In the last week of June, the UK broke its record for the hottest June day three days in a row. In London, where Climate Action Week had convened around a thousand events, the heat forced cancellations, including a session on extreme heat and how to govern for it. The venue, like most buildings in…
For the last 50 years or so, efficiency has been the organizing principle for the UK food system. The reasoning is that food is cheapest and most reliable if it’s produced wherever costs are lowest, moved through lean supply chains that hold little stock, and traded across open markets. Reserves and slack are treated as…
We should pause when the profession whose job is to model risk for a living tells us that its own tools are unable to assess the biggest risks ahead. Last month, the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) published a report on nature risk, stating that the standard quantitative models they rely on to price…
Two years ago, a group of experts identified 15 food crisis scenarios. Of these, only 2 haven’t happened yet. We’ve experienced these crises through an ever-increasing grocery bill, and the disappearance of specific food items from supermarket shelves, sometimes for weeks at a time. With each crisis, the system has bent but hasn’t visibly broken….
There is growing recognition in food systems thinking that justice isn’t simply a goal to arrive at, but rather what makes transformation possible in the first place. Changes that ignore power imbalances generate resistance, and technical answers, no matter how well-designed, struggle to become relevant when the communities they’re meant to support had no hand…
It’s worth paying attention when a country’s own intelligence analysts warn that ecosystems critical to its food security could begin collapsing within a decade. That’s what Defra’s national security assessment, reportedly produced with the Joint Intelligence Committee, concluded earlier this year. It’s far from the only warning. Tim Lang’s ‘Just in Case’ report found the…
Ask anyone working on food and farming what needs to be happening, and you’ll hear familiar answers: healthier and more accessible diets, resilient farms and food workers, smarter land use. The consensus is striking. What’s missing isn’t agreement on the destination but attention to one essential element that makes the journey possible: justice. The updated…
“Our food system is damaging the very foundations of our food security.” When Paul Behrens delivered this assessment to over a thousand policymakers and business leaders in Westminster last month, it could have been a counsel of despair. It wasn’t. That’s because Behrens, speaking at the National Emergency Briefing on climate and nature, framed the…
For decades, climate negotiations have treated food security as separate from emissions reduction. The Belém Declaration on Hunger, Poverty, and People-Centred Climate Action changed that. Forty-three countries plus the EU committed to putting the needs of those living with poverty and food insecurity at the centre of climate solutions. This high-level declaration represents a milestone…
During the Second World War, the UK reshaped farming, land use, and diets with unprecedented speed in reaction to unforeseen events. We need that scale of deliberate change again, but this time we have something wartime planners didn’t: the chance to act before crisis forces our hand. The case for acting now is already clear….
In recent years, we’ve witnessed empty supermarket shelves, panic buying, and supply chain failures that would have seemed impossible a decade ago. Chronic vulnerabilities in the UK food system—from farmer poverty to just-in-time logistics—have created a system where minor shocks can cascade into major crises. The question isn’t if another crisis will hit, but whether…
Parents skipping meals to feed their children, healthcare workers relying on food banks, middle-income families struggling to afford fresh produce—these increasingly common realities reflect something more profound than individual hardships. They provide compelling evidence that our food environments are fundamentally failing to provide accessible nutrition for all. The statistics underpinning these examples are sobering: the…
Elta Smith is an independent researcher, writer and consultant. She is an experienced leader in making better policies for our food systems. Her research focuses on the intersection of food, the environment and human health.
She has directed and managed studies for UK, EU and international organisations covering issues not only from ‘farm to fork’, but from ‘lab to fork’, particularly the role of science and technology in transforming the food chain.
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