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

Last week, part 2 of Englands National Food Technique (NFS) was released, providing a broad overview of the state of the “food system”– an all-inclusive term that covers the production, processing, transportation and usage of food– in England..

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

The very first part of the method, released in July 2020, offered suggestions for the federal government to address food insecurity and appetite in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic. The recently released 2nd part has the specified objective of providing a “comprehensive strategy for changing the food system”..

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

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

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

What is the National Food Strategy?

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

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

The NFS has actually certainly brought these issues to the forefront, Edward Davey, the worldwide engagement director of the Food and Land Use Coalition, tells Carbon Brief.

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

The scope of the report covers England alone, it notes that the home countries “food systems are so firmly linked as to be in places inextricable”. It continues that it hopes the devolved federal governments “may in turn find some useful ideas” in the method.

” The global food system is the single greatest factor to biodiversity loss, deforestation, dry spell, freshwater pollution and the collapse of aquatic wildlife. It is the second-biggest factor to climate modification, after the energy market.”.

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

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

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

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

Why is the food method crucial for taking on climate modification?

” Without dealing with the emissions of the food system, it will not be possible to satisfy those climate change commitments [set out by law] and to add to mitigating environment change.”.

Greenhouse gas emissions from the food sector as a percentage of the 2008 emissions because sector. By 2018, emissions had reduced by 13%, however none of this change was because of improvements in agriculture. Total emissions decreased by 32% over that exact same period. Source: The National Food Strategy, Part II.

” Theres rather a lot of siloed considering the food system. From the point of view of integrated national policymaking that provides, its great.”.

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

Essentially all of the gains made in the food sector have actually been due to cleaner energy and increased effectiveness in the energy sector. Modifications due to agriculture have been minimal– as seen by the large green bar in the chart below.

Trying to develop a healthier population while farming in a less harmful way requires cooperation throughout disciplines, Davey tells Carbon Brief. He states:.

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

Other significant factors to the emissions include food, fertiliser and transport manufacturing and product packaging..

Research study suggests that the food system is responsible for about one-third of worldwide 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%, but various research studies draw various limits around what counts as the food sector.).

Almost half of all food-related emissions are because of farming, consisting of rearing animals. The methane produced by cows and other ruminants is “estimated to have actually caused a 3rd of total worldwide warming given that the industrial revolution”, the report notes.

What parts of the food strategy could make the biggest impact on climate modification?

Many of the recommendations made in the report relate in some method to environment modification or ecological sustainability. These recommendations include:.

The proposed structure uses the “3 compartment design”, which makes every effort for a balance in between semi-natural land, low-yield farmland and high-yield farmland to meet 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 spur innovation to “produce a much better food system”. Introducing mandatory reporting on a range of metrics for food business utilizing more than 250 individuals. These metrics would consist of the tonnage of food waste generated.Creating a national food system data program, which would enable services and the government to evaluate their progress on the goals laid out in the report.

Davey calls the suggestions a “great starting point”. Nevertheless, he adds:.

” The concern is how rapidly will those reforms actually deal with the climate obstacle … I believe the jurys out. Is it not as enthusiastic as it should be, from the point of view of what the land sector needs to do to achieve the UK nationwide targets?

What are the constraints of the food strategy in resolving climate modification?

The food system “is really intricate”, Gill states, “but I dont believe thats any excuse for not in fact highlighting a few of those concerns right at the start”.

The recommendations “seem to be nearly sort of looking in reverse instead of looking forward”, Prof Maggie Gill of the University of Aberdeen, tells Carbon Brief. She includes:.

Gill also notes that the report, while extensive, does not fully consider the unexpected repercussions of its suggestions. For example, a much higher percentage of fresh vegetables and fruits is wasted than meat. The suggestions to eat less meat may increase the quantity of food waste.

The suggestion towards investing in innovation lists alternative proteins as an essential location in need of research funding. Nevertheless, Springmann states, the alternative-protein industry is currently very strong. He tells Carbon Brief:.

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

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

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

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

” If you take the food system as a holistic thing, then you truly require to attend to all kinds of issues. And if you desire to address correctly the environmental concerns, plus the health concerns, you really have to deal with the overconsumption of animal-sourced foods in our diet plans.”.

” Another thing that appears 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 suggestions in the report] to come to fulfillment by which time the world may have changed.”.

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

” The type of land that might provide the greatest ecological benefits is often not extremely agriculturally efficient. The most efficient 33% of English land produces around 60% of the total output of the land, while the bottom 33% just produces 15%.”.

In order to address these completing interests, the report requires a national land-use strategy to best assign land to nature, carbon sequestration and agriculture.

The report itself calls the food system “both a disaster and a miracle”. The proposed framework utilizes 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 centres to stimulate innovation to “create a better food system”. These metrics would include the tonnage of food waste generated.Creating a national food system data programme, which would enable businesses and the federal government to evaluate their progress on the goals laid out in the report. The right-hand side of the chart, utilizing the same scale, shows how much land is utilized overseas to produce food for the UK. The teal bars indicate the direct emissions associated with the supply chain of each product, while the yellow bars show the carbon “opportunity expense”, implying the amount of CO2 that might be sequestered in the land used to produce that food.

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

However, UK prime minister Boris Johnson has already shown his hesitancy to support a few of the policy recommendations laid out in the report. This does not bode well for the reports adoption, warns Springmann:.

Developing the strategy will include gathering data on farming performance, concern nature areas for conservation (such as existing peatlands) and extremely contaminated areas. It will also develop on work such as Englands trees and peat action plans– launched earlier this year– in order to identify the land finest matched for nature remediation..

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

Sharelines from this story.

Nature-based services, such as peatland repair and afforestation, are anticipated to play a major role in lots of countries and companies net-zero targets, however a lot of these need the repurposing of agricultural land.

The government has actually committed to producing a reaction to the strategy, consisting of proposals for new legislation, within the next 6 months..

The report notes that with the right rewards for farmers to repurpose their land, the method might be equally beneficial towards farmers and the environment. It states:.

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

The chart listed below shows that when the carbon sequestration “opportunity expense” (yellow bars) is contributed to the emissions of numerous food groups (teal bars), the carbon cost of lamb and goat meat really surpasses that of beef, due to the big amounts of land needed to graze those animals and their appetite for tree saplings.

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

As an outcome, the report states, the food system is being “asked to perform a task of balancings” in supplying sufficient land to produce the essential food, but also to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

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

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

The right-hand side of the chart, using the same scale, shows how much land is used overseas to produce food for the UK. The combined land location for rearing beef and lamb for UK consumption is bigger than the UK itself. Source: The National Food Strategy, Part II.