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….
Industry insiders sounded the alarm earlier this month when an anonymous group of food industry executives released a whistleblowing memo, warning of unprecedented threats to UK food security. Their revelation confirms what many people working in and on our food systems have long understood but has rarely been publicly acknowledged by industry: our food supply…
The UK’s food and farming systems reached a crossroads with the release of the Climate Change Committee’s Seventh Carbon Budget (CB7). Energy, manufacturing, and other sectors are decarbonizing, leaving agriculture as the UK’s second-highest emitting sector by 2040, accounting for 27% of UK greenhouse gas emissions. This raises a fundamental question about our food system…
“Healthcare systems and hospitals are usually inert to most forces that try to get them to change,” observed a former UK government civil servant in a recent study I co-authored examining climate and health policy. “They are built to be incredibly stable and resilient systems, and do a very, very good job of resisting the…
Last year was the hottest in human history. February of this year continues the trend and was the ninth month in a row that has seen the warmest temperatures on record. Climate change is a global crisis that demands urgent action from the international community. Rising temperatures disrupt agricultural cycles, cause sea-level rise, and intensify…
Resilience. This one word to me encapsulates everything about the challenges of the last year and the path out of the COVID-19 pandemic. Resilience is the capacity to face adversity and remain strong, but also to be open to change, to be flexible. A robust system can endure, but a resilient system can adapt. We’ve…
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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