Eating Better

On the edge of Exmoor, NFFN England steering group member Holly Purdey is guiding a National Trust farm through a nature-friendly transformation, striving to remain financially viable while managing the land for livestock and biodiversity.

While campaigning against large pig and poultry units has focused largely on the negative impacts on waterways, such as the River Wye, the environmental, animal welfare and justice issues reach far beyond our waters.

Following our Retailer and Manufacturer messaging guides, Eating Better have been gearing up to develop our messaging guide focused on supporting better engagement with producers. As part of our Changing the Narrative project, we hosted an event, ‘Farming and dietary change: building common ground’, split over two days. These talks, farm tours and workshops were for the Eating Better alliance and beyond, helping to  bridge the gap between NGOs, funders, researchers, civil servants and farmers.

The Climate Change Committee (CCC) just published its 7th Carbon Budget (known as CB7). This set out the legal limit for UK net emissions of greenhouse gases over the years 2038 to 2042. It also contained the different options available for the UK Government to choose and the different ‘pathways’ to get to net-zero, with advice for Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland to be published later in 2025. This is a vitally important milestone in fixing our food system. But what does it all mean for healthy and sustainable diets?

We are excited to release the updated Better by Half Roadmap, Eating Better’s guide for achieving nutritious, healthy and sustainable diets across the UK, with a focus on less and better meat and dairy. This revision builds on its creation in 2019. It is a reflection of our shared objectives as an alliance, formed through collaboration between our 68 member organisations.

Eating Better’s Better by Half roadmap calls for producers to maximise UK-based plant production in a sustainable way. Key to this is paying growers fairly and embedding accessibility across the business. We spoke to Sean Ruffell, Managing Director of Organic North in Manchester, about how they are supporting farmers and supplying organic produce to businesses across the UK.

Maddy Haughton- Boakes, Campaigns Advisor at the Changing Markets Foundation introduces their new report ‘Feeding us Greenwash’, which lifts the green veil and highlights the extent of greenwashing by food companies and how consumers respond to these environmental claims.

As the UK’s civil society was coming to terms with the lack of ambition of its government’s National Food Strategy, which according to the Committee for Climate Change “will do precious little to tackle emissions from agriculture which is now one of the most serious contributors to climate change”, alliance member Changing Markets launched a new study looking at how much different measures can contribute to methane reductions in agriculture. The study confirms that policies promoting healthier diets could lead to the biggest methane cuts in the EU. Blog for Eating Better by Nusa Urbancic, Campaigns Director at the Changing Markets Foundation

The Nature Friendly Farming Network’s (NFFN) first annual Nature Friendly Farming Week (16-20 May) celebrated nature-friendly farming for five full days, where nature-friendly farmers took part in daily themes to share their experiences online using the daily hashtags.

To tackle climate change we urgently need to transition away from industrial livestock production  

How many people know that even if we ended fossil fuel use tomorrow, without making significant changes to our global food system, we would still be heading towards catastrophic levels of warming, far beyond 1.5 degrees?  

Healthy soils are the life force of a thriving farm business. Yet despite its ubiquitous presence on every farm across the UK, our soil is being destroyed 10 times faster than it’s being created...

Eating Better took part in an event during Nourish Scotland’s “Recipes for Resilience” at COP26 called “Living with Cows in a Net Zero Future”.

Hodmedods leads the way on getting more home-grown pulses into British kitchens.

During my research into intensive chicken farming across Herefordshire and Shropshire I encountered many modern poultry units over the last few years. And as I have walked close to the massive metal clad ‘sheds’, each of which stretches over 100m, one question has kept nagging at me: is this actually farming?

Alliance member, Alliance to Save our Antibiotics, recently published a new report that shows that organic livestock farms certified by the Soil Association use far fewer antibiotics than the UK average. The survey, covering over 200 farms, found that the organic farms used less than a quarter of the amount of antibiotics used on non-organic farms.

Rivers and streams are the blue arteries of our landscape. The freshwater that flows through them is the lifeblood that sustains our food and farming system, pumping the soils in our fields with nutrients to grow crops and feed grazing cattle.

Anaerobic digestion plants promise to digest the huge volumes of manure and slurries produced by UK livestock farms, and produce biomethane for the gas grid as well as fertiliser for crops. However, they may actually drive more and worse meat production, says Martin Bowman of Feedback.

New FCRN report 'Where do NGOs and researchers want to see more research on livestock and protein?'

Following the launch of ‘We need to talk about chicken,’ we asked ffinlo Constain to explain how broiler chicken production could be dramatically improved, and why now is the right time to do it.

In this article we share some of the action being taken by alliance organisations, farmers, restaurants and many others to step up to the challenges presented by COVID19.

Improving profitability and the natural environment in hill and other marginal farming systems. Reducing heads of livestock is better for the climate, nature and farm profitability.

A vital biological process versus the perils of climate change.

The Pasture-fed Livestock Association (PFLA) is the first livestock farmer group to join the Eating Better alliance.