Digest

The Climate Change Committee (CCC) has published its Seventh Carbon Budget (SB7). Here’s a run-down of some key points from its 390+ pages.

The webinar and briefing outlines the current national resilience framework, pointing to a gap between official resilience planning and food system realities. Tim draws on his report Just in Case for the National Preparedness Commission (not published when the webinar was given), which addresses the state of civil food resilience and highlights the need for community over individualism.

A look at Professor Tim Lang’s new report: Just in Case: 7 steps to narrow the UK civil food resilience gap, published by the National Preparedness Commission.

A look at The Food Foundation’s annual Broken Plate report.

The government has published its response to the recommendations made by the House of Lords Food, Diet and Obesity Committee in its report Recipe for health: a plan to fix our broken food system, published in October 2024

This time last week, thousands of people were settling into The Oxford Real Farming Conference and The Oxford Farming Conference (OFC). Differences of politics and precise change needed aside, we probably all shared a thought similar to this; “Food and farming are critical to tackling multiple crises – we all know it, it’s obvious – so why isn’t the whole country jumping up and down calling for action?!”

Defra confirmed a national food strategy would be developed, public concern erupted over Bovaer methane-busting feed additive, Denmark agreed the world’s first tax on agricultural emissions, and more.

Steve Reed, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, confirmed yesterday that work is underway to develop a food strategy. Starting in the new year, Defra will begin to engage with food system actors to co-develop the strategy. Defra will work across a number of government departments and has the support of the PM.

A digest of Henry Dimbleby and Dr Dolly van Tulleken’s report, Nourishing Britain: a Political Manual for Improving the Nation’s Health. The report is a how-to (and how not-to) manual for current and future politicians about tackling the UK’s diet-related ill-health. With thanks to our Policy Champion, Ali Morpeth, for her help digesting it.

As UNFCC COP29 kicks off in Azerbaijan, an oil-producing, authoritarian state. What could negotiations this year, mean for food and farming?  Our co-lead, Prof Tim Benton, has spent much of his career working with governments around the world on climate change and food system transformation. He’s been to many COPs and gives his assessment.