Q&A: Will England’s National Food Strategy help tackle climate change?

In this Q&A, Carbon Brief discusses and examines the report how its recommendations line up– or do not align– with the UKs environment targets and decarbonisation goals.

The NFS is the culmination of more than 2 years worth of meetings and dialogues with market leaders, academics, policymakers and the public.

The first part of the technique, released in July 2020, supplied suggestions for the government to resolve food insecurity and appetite in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic. The newly published second part has actually the specified goal of supplying a “thorough prepare for transforming the food system”..

The government has committed to producing a white paper and propositions for future laws in reaction within the next 6 months, although the early action from UK prime minister Boris Johnson has actually been “noncommittal” to numerous of the NFS propositions, according to the Guardian.

The report, which is more than 150 pages long, lays out 14 recommendations for the UK federal government to think about, consisting of financial rewards, reporting and trade standards and targets for long-lasting modification in the food system..

Recently, sequel of Englands National Food Method (NFS) was released, offering a broad summary of the state of the “food system”– a comprehensive term that covers the production, processing, transport and usage of food– in England..

What is the National Food Strategy?

Davey includes that, in his view, “every country in the world would take advantage of doing something of this kind”.

” [The report] brings everyone around the table for a dialogue about what kind of system do we have, what type of system do we want to bring, what are the trade-offs and could governments do things differently.”.

” The global food system is the single most significant contributor to biodiversity loss, logging, dry spell, freshwater pollution and the collapse of water wildlife. It is the second-biggest factor to climate change, after the energy market.”.

The report itself calls the food system “both a wonder and a disaster”. While the existing food system is capable of feeding the “most significant global population in human history”, it states, this comes at a high environmental expense. The report notes:.

Its objective was to supply a roadmap for changing the food system from its present state to one that is healthier for the population and the planet..

Although the scope of the report covers England alone, it keeps in mind that the home nations “food systems are so tightly linked regarding remain in locations inextricable”. It continues that it hopes the devolved federal governments “may in turn discover some beneficial concepts” in the method.

Some have criticised the suggestion to tax wholesale sugar and salt as unfair or as disproportionately impacting lower-income households. Others state that the steps laid out in the report do not go far sufficient towards making the food system more sustainable.

The reaction to last weeks release saw members of parliament, celeb chefs and even rockstars weighing in on its significance.

The NFS was commissioned by the UK federal government in 2019 as the very first independent evaluation of the governments food policy in almost three-quarters of a century.

However, the NFS has definitely brought these issues to the leading edge, Edward Davey, the global engagement director of the Food and Land Use Coalition, tells Carbon Brief. He explains:.

This report by @food_strategy has some intriguing and far reaching ideas that would indicate a huge modification for the better in our food system and make all of us much healthier. I hope that these strategies will be taken up by this government. https://t.co/gl5rZJCrhO— Mick Jagger (@MickJagger) July 15, 2021.

Why is the food technique essential for dealing with climate modification?

Attempting to develop a much healthier population while farming in a less damaging way requires partnership across disciplines, Davey tells Carbon Brief. He states:.

” Without addressing the emissions of the food system, it will not be possible to meet those environment modification obligations [laid out by law] and to contribute to mitigating environment modification.”.

” Theres rather a lot of siloed thinking about the food system. From the point of view of integrated nationwide policymaking that provides, its wonderful.”.

Research study suggests that the food system is accountable for about one-third of international greenhouse gas emissions. And the numbers have to do with the very same for the UK, Dr Marco Springmann, a population health scientist at the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food, informs Carbon Brief. (The NFS report puts that figure at 19%, however different research studies draw different borders around what counts as the food sector.).

Under its dedications to the Paris Agreement, the UK has promised to minimize emissions from 1990 levels by 68% by 2030. The federal government has actually also set a lawfully binding target to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Springmann says:.

Greenhouse gas emissions from the food sector as a portion of the 2008 emissions in that sector. By 2018, emissions had actually lowered by 13%, however none of this change was due to improvements in farming. General emissions reduced by 32% over that very same time period. Source: The National Food Strategy, Part II.

The food system has actually seen significantly smaller reductions in sector-wide emissions given that 2008 as compared to the economy as a whole: economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions have actually reduced by nearly one-third given that 2008, however food-related emissions have reduced by only 13% over the exact same time..

Additionally, practically all of the gains made in the food sector have actually been due to cleaner energy and increased performance in the energy sector. Modifications due to farming have actually been negligible– as seen by the big green bar in the chart below.

Other significant contributors to the emissions consist of transportation, food and fertiliser manufacturing and packaging..

Nearly half of all food-related emissions are due to agriculture, consisting of rearing animals. The methane produced by cows and other ruminants is “approximated to have actually triggered a third of total global warming given that the commercial revolution”, the report notes.

What parts of the food method could make the biggest effect on climate modification?

” The concern is how quickly will those reforms really attend to the environment challenge … I think the jurys out. Is it not as enthusiastic as it should be, from the point of view of what the land sector requires to do to accomplish the UK national targets?

A number of the recommendations made in the report relate in some way to environment modification or ecological sustainability. These recommendations consist of:.

Davey calls the suggestions a “great starting point”. He includes:.

The proposed structure utilizes the “3 compartment model”, which aims for a balance in between semi-natural land, low-yield farmland and high-yield farmland to satisfy the targets of both sustainability and food production.Investing ₤ 1bn in UK Research and Innovation and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), as well as smaller centres to spur innovation to “produce a much better food system”. Introducing obligatory reporting on a range of metrics for food business employing more than 250 individuals. These metrics would consist of the tonnage of food waste generated.Creating a national food system data program, which would permit services and the federal government to evaluate their progress on the goals laid out in the report.

What are the constraints of the food technique in addressing environment modification?

The recommendations “appear to be nearly sort of looking backwards instead of looking forward”, Prof Maggie Gill of the University of Aberdeen, informs Carbon Brief. She includes:.

The food system “is extremely complicated”, Gill states, “however I dont believe thats any reason for not actually highlighting some of those concerns right at the start”.

For instance, the recommendation towards investing in innovation lists alternative proteins as a crucial location in requirement of research study financing. Springmann says, the alternative-protein industry is already extremely well-developed. He informs Carbon Brief:.

Gill also notes that the report, while comprehensive, does not totally think about the unexpected effects of its suggestions. A much higher percentage of fresh fruits and veggies is squandered than meat. So the suggestions to consume less meat may increase the amount of food waste.

” There are already a lot of meat substitutes on the marketplace and much more so when you consider natural meat replaces like more beans, lentils and those kinds of things … Explaining more clearly that healthy and sustainable diet doesnt necessarily require to consist of processed meat options would have been crucial, but that was missed out on there and instead this sort of pro-business angle was taken.”.

The report likewise “actually shied” away from taking a strong position on minimizing meat usage, Springmann states, with effects on both the environment and public health. He says:.

The commissioning of the report– it was led by business owner and restaurateur Henry Dimbleby– means the report itself “shows a little bit of a skewed focus” towards business-focused services, Springmann states.

” If you take the food system as a holistic thing, then you actually require to address all kinds of concerns. And if you wish to attend to appropriately the ecological issues, plus the health issues, you really have to deal with the overconsumption of animal-sourced foods in our diets.”.

” Another thing that seems to be missing out on is that foresighting, wheres the world going to from other sectors … Theres going to be a transformation in farming … And its going to take years [for the recommendations in the report] to come to fruition by which time the world might have changed.”.

Limousin beef livestock in a barn feeding on hay, Selside UK. Credit: John Bentley/ Alamy Stock Photo.

How does the food technique address the competing interests of agricultural land usage and land use for carbon sequestration?

Minimizing meat consumption would likewise help reduce the strain on land resources, the report finds. About 70% of the landmass of the UK is dedicated to agriculture, with feed and pastures for beef and lamb taking up the large bulk of that land.

” The kind of land that might deliver the best ecological advantages is frequently not extremely agriculturally efficient. The most productive 33% of English land produces around 60% of the overall output of the land, while the bottom 33% only produces 15%.”.

In order to deal with these competing interests, the report requires a national land-use technique to best assign land to nature, carbon sequestration and agriculture.

The right-hand side of the chart, utilizing the very same scale, reveals how much land is utilized abroad to produce food for the UK. The combined land location for raising beef and lamb for UK consumption is larger than the UK itself. Source: The National Food Strategy, Part II.

The chart below shows that when the carbon sequestration “opportunity expense” (yellow bars) is added to the emissions of different food groups (teal bars), the carbon cost of lamb and goat meat in fact goes beyond that of beef, due to the big amounts of land required to graze those animals and their hunger for tree saplings.

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” Globally, the biggest potential carbon benefit of consuming less meat would not in fact be the reduction in emissions, but the chance to repurpose land so that it sequesters carbon.”.

” Implementation of any of those recommendations actually needs political will … The recommendations themselves could have been more progressive, however even the ones that exist do not seem to resonate quite with policymakers that are in power at the minute.”.

The report itself calls the food system “both a wonder and a disaster”. The proposed structure uses the “3 compartment design”, which strives for a balance in between semi-natural land, low-yield farmland and high-yield farmland to satisfy the targets of both sustainability and food production.Investing ₤ 1bn in UK Research and Innovation and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), as well as smaller sized centres to stimulate innovation to “develop a much better food system”. These metrics would include the tonnage of food waste generated.Creating a nationwide food system information program, which would enable organizations and the government to evaluate their progress on the objectives laid out in the report. The right-hand side of the chart, using the very same scale, reveals how much land is used abroad to produce food for the UK. The teal bars show the direct emissions associated with the supply chain of each product, while the yellow bars show the carbon “opportunity cost”, implying the amount of CO2 that could be sequestered in the land used to produce that food.

Developing the method will involve collecting information on farming performance, concern nature locations for conservation (such as existing peatlands) and extremely polluted locations. It will also build on work such as Englands trees and peat action plans– launched earlier this year– in order to determine the land best matched for nature restoration..

The report notes that with the best incentives for farmers to repurpose their land, the technique might be equally helpful towards farmers and the environment. It specifies:.

Overall carbon costs (kgCO2e) per kg of numerous foodstuff. The teal bars show the direct emissions associated with the supply chain of each item, while the yellow bars show the carbon “opportunity expense”, meaning the quantity of CO2 that might be sequestered in the land utilized to produce that food. Source: The National Food Strategy, Part II.

The federal government has actually devoted to producing an action to the strategy, including propositions for brand-new legislation, within the next 6 months..

The chart listed below programs how all land in the UK is designated (left) and just how much abroad land is used to produce food for the UK (best).

Nevertheless, UK prime minister Boris Johnson has actually currently indicated his hesitancy to support some of the policy suggestions laid out in the report. This does not bode well for the reports adoption, warns Springmann:.

Sharelines from this story.

Nature-based options, such as peatland repair and afforestation, are expected to play a significant role in many nations and business net-zero targets, but much of these need the repurposing of farming land.

The UKs Climate Change Committee (CCC) has actually estimated that simply over 20% of agricultural land should be rewilded or transformed to bioenergy or other, non-agricultural crops in order to accomplish net-zero by 2050. The NFS report states:.

As an outcome, the report says, the food system is being “asked to perform a feat of balancings” in offering adequate land to produce the necessary food, but likewise to alleviate greenhouse gas emissions.