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

The report, which is more than 150 pages long, lays out 14 suggestions for the UK government to think about, consisting of financial rewards, reporting and trade requirements and targets for long-term change in the food system..

In this Q&A, Carbon Brief analyzes the report and discusses how its suggestions align– or do not align– with the UKs climate targets and decarbonisation goals.

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

Recently, sequel of Englands National Food Strategy (NFS) was published, offering a broad overview of the state of the “food system”– a comprehensive term that covers the production, processing, transportation and intake of food– in England..

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

The NFS is the conclusion of more than 2 years worth of meetings and discussions with industry leaders, academics, policymakers and the general public.

What is the National Food Strategy?

” The international food system is the single biggest contributor to biodiversity loss, logging, drought, freshwater pollution and the collapse of marine wildlife. It is the second-biggest contributor to climate change, after the energy market.”.

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

Although the scope of the report covers England alone, it notes that the house countries “food systems are so firmly linked regarding be in locations inextricable”. It continues that it hopes the devolved governments “might in turn discover some useful concepts” in the strategy.

The report itself calls the food system “both a miracle and a catastrophe”. While the current food system is capable of feeding the “biggest global population in human history”, it says, this comes at a high environmental expense. The report notes:.

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

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

The NFS has actually certainly brought these concerns to the leading edge, Edward Davey, the global engagement director of the Food and Land Use Coalition, tells Carbon Brief. He discusses:.

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

Davey adds that, in his view, “every nation on the planet would benefit from doing something of this kind”.

Its aim was to provide a roadmap for transforming the food system from its present state to one that is healthier for the planet and the population..

The response to recentlys release saw members of parliament, star chefs and even rockstars weighing in on its significance.

Why is the food strategy crucial for taking on climate change?

” Without resolving the emissions of the food system, it will not be possible to satisfy those environment modification responsibilities [laid out by law] and to add to mitigating climate modification.”.

Almost half of all food-related emissions are due to farming, including rearing livestock. The methane produced by cows and other ruminants is “approximated to have caused a 3rd of total global warming given that the commercial revolution”, the report notes.

Other significant contributors to the emissions consist of food, transport and fertiliser production and packaging..

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 same for the UK, Dr Marco Springmann, a population health researcher at the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food, tells Carbon Brief. (The NFS report puts that figure at 19%, however different studies draw different limits around what counts as the food sector.).

” Theres rather a lot of siloed thinking about the food system. So, from the perspective of integrated national policymaking that provides, its great.”.

The food system has actually seen considerably smaller sized reductions in sector-wide emissions considering that 2008 as compared to the economy as a whole: economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions have reduced by almost one-third since 2008, but food-related emissions have reduced by only 13% over the very same time..

Practically all of the gains made in the food sector have actually been due to cleaner energy and increased effectiveness in the energy sector. Changes due to farming have been negligible– as seen by the big green bar in the chart below.

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

Under its commitments to the Paris Agreement, the UK has vowed to lower emissions from 1990 levels by 68% by 2030. The government has also set a legally binding target to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Springmann states:.

Attempting to develop a much healthier population while farming in a less harmful method requires cooperation across disciplines, Davey informs Carbon Brief. He says:.

What parts of the food strategy could make the most significant effect on environment change?

Davey calls the recommendations a “excellent starting point”. He includes:.

A number of the suggestions made in the report relate in some method to climate change or ecological sustainability. These recommendations consist of:.

” The concern is how rapidly will those reforms really deal with the environment obstacle … I think the jurys out. Is it not as ambitious as it should be, from the viewpoint of what the land sector needs to do to accomplish the UK national targets? I dont understand. Its certainly a step in the best instructions, however theres most likely an argument that its not enthusiastic enough.”.

The proposed framework uses the “3 compartment model”, which makes every effort for a balance 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”. Introducing compulsory reporting on a variety of metrics for food business utilizing more than 250 people. These metrics would include the tonnage of food waste generated.Creating a national food system information program, which would enable companies and the government to assess their progress on the objectives laid out in the report.

What are the limitations of the food technique in addressing environment change?

The recommendations “seem to be nearly sort of looking backwards instead of looking forward”, Prof Maggie Gill of the University of Aberdeen and chair of the Scottish Science Advisory Council, tells Carbon Brief. She includes:.

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

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

The food system “is extremely complex”, Gill states, “but I dont think thats any reason for not actually highlighting a few of those concerns right at the start”.

” There are currently plenty of meat substitutes on the marketplace and even more so when you consider natural meat substitutes like more beans, lentils and those kinds of things … Explaining more plainly that sustainable and healthy diet doesnt always require to include processed meat options would have been crucial, but that was missed there and instead this sort of pro-business angle was taken.”.

” Another thing that seems to be missing is that foresighting, wheres the world going to from other sectors … Theres going to be an improvement in farming … And its going to take years [for the recommendations in the report] to come to fulfillment by which time the world might have altered.”.

The recommendation towards investing in innovation lists alternative proteins as a crucial area in need of research study funding. Nevertheless, Springmann states, the alternative-protein industry is currently very well-developed. He tells Carbon Brief:.

The commissioning of the report– it was led by businessman and restaurateur Henry Dimbleby– implies the report itself “reveals a bit of a manipulated focus” towards business-focused options, Springmann says.

Gill likewise keeps in mind that the report, while extensive, does not fully think about the unexpected effects of its recommendations. For instance, a much higher percentage of fresh vegetables and fruits is lost than meat. So the suggestions to eat less meat may increase the quantity of food waste.

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

How does the food technique address the contending interests of farming land use and land use for carbon sequestration?

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

In order to attend to these competing interests, the report requires a nationwide land-use method to finest designate land to nature, carbon sequestration and agriculture.

Get our complimentary Daily Briefing for a digest of the past 24 hours of environment and energy media protection, or our Weekly Briefing for a round-up of our content from the previous seven days. Just enter your email listed below:.

Nature-based solutions, such as peatland remediation and afforestation, are expected to play a major function in numerous countries and companies net-zero targets, however numerous of these require the repurposing of agricultural land.

The chart listed below demonstrate how all land in the UK is assigned (left) and how much overseas land is utilized to produce food for the UK (best).

Developing the technique will include collecting information on farming performance, top priority nature locations for conservation (such as existing peatlands) and highly contaminated locations. It will also develop on work such as Englands trees and peat action plans– launched earlier this year– in order to identify the land best suited for nature remediation..

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

The federal government has actually devoted to producing a response to the strategy, consisting of proposals for new legislation, within the next six months..

The report notes that with the ideal incentives for farmers to repurpose their land, the method could be equally useful towards farmers and the environment. It states:.

The report itself calls the food system “both a catastrophe and a wonder”. The proposed framework uses the “3 compartment model”, which makes every effort for a balance between semi-natural land, low-yield farmland and high-yield farmland to fulfill 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 development to “create a much better food system”. These metrics would include the tonnage of food waste generated.Creating a national food system information programme, which would permit companies and the government to evaluate their development on the objectives laid out in the report. The right-hand side of the chart, using the exact same scale, shows how much land is utilized overseas to produce food for the UK. The teal bars show the direct emissions associated with the supply chain of each item, while the yellow bars reveal the carbon “chance cost”, meaning the quantity of CO2 that could be sequestered in the land used to produce that food.

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

Sharelines from this story.

” Implementation of any of those recommendations truly needs political will … The suggestions themselves might have been more progressive, but even the ones that exist dont seem to resonate quite with policymakers that are in power at the moment.”.

” Globally, the greatest prospective carbon advantage of consuming less meat would not really be the decrease in emissions, however the opportunity to repurpose land so that it sequesters carbon.”.

As a result, the report says, the food system is being “asked to carry out a feat of balancings” in supplying sufficient land to produce the necessary food, but also to alleviate greenhouse gas emissions.

Reducing meat usage would likewise help alleviate the stress on land resources, the report finds. About 70% of the landmass of the UK is committed to farming, with feed and pastures for beef and lamb taking up the large majority of that land.

Overall carbon costs (kgCO2e) per kg of different foodstuff. The teal bars indicate the direct emissions related to the supply chain of each item, while the yellow bars reveal the carbon “opportunity cost”, meaning the amount of CO2 that could be sequestered in the land utilized to produce that food. Source: The National Food Strategy, Part II.

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

” The sort of land that could provide the greatest ecological advantages is frequently not very agriculturally productive. The most efficient 33% of English land produces around 60% of the total output of the land, while the bottom 33% only produces 15%.”.