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…
“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…
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…
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…
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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