Why is the food system so hard to reform?

Welcome back to Sustainable Views, the podcast looking at sustainability policy and regulation in depth. I'm Elizabeth Meager, acting deputy editor of Sustainable Views, and today we're going to be looking at the difficulties of reforming the food system. And joining me to do so is Sustainable Views editor Philippa Nuttall. Hi, Philippa.

Hi, Lizzie.

And our reporter, Florence Jones.

Hi.

So the agriculture sector faces climate risks from multiple angles. It is responsible for roughly a third of all global emissions, yet it's also being battered by climate change, which is making both droughts and flooding a lot more frequent, causing chaos for farmers and food production. This isn't an area that I've written a huge amount about, but I'm really glad that Florence has. So Florence, you're focused on the UK, and I know that both the weather and the price of food have been kind of big stories here over the last couple of months. So can you just talk us through what's going on and what steps is the government taking to help farmers and food companies?

Yeah, absolutely. So as you all know well, Lizzie, we've all been getting a bit hot under the collar here in the UK in recent weeks, along with much of Europe. We've been in a heatwave and this has had huge implications for farming. 2025 was the driest spring in 132 years, according to the government's National Drought Group. and a number of regions in the UK have been moved into drought status this month. But for farmers, this is just the latest in a growing pattern of unpredictable weather. The winter season between 2023 and '24 was incredibly wet, and many saw their crops perish as a result. And according to government estimates, this caused around £1 billion drop in the earnings of farmers over that winter. And farmers are being impacted by climate shocks both domestically and internationally. This is having a huge impact on food prices. Research published just last week and conducted as a collaboration between researchers at the German Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Supercomputing Center in Barcelona, and also a couple of UK nonprofits found that potato prices increased in the UK 22% from January to February 2024. So that's just one month, 22% in one month. And that followed extreme rainfall over that winter. Scientists say that rainfall was made 20% heavier and 10 times more likely due to climate change. And the researchers found similar trends among other commodities in other countries who experienced climate shocks. So this has huge implications, of course, for the health and well-being of people in the UK and globally, pushing more people into food insecurity. It also has knock-on implications for businesses. They have to consider their supply chains and risk associated with food shortages. And it can also contribute to inflation. And we've been seeing that in the UK just this week. It's been a significant news story that rising inflation is directly linked to rising food prices. So the UK government definitely does recognize the issue. Just last week, it published its long-awaited National Food Strategy. This is a strategy that's been in the works since 2021, when the then Conservative government commissioned food policy expert and owner of the restaurant chain Leon Henry Dimpleby to conduct a food strategy. And it's a really interesting report, actually, to anyone who hasn't read it, I would recommend it. It's surprisingly punchy for a government-commissioned review. And we really went into the links between food, health, in particular childhood obesity, and the wider food system and nature.

The Good Food Bill, putting this on a legislative backing. And I think that there is somewhere where I hope that maybe we can work with the Select Committees to try to unite the forces of education, of trade, of this Select Committee to ensure that we don't have a situation where, because those fundamental issues of join-up didn't happen, someone else has to come along and do a similar job in 5 years' time, because once again we have slipped the responsibility of a nation of getting a grip on our food system.

Now, the government-produced food strategy that's just come out definitely follows suit in recognizing how all these problems are linked. But unlike Dimpleby, who really recommended specific policies to address these issues, the government hasn't done that, and they've said that those policies are still in the works. That being said, they have made some commitments around food. There's an albeit delayed ban coming into force in October this year on daytime advertising for foods which are high in salt, fat and sugar. And January next year, buy one get one free offers on those same foods will also be limited. At the end of June, the government said it was introducing a healthy food standard for supermarkets in the UK. Supermarkets where we source between 70 and 90% of our food. So that's really key, but it's not quite clear exactly what this will look like at the moment.

So the business impact and of course the health problem is one side of the coin. What about nature and farming?

The government has also announced a law, and central to this is its land use framework. The final framework is yet to be published by the government. They've just closed consultation, and it basically serves as a map of the UK and allocating different land for farming, house building, nature restoration, and also growing crops for biofuels. And there's a lot of detail in the consultation document around how farming might have to change in the UK. which includes methods like peat restoration, planting cover crops, and reducing the use of synthetic fertilizers. This really plays into interest around what's being called regenerative farming at the moment, which is a slightly woolly term, but it essentially means farming in such a way that maintains soil health and biodiversity. So the land use framework doesn't frame it as such, but there's been so many conversations in the UK in recent months, including from major food brands who are using the term regenerative in their advertising. So I think that's definitely going be a growing area of interest for policymakers.

Yeah, I suppose the kind of health angle that you were talking about there, I hadn't even thought of, but I suppose governments are really in this tricky spot where they've got to be worrying about food prices and also supply, but also this kind of health crisis that we all know is going on as well. So not easy. And Philippa, you are obviously based in Brussels. What's going on in the EU? I know there's a lot of kind of regulatory changes happening at the moment, what's happening for farmers?

So I think a lot of what Flo has said is also relevant to the EU, given that we're not too far apart despite what people may think after Brexit. So we've not drifted off elsewhere. So many obviously, if there were similar weather patterns we've seen in terms of drought, flooding, etc., and those impacts on yields and prices as well, In Europe, I mean, the basis of food policy across the EU, and was also the case in the UK until the UK left the EU, is the Common Agricultural Policy. It's a policy that was set up after the Second World War to boost food production in Europe after the war. It used to take up about 70% of the EU budget. That's down, down to about 30-40% now. But it's still quite a controversial policy. It's gone through various iterations over the years to to try and take into consideration more of the environmental side, climate impacts, etc. But it's still a long way, according to environmentalists at least, as to where it needs to be. The latest sort of change that happened last week, or proposed change, is the European Commission set forward its idea of what the next budget should be, the next multi-annual budget for the EU, which goes from 2028 to 2034. This is always a massive controversial discussion which will now continue for 2 years between various sets of policymakers. And within that, there is a— I mean, the Commission says it's going to keep funding for agriculture at about the same level, but there will be in real terms a decrease, but it's still very considerable. And then within that sort of budget area, one of the changes that's being proposed is a reduction of the environmental measures that farmers would have to comply with, which many would argue are already not very strict. Agriculture in Europe is one of the areas which in terms of emissions reductions is a very light touch comparison to most other areas, which— so industry, for example, is subject to the emissions trading system, etc. So the demands there in terms of emissions reductions are much stricter. This sort of— and that will be up to member states to decide how farmers should or should not meet certain environmental demands. A certain amount of this has come from the farm protests that we saw last year across Europe. I mean, in Brussels, the streets on various occasions were totally blocked by tractors. We had fires outside the European Parliament, you know, farmers or certain groups of farmers have sort of a license, it seems, to be able to do a little bit what they want to do, much more than other groups in society perhaps do. I think when you speak to farmers, even the big farmers who receive a lot of the money from the Common Agricultural Policy and are involved in these protests, they understand clearly that climate change is happening. They live from a day-to-day level with the impacts of climate change on their production, on their harvests, on the sowing of their crops. But there isn't often an incentive to help them move. So in terms of the payments for farmers, and this kind of links to what Flo was saying about health as well, most of these payments historically have gone to production of big bulk crops. Which many would argue for our health are not the best thing to be growing either. We need a lot more fruit, vegetables, legumes. So everything is kind of linked and the European policymakers are very much running scared at the moment, I would say, of sort of really putting into place the systemic change that many scientists and climate and environmental groups would argue is necessary in the world of food and farming to basically make food and farming much more resilient to the impacts of climate change, to continue production, to reduce that impact on food prices because of extreme weather events. But because we've had these protests, it's definitely not happening at the moment. Under the first Ursula von der Leyen Commission, the EU executive came forward with a farm-to-fork policy which was very much more aligned with demands around climate and the environment, and that's disappeared under this second term. And we've come out with a— there's a vision now for agriculture and food, but which is much more lighter touch again in terms of how farmers should respond to climate change and the need to sort of restore wildlife and look after the environment at the same time as producing food.

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Okay. And so obviously Europe is like a particularly wet region and we're also the fastest warming region on Earth, as far as I know. Is there anywhere on Earth that isn't facing these issues? Like, can we just import more food from elsewhere?

It's a great question, Lizzie. And honestly, if only it were so easy. Of course, climate change impacts are not limited to the UK and even Europe. And one really good example of this is cocoa prices. So the average price the UK paid per kilo of cocoa beans from all sources went up a third, so 32%, between 2022 and 2024, which was found by analysis by the Energy Climate Intelligence Unit. And cocoa is only grown in very restricted regions. Only certain countries have the conditions. So globally, 99.9% of cocoa is grown in regions which are incredibly climate vulnerable, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. So you might say, surely we can just go without chocolate. It's not necessary. But while cocoa is a particularly sensitive commodity, it kind of serves well as an example of how many of our supply chains are especially concentrated into certain regions where those crops grow best. And also our diets have been changing over many years and we've grown accustomed to eating many foods which aren't grown in our local vicinity. And this has sparked some really interesting conversations in recent months and years. Philippa was talking about resilience. I think resilience is a huge theme in the food sector at the moment. I was recently at a regenerative agriculture festival that's hosted here in the UK, and I saw Professor Tim Lang speak. And so he's with City University London. He's really interesting, doing really interesting work on food security. And he was commissioned by the UK's National Preparedness Commission to produce a report around food resilience, and particularly building civil resilience around food. He makes the argument that food should be considered part of defense spending and government budgets around defense should include provisions for food. We've obviously seen Europe and the UK increasingly focus on defense boosting budgetary spending. And of course, the US is looking to do the same. I think it's an interesting question around where does food slot into defense in a world more concerned with security Does this mean that these questions should fall by the wayside, or should they just be reframed in a slightly different way along the lines of resilience and security?

Yeah, would you add anything there, Philippa?

Yeah, I mean, I think, yeah, resilience is definitely one of the words of the moment, and that's where the debate is going. I mean, I think the other perhaps thing to point out as well is just in terms of in a world where we increasingly have drought, it's just to move things around the world is also more difficult and more expensive. So we're seen at the moment. For example, it's more difficult to get things through the rivers in Germany, as we see to become an annual sort of issue now because the, the, the rivers are so low. And so, you know, again, we can't rely on, you know, necessarily things being able to come in from outside of Europe. And then again, there's the price issue. Um, and in terms of defense, obviously, as we know, with conflict, that can also have impacts in terms of, of production and actually importing things into Europe. Not to say, you know, Trump and his tariffs and obviously that throws a bit of a spanner into the works as well if you're expecting certain commodities to come in from the US, for example. So I think, you know, these are definitely issues which policymakers are grappling with at the moment that is being discussed and looking at how issues of climate or food do fit into that sort of security resilience narrative.

Yeah, I think there's some really like important but difficult points there around like, as you've both kind of said, like we've got so used to eating things that like we really shouldn't be able to eat at a certain time of year. Like, do we all just need to give up mangoes and avocados, particularly like year-round? We're used to all of these things, but these are like such— it kind of reminds me of coverage I've done about methane. And, you know, one way to reduce methane is to just every— for everyone to eat a bit less meat. And I remember someone saying like, that's just a political non-starter. You just can't even have that conversation because people just shut you down. Like, do we just have politicians that aren't willing to have those difficult conversations? And is now the time to be having them?

Yeah, I mean, I think in terms of what you eat and don't, I mean, it's quite complicated because often we think by eating things that are seasonal from Europe or the UK is reducing emissions. But that's not always the case because it depends on how they're grown. And there's a lot of research to show that just eating stuff produced locally if it isn't necessary. Always that, you know, your tomatoes, if you're going to eat them at whichever season, it's better they've come from elsewhere. So that's a really complicated issue. There's a lot of really good research that's been done on that. I mean, I think on the meat issue in terms of methane, in terms of land use, and that's one thing that was pulled out very much in the Dimbleby report for the UK government, was that if you reduce the amount of meat, reduce the amount of livestock, you obviously free up a lot of land because not only do you have the land for livestock, but you have the land that's being used to grow the crops then to feed the livestock. So by removing a certain amount of that livestock, you free up more land and you can reduce emissions and you can improve the health of a nation because you can grow more fruit and vegetables. And a certain amount of this is a solution for a certain amount of problems. And I think increasingly research is showing that reducing meat intake is good for the planet, it's good for emissions, it's also good for people's health. You know, increasingly research shows that eating big amounts of red meat, for example, is not great for your health either. And so I think there is a sort of a consensus which is growing around that. I mean, obviously certain commentators like George Monbiot, the UK environmentalist, is much more stringent. He would sort of— he suggests in his book Regenesis kind of phasing out the consumption of meat totally apart from it. Sort of certain developing countries. I think a lot of people wouldn't necessarily go that far, but there is definitely, I think, a growing consensus around this reduction in terms of meat eating. And actually, in certain Western countries like the UK, people are consuming less meat already. So it's not necessarily— with the right policy signals, the right pricing, the right sort of advice in terms of what exactly makes a healthy diet, that potentially could happen relatively simply in certain Western countries without a massive— becoming the big political hot potato that it becomes and being seen as part of the woke agenda and everybody's being told what to eat. There are perhaps simpler ways of making this happen.

Okay. Not the woke agenda coming for food as well. So many things going on here, obviously not not entirely clear where it's all going to end up, whether those kind of recommendations in the UK will get translated into policy, if at all. And obviously ongoing protests, presumably in Brussels over the summer. I've learned loads. Thank you so much, both of you. And to keep up with agriculture and environmental regulation, be sure to sign up for a free trial of Sustainable Views and our daily newsletter at sustainableviews.com. We will be back with another episode of the podcast in August, and we will see you then.