07 February

The Land Use Framework for England (LUF) consultation, launched last week, has been met with some concern over the announcement 9% of formerly agricultural land could now be used for solar farms, reservoirs, woodlands, tree planting, and building new towns. Read our thoughts on the LUF and how it can deliver for soils here.

The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) Minister Andrew Muir has provided further details of the Sustainable Agriculture Programme (SAP), an incentive scheme for Northern Ireland. The SAP will include a Soil Nutrient Health Scheme Zone 4 scheme, a more ambitious and updated edition of previous soil health schemes.

A group of 46 Labour MPs have written to the six biggest supermarkets demanding that retailers pay farmers a fair price for their goods. The letter sent by the group raises concerns that UK farmers often receive as little as 1p profit from the food they produce, despite a combined pre-tax profit of more than £5bn from the ‘big six’ supermarkets.

Freedom of information data has revealed over 700 environment regulations violations across 7 years on industrial-scale intensive poultry and pig farms across East Anglia. Among the breaches documented by inspectors were water, soil and air pollution incidents, leading to severe soil degradation in the areas surrounding the farms.

New research conducted by BirdLife Europe and Naturschutzbund Deutschland (NABU) has indicated that up to a quarter of the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy direct payment budget — €48.5 billion — may be tied to greenwashing initiatives which haven’t incentivised any change in agricultural practices.

In their recent study evaluating 22 interventions which address climate risks from intensive livestock production, the FAIRR Initiative – an investor network which investigates food sector investment – has found that nature-based interventions are better at reducing livestock emissions than tech-based solutions.

141 food products defined as using nature-friendly circular economy principles (some new, some redesigned) are set to hit the market as part of Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Big Food Redesign Challenge project, which aims ‘to inspire the food sector to design products to help nature thrive’.