and perspectives of those working in the agriculture and horticulture industry.
The survey will take roughly 5-7 minutes to complete. Participation is anonymous and will be kept confidential.
Webinars
Tim Lang on UK food system preparedness for shocks
Tuesday, 21 January 2025, 11:00am–12:30pm
Renowned food systems thinker and scholar, Prof Tim Lang, has spent the last two years researching the UK food system’s preparedness for shocks. In this webinar he will draw on his soon-to-be-published report for the National Preparedness Commission which addresses the state of civil (ie the public’s) food resilience.
UK governments have assured us the UK’s food security is robust. Many food analysts disagree, pointing to a polycrisis of climate change, geopolitics, prices, food ‘weaponisation’ (Ukraine, Sudan, Gaza) and the fragilities of Just-in-Time logistics on which almost all food supply depends. The UK has form in complacency about food, a policy legacy of Empire and EU membership. So far policy advice on resilience-proofing focuses on individual corporate actions and the public has barely featured. This webinar will sketch current national resilience, pointing to a gap between official resilience planning and food system realities. It will highlight the need for community over individualism. Delivering civil food resilience requires a radical but reasonable shift in public policy and more public engagement. Benign ignorance is rarely a good policy.
AI & reducing agricultural emissions – risks, opportunities & research gaps
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is fast opening up a world of new possibilities in multiple areas – and a lot of questions too. For food and farming, a big question is whether and how it can help us reduce emissions faster, in what is a critical decade for tackling climate change. But what are the risks of using AI in agriculture, and might there be unintended consequences and trade offs? What about research gaps?
In December, three speakers took us on a whistle stop tour of what AI might mean for crop and livestock production. Andrew French is a professor of Computer Science at the University of Nottingham, Paddy Tarbuck is Innovation Lead in Agri-Food Sustainability at UK Agri-Tech Centre, and James Strong is a Research Software Engineer at Aberystwyth University.
News from the wider agri-food sector
Events
Oxford Real Farming Conference
9-10 January 2025, Oxford
AFN Co-Lead Angelina Sanderson Bellamy and Knowledge Exchange Fellow Jez Fredenburgh will be attending the conference later this week. If you see them, please say hello!
Why UK politicians have failed to tackle obesity and improve the nation’s health
Thursday 16th January 2025, 9:00 – 10:15am
Dr Dolly van Tulleken will share the results of Nourishing Britain: A Political Manual for Improving the Nation’s Health the report she wrote with Henry Dimbleby, in this online lecture. Hear how the failures to improve the nation’s diet resulted from issues related to a fear of nanny state accusations, industry influence, competing priorities, and difficulty intervening on such a large and complex issue.
British Cattle Breeding Conference
20-22 January 2025, Telford
The 2025 British Cattle Breeding Conference will address how cattle breeding can meet the rising demands of food production whilst simultaneously reducing the impact of methane emissions. Farmers and researchers will come together at the event to debate this hot topic.
The AFN Network+ is proud to sponsor the conference. As part of our sponsorship, we will be funding 20 young farmers to attend the conference and to run a workshop with them which will focus on the potential of genetics to reduce emissions. This initiative reflects our commitment to engage the next generation with critical discussions about how the UK agri-food sector can transition toward a more sustainable, low-emission future.
Exploring Food, Philosophy, and Intellectual Property
Wednesday 29th January 2025, 4:30 – 8:00pm
Celebrating the launch of the new book by Enrico Bonadio and Andrea Borghini, Food, Philosophy, and Intellectual Property – Fifty Case Studies, which brings together these three fascinating subjects. The authors will be presenting a selection of the book’s 50 case studies, organised around eight themes: images; genericity and descriptiveness; language traps; procedures; menus, recipes, and creativity; boundaries; biotech; and empowerment.
Navigating crisis: Dangers and opportunities in development
25–27 June 2025, Hybrid at University of Bath
At this conference, organised by the Development Studies Association, there will be a special session, Artificial Intelligence Opportunities for Developing Transformative Positive Change in Future Food Systems, hosted by Robert Strong Jr and Laura Palczynski (Texas A&M University) and Rafael Landaverde (Harper Adams University). It will investigate the social implications of AI as a form of technology assessment that anticipates the unforeseen and unintended consequences and opportunities of technological innovation, including cultural, health, welfare, educational, ethical, food, and environmental impacts.
Inclusivity and transformations of agricultural extension and education
1-4 July 2025, Vila Real, Portugal
The European Seminar on Extension & Education (ESEE) is a biennial conference about agricultural advice and education. It aims to support discussion between science and practice, and is open to a diversity of contributions, both academic and practical. ESEE gathers and contrasts experiences and findings from all European countries, but also between Europe and other contexts in the global North and global South.