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

The very first part of the method, released in July 2020, provided recommendations for the government to resolve food insecurity and appetite in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic. The freshly released second part has actually the mentioned goal of supplying a “thorough plan for changing the food system”..

The report, which is more than 150 pages long, sets out 14 suggestions for the UK government to consider, including monetary incentives, reporting and trade requirements and targets for long-lasting change in the food system..

In this Q&A, Carbon Brief describes and takes a look at the report how its recommendations align– or do not align– with the UKs environment targets and decarbonisation objectives.

Recently, part 2 of Englands National Food Strategy (NFS) was published, supplying a broad overview of the state of the “food system”– an all-inclusive term that covers the production, processing, transportation and intake of food– in England..

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

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

What is the National Food Strategy?

Although the scope of the report covers England alone, it keeps in mind that the home countries “food systems are so tightly interwoven as to remain in locations inextricable”. It continues that it hopes the devolved federal governments “may in turn find some helpful concepts” in the strategy.

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

This report by @food_strategy has some interesting and far reaching ideas that would mean 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 reaction to recentlys release saw members of parliament, celeb chefs and even rockstars weighing in on its significance.

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 global food system is the single greatest contributor to biodiversity loss, deforestation, drought, freshwater contamination and the collapse of water wildlife. It is the second-biggest contributor to climate change, after the energy market.”.

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

The NFS has actually definitely brought these problems to the leading edge, Edward Davey, the global engagement director of the Food and Land Use Coalition, tells Carbon Brief.

The report itself calls the food system “both a disaster and a miracle”. While the present food system can feeding the “biggest international population in human history”, it states, this comes at a high environmental cost. The report notes:.

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

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

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

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

Research study suggests that the food system is accountable for about one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions. And the numbers have to do with the exact 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 studies draw different limits around what counts as the food sector.).

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

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

Essentially 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.

” Without dealing with the emissions of the food system, it will not be possible to meet those climate modification responsibilities [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 in that sector. Source: The National Food Strategy, Part II.

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

Attempting to produce a much healthier population while farming in a less harmful method needs partnership across disciplines, Davey tells Carbon Brief. He states:.

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

The proposed framework uses the “three compartment model”, which strives for a balance in 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 development to “create a much better food system”. Introducing compulsory reporting on a range of metrics for food companies employing more than 250 people. These metrics would consist of the tonnage of food waste generated.Creating a nationwide food system information program, which would allow companies and the government to assess their development on the goals laid out in the report.

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

” The question is how quickly will those reforms really address 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?

Many of the suggestions made in the report relate in some way to environment modification or environmental sustainability. These suggestions consist of:.

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

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

Gill also keeps in mind that the report, while extensive, does not completely think about the unintentional repercussions of its suggestions. For instance, a much higher proportion of fresh vegetables and fruits is squandered than meat. So the recommendations to eat less meat might increase the quantity of food waste.

” 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 recommendations in the report] to come to fulfillment by which time the world might have altered.”.

” If you take the food system as a holistic thing, then you truly need to resolve all type of issues. And if you wish to attend to correctly the environmental concerns, plus the health concerns, you truly have to attend to the overconsumption of animal-sourced foods in our diet plans.”.

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

” There are currently a lot of meat substitutes on the market 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 plan does not always need to consist of processed meat options would have been essential, but that was missed out on there and rather this sort of pro-business angle was taken.”.

The food system “is extremely intricate”, Gill says, “however I do not think thats any excuse for not in fact highlighting a few of those issues right at the start”.

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

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

For instance, the recommendation towards purchasing innovation lists alternative proteins as an essential location in requirement of research study financing. Springmann states, the alternative-protein industry is currently very well-developed. He informs Carbon Brief:.

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

” Globally, the biggest possible carbon advantage of eating less meat would not really be the decrease in emissions, but the opportunity to repurpose land so that it sequesters carbon.”.

However, UK prime minister Boris Johnson has already shown 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:.

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” The type of land that could provide the best environmental advantages is often not extremely agriculturally productive. The most efficient 33% of English land produces around 60% of the overall output of the land, while the bottom 33% just produces 15%.”.

The report keeps in mind that with the right rewards for farmers to repurpose their land, the strategy might be equally advantageous towards farmers and the environment. It mentions:.

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Establishing the strategy will include collecting information on agricultural efficiency, priority nature locations for conservation (such as existing peatlands) and highly polluted areas. It will also develop on work such as Englands trees and peat action strategies– released earlier this year– in order to identify the land best suited for nature remediation..

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

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

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

As an outcome, the report states, the food system is being “asked to perform a feat of balancings” in supplying adequate land to produce the necessary food, however also to alleviate greenhouse gas emissions.

” Implementation of any of those recommendations truly requires political will … The recommendations themselves might have been more progressive, however even the ones that exist dont appear to resonate quite with policymakers that are in power at the minute.”.

In order to resolve these contending interests, the report requires a national land-use technique to best designate land to nature, carbon sequestration and agriculture.

Nature-based services, such as peatland repair and afforestation, are expected to play a major function in numerous countries and companies net-zero targets, but a lot of these need the repurposing of farming land.

Total carbon expenses (kgCO2e) per kilogram of various foodstuff. The teal bars indicate the direct emissions associated with the supply chain of each item, while the yellow bars reveal the carbon “chance cost”, suggesting the quantity of CO2 that might be sequestered in the land utilized to produce that food. Source: The National Food Strategy, Part II.

Minimizing meat intake would also assist alleviate the strain on land resources, the report discovers. About 70% of the landmass of the UK is committed to agriculture, with feed and pastures for beef and lamb using up the huge bulk of that land.

The chart below shows that when the carbon sequestration “chance cost” (yellow bars) is added to the emissions of different food groups (teal bars), the carbon expense of lamb and goat meat in fact surpasses that of beef, due to the large quantities of land needed to graze those animals and their cravings for tree saplings.

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

The report itself calls the food system “both a miracle and a catastrophe”. The proposed structure utilizes 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 spur innovation to “create a better food system”. These metrics would consist of the tonnage of food waste generated.Creating a nationwide food system information programme, which would enable organizations and the federal government to evaluate their development on the goals laid out in the report. The right-hand side of the chart, using the exact same scale, shows how much land is used overseas 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 reveal the carbon “chance cost”, implying the amount of CO2 that could be sequestered in the land used to produce that food.