Two reports about one big challenge: the future of food systems

There have been two important reports published recently that set out to address how food systems should evolve to meet current and future challenges – of which there are many. These are the 2025 Global Food Policy Report from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the UK Government’s Food Strategy for England.

Despite differing in geographic importance, ie, global vs national, and their intended audiences to some degree, they share several areas of focus specifically around health, sustainability and resilience. I commend both reports on the manner in which they address these subjects as generally these issues are not tackled in a sufficiently joined-up way, despite being inextricably linked.

I trawled the web to view the feedback on both reports from a very broad range of stakeholders. In general, I found the IFPRI report was well received and the UK Government’s rather less so, especially from industry commentators. In my opinion, I found both to be extremely useful in terms of vision – and actually the latter to have more substance in terms of content.

IFPRI’s report sets out several priority areas for the coming decades and stresses that evidence-based approaches and cross-sector collaboration are hugely important in tackling global food challenges, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. The UK Government’s strategy also positions evidence as central to policymaking. Both of these reports emphasise that policies must be guided by research and data – something I wholeheartedly agree with.

Improving public health and nutrition, in terms of gaining access to nutritious and affordable food, is a key theme in both reports. IFPRI outlines global progress on reducing malnutrition and highlights some policy interventions that have worked successfully in different contexts. The UK strategy sets out more specific measures to address diet-related ill health, including encouraging reformulation of processed foods and improving public sector procurement standards. The UK’s approach is not surprisingly more targeted to national public health priorities, whereas IFPRI’s is broader and more international in scope.

In terms of sustainability and resilience, both documents point out the complex environmental pressures on the present food systems and the urgent need to make them more resilient to shocks. IFPRI’s main focus is on climate change adaptation and working towards sustainable agricultural practices. The UK report similarly promotes environmentally sustainable production but also highlights the need to improve domestic supply chain resilience by measures such as promoting local sourcing. While their sustainability goals align in principle, the IFPRI report provides more emphasis on the importance of global trade whereas the UK focuses far more on national self-sufficiency and domestic environmental targets. This is a strategy I have written about and promoted for quite a few years and I am delighted to see it (finally) recognised as a priority.

In terms of the UK report, I commend the recognition of many important issues but note that others are not given the importance they deserve, most notably the subject of emergency resilience and just-in-case planning, which in my mind (and other commentators) is mission critical in terms of national food security. More importantly, the report successfully manages to avoid not only the elephant in the room, but an entire zoo’s-worth of animals; I’m referring to how current government policy renders the report’s suggestions completely unfeasible. I have listed what I term ‘the big five beasts’.

1. The elephant: trade policy vs. domestic production
   While the UK strategy rightly promotes British-grown food and local supply chains, current and recent trade deals allow imports from countries with lower environmental, welfare and labour standards. This unfair set of conditions massively undermines domestic production and totally undermines the resilience goal of reducing reliance on imports. It’s akin to having an elephant’s large foot stamp on a runner’s leg during a highly competitive race.
2. The lion: inheritance tax reforms and farm succession
   The report talks fondly about “supporting farmers” but is totally silent on how planned inheritance tax changes will serve to make generational succession much harder, likely leading to land sales which will reduce family farming and possibly move land out of agricultural production. A lion’s bite is deadly, as is inheritance tax for farming in the UK.
3. The buffalo: strategic reserves and crisis preparedness
   Despite an urgent need, there is no concrete plan for building national food reserves or stockpiling essential goods. The UK remains heavily reliant on ‘just-in-time’ supply chains, leaving the system vulnerable to the growing number of extreme events being witnessed nationally and internationally. Buffalo are said to stare at coming storms in much the same way our government is.
4. The leopard: food affordability vs. industry pressures
   While it commits to healthy, affordable food, the strategy avoids addressing how the highly competitive UK food market and concentration of market power may keep healthy food out of reach for lower-income groups. Leopards move at great speed but governments move at a snail’s pace in terms of making the required reforms.
5. The rhino: climate adaptation at scale
   The strategy acknowledges sustainability but does not fully address the scale of climate adaptation needed for UK agriculture, particularly around water scarcity, extreme weather resilience and crop diversification. A rhino can’t survive without water…. neither can UK farming.

As I stated, the UK strategy is, in my opinion, an important contribution to the conversation on the future of the UK’s food system. It does acknowledge many of the important challenges. But let’s be honest; it’s not really a strategy – more like a framework and vision statement. What is now needed is a clear, costed and time-bound plan for delivery that the majority of stakeholders buy into. The urgency of the threats facing our national food security need this to happen.