A Wake-up Call from Industry Insiders: Food System Vulnerability Demands Immediate Action

A Wake-up Call from Industry Insiders: Food System Vulnerability Demands Immediate Action

ByElta Smith

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…

woman carrying vegetables and facing a field with trees

Food Security in a Climate-Changed World: A Shared Vision for National Security

ByElta Smith

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…

Hands being shaken

When Systems Resist Change: Lessons for Food System Transformation

ByElta Smith

“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…