Third time’s the charm

Food policy saw 2024 out with a bang, in the most dynamic week in food policy since Henry Dimbleby resigned as Food Tsar in protest of the previous government’s inaction on obesity. In the space of two days, we were given a new commitment to a cross-ministry, co-designed Food Strategy and a Food Security Report! The latter of which even provided a welcome move towards viewing food, nutrition, nature and climate as the interconnected system there are.  

As we wait with bated breath for further details of the strategy’s development, we have a moment to reflect on the Food Security Report’s findings and what the government can do to ensure this strategy is the one that not only sticks, but also delivers for people, climate and nature.

And how important is it that we achieve this? 

In short: very. The 2024 Food Security Report demonstrates clearly the effect of decades of policy that fails to account for how intrinsically linked climate, nature and nutrition are. And it outlines the effects on public health and the security of our nutrition supply if we continue to ignore those links.  

Historically, our food system has placed efficiency above all else. We see it in industrialised animal agriculture that’s driven our rivers ecosystems to the brink of collapse. And we see it in the mono-cropped fields that have decimated biodiversity and stripped soil health.  

The impacts of this on the UK’s long-term ability to feed our population are illustrated throughout the Food Security Report: in the food loss and crop failure that follow climate-driven extreme weather and the loss of nature.  

This monochromatic approach to farming is bad for both the planetary and public health. Recent studies suggest we should be eating 30 plant varieties a week to support our health¹ and yet, despite there being nearly 300,000 edible plant species, 75% of our calories come from just 12 plants and 5 animals.²  

Efficiency in the name of cheap food is not working, for planet or people. We have the cheapest food in western Europe, but healthy and nutritious foods are over twice as expensive as less healthy foods; and fruit and vegetables have become the most expensive food group.³ This is costing the nation dearly: including an estimated £19 million a year cost to the NHS to treat diet related illness⁴, and an additional £16 billion cost to wider society due to reduced productivity, as an increase disease and disability related to diet.⁵  

The current design of our food system won’t deliver affordable food in the future either. Climate-driven weather and declining natural capital will continue to make horticulture more challenging and less profitable – both domestically and globally. So, reducing costs to the consumer for fruits and vegetables will become harder.⁶ 

Resilience requires diversity 

The availability of nutritious foods, even in times of shocks or stressors to the food system, should be an indivisible element of food security. However, food security is now often misinterpreted to mean simply ‘self-sufficiency’.  

The UK currently produces an abundance of meat, dairy and eggs (we are 85% self-sufficient in beef, 114% in lamb, 82% in poultry, 105% in milk, and 87% in eggs). Yet we “continue to be highly dependent on imports to meet consumer demand for fruits, vegetables and seafood, which are significant sources of micronutrients for consumers”.⁷  

The UK population meets its maximum recommended meat intake, but falls almost 50% short of the government’s recommendation of five portions of fruit and vegetables a day.⁷ Livestock and their feed make up 85% of the UK’s total land use for agriculture. Some 40% of the UK’s most productive land is used to grow feed for livestock, rather than fruits and vegetables for human consumption – despite the fact dairy and meat products provide only 32% of calories consumed in the UK, and less than half (48%) of our protein.⁸ Comparatively, only 2% of the UK’s farmland is used to grow fruit and vegetables.⁹ 

How much and what types of food we produce domestically are important considerations in food security. But if self-sufficiency is taken as an isolated measure of success, it can run counter to nutrition security. The figures above, for example, show we don’t need to increase our production of animal protein, but our supply of fruits and vegetables could be extremely vulnerable to shocks in the supply chain. 

You can’t have Food Security without Sustainability  

In a traditional view of food security, we consider how climate change affects our ability to provide enough food. But if we look beyond that to consider how we ensure our ability to not only produce enough food, but enough of the right food, for people and for the planet, we see the holes in the logic of damaging the planet further in a never-ending battle to increase yields and available calories, only to stunt its very ability to do so.  

When we produce food that has a high impact on climate and nature, we put the nutrition security of current and future generations at greater risk. So it’s essential that the new Food Strategy monitors and stress-tests such risks.  

Transitioning what we produce will play as pivotal a role as how we produce it. Foods that are healthier for people are often also better for the planet¹⁰ and the diversity in nutrients needed by humans is not dissimilar to the biodiversity that helps climate and nature thrive. We need policy that aligns behind this knowledge – that promotes a just transition from our industrialised and monocultured food system to one that supports the goal of a healthy planet and healthy people. 

We’re already being told what to eat 

So, what role does policy play in this? While we often hear that ‘we can’t tell people what to eat’, policy and marketplaces dictate choices more than we like to acknowledge. Whether through advertising, promotions, pricing, access or availability.  

For many, the ability to transition to healthy, sustainable diets is limited by affordability: it would cost lower-income households 50% of their disposable income to eat according to government recommendations.¹¹ The outcome of this is evident in the Food Security Report’s finding that the poorest 10% eat on average 42% less fruits and vegetables than recommended, compared to the richest who eat just 13% less.  

Lower impact alternatives are gate kept by high prices, with oat and soymilk costing the public 60% more than dairy milk, despite creating on average less than a third of the greenhouse gas emissions and using little more than half the water to produce. Sandwiches with plant-based fillings cost £3.25 on average, compared with £3 for meat and £2.85 for fish.  

For consumption to move towards diets that are aligned with the health of people and planet, we need coherent public and private policy support. Such policy should enable producers and supply chains to align with nutritionally secure, sustainable practices.  

What government needs to do next 

We need a coherent plan, rather than the current piecemeal approach to food, nature and climate policy. At WWF, we believe it’s the responsibility of governments to produce strategies for land and sea use that are consistent with their responsibility to manage those resources to collectively meet our climate, nature and nutrition security commitments and goals.  

To deliver this, we’re proposing a new piece of Westminster legislation: a Living Planet Act.  

The forthcoming Food Strategy is an exciting prospect. But if it’s not held to this standard, we’re likely to end up back where we are now: with inconsistent and incoherent food, climate and nature policy where the repercussions of damage to each, exacerbate each other.  

We have an opportunity to create a long-term, cohesive plan that provides health and equity for the planet and the public. It’s time to get on with delivering it – but the proof of the pudding, of course, will be in the eating.