Newsletter – October 2025
This is our newsletter for October 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.
REPORT LAUNCH: Roadmap For Resilience – A UK Food Plan for 2050
Wednesday 15th October 3–6pm, London
Join us to hear the plan! Three years of research, a 3,000-strong network, and 150 food system experts, stakeholders and practitioners have fed into the AFN Network+ Roadmap for Resilience: A UK Food Plan for 2050.
We need to make the UK’s food system work better for people and planet – and we have a once in a generation chance, both politically and climatically, to do it. We’re talking about radical change, not seen since the end of the Second World War. If we get it right, we’ll secure our food system and nature for the future, make the country healthier, and save billions of pounds.
Tickets are now available for the launch of the Roadmap in London. Please note there are only a limited number of tickets, so if you would like to attend please book quickly.
WEBINAR: Roadmap for Resilience – a UK Food Plan for 2050
Wednesday 22 October, 3:00–4:00pm
If you can’t attend, or can’t get a ticket for, the launch event in London, we are holding a webinar the following week. Co-authors of the report, Prof Tim Benton, and Prof Neil Ward, will introduce the Roadmap, its key findings and recommendations, responses to date, and the implications for policy and practice. Have your say with an audience Q&A and discussion. More than 250 of you have already signed up, but there are still plenty of spaces.
News
A fond farewell to Jez Fredenburgh, who is leaving to join the ECIU
This month we bid a fond farewell to Jez Fredenburgh, our brilliant Knowledge Exchange Fellow, who after three inspiring years with AFN is heading to the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) to take on an exciting new challenge.
Jez has been a driving force behind our digests and webinars that help make this network such a vibrant community, and we know many of you will share our gratitude for everything she has brought to AFN. While we will miss her enormously, the team will continue to bring you the digests, newsletters, and webinars you value so highly.
Please join us in wishing Jez every success in her next adventure!
Scottish community ready to embrace regenerative farming and sustainable local food
In our latest blog, read about the the Falkland Stewardship Trust’s Stakeholder FlexFund project, which set out to explore attitudes to net zero and appetite for food system change among attendees at GOFalkland Regenerative Agriculture Gathering in July 2024. The survey revealed a ‘clear call for change’ among diverse group of land users and food system champions, and identified a cohort of innovators ready to lead the way in regenerative systems.
News from the wider agri-food sector
Eating Better guidance on how to talk with producers
Eating Better have produced a messaging guide to use when talking with producers. It is intended for members of the Eating Better alliance and the wider food movement. It aims to provide organisations with information and guidance on how to tailor their projects, messages and outputs so they are able to work in a more constructive way with producers and the farming community.
Transforming terrestrial food systems for human and planetary health
A special issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B takes as its theme “Transforming terrestrial food systems for human and planetary health”. Many AFN members have contributed to articles, including AFN Co-Lead Sarah Bridle, who is the lead author on Key action areas for transforming the UK food system: insights from the Transforming UK Food Systems (TUKFS) Programme project portfolio and Year 1 Champion John Ingram, who is the lead author of Fork to farm: reverse engineering a food system. All the articles are open access.
Green Alliance mythbuster on methane
Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, more than 80 times more potent than CO₂ over a 20 year period. Cutting emissions is one of the quickest ways to slow down global warming. But some are making misleading claims about this gas and how it is measured. The Green Alliance have produced a short mythbuster, explaining why these narratives are false and shouldn’t be allowed to hold up the urgent action needed now to curb methane emissions.
Funding
Access to high performance computing facilities: autumn 2025
This opportunity provides an open and flexible route to computational support for high quality projects across the entire UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) remit.
Applications are encouraged that:
- involve early career researchers
- onboard and train new users
- significantly push the boundaries in computational research using high performance computing in your field
Deadline: 6 November 2025
Events
Realigning UK Food Production and Trade for Transition to Sustainable Diets
Tuesday 21st October, Cranfield University
Realigning UK Food Production and Trade for Transition to Healthy and Sustainable Diets is a joint research project involving University of Reading, Cranfield University, University of Kent and the Agri-Food & Biosciences Institute. This event will be an opportunity to share the outcomes of work packages with food industry professionals and managers, and engage in discussions about the project’s impact and future directions. Please note that the event is fully booked, so please contact hafize.sahinersoz@cranfield.ac.uk to join the waiting list, should more tickets become available.
