Here, Professor Peter Jackson and Professor Duncan Cameron, Directors of the Institute for Sustainable Food explain how this vision can boost food security and make way for sustainable food production in Sheffield:
This year's United Nations COP26 in Glasgow brings the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions into sharp focus. With 24% of all global greenhouse gas emissions generated by agriculture and with agriculture recognised as the biggest threat to an estimated 86% of plant and animal species at risk of extinction through the expansion of the global agricultural footprint, it is now clear that the way we produce our food urgently needs to change. These striking global statistics reveal the need for action now, and although international policy is critical in mitigating the environmental footprint of the food that we consume, local action and innovation will be equally, if not more, important if we are ever to make the food system sustainable and fair.
To achieve food security, "when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life", we all urgently need to reflect on what we can do as individuals and communities to lessen the impact of the food that we eat on the natural world to allow us to exist within the constraints defined by our Planet's limited resources.
