Feeding Britain from the Ground Up – for climate, nature and health from the Sustainable Food Trust explores the potential impacts on land use, food production, and individual diets of a UK-wide transition to sustainable farming based on biological principles. If we change the way we farm and what we eat, we could improve our health, protect nature, combat climate change and be more food secure as a nation.
A UK-wide transition to sustainable and regenerative farming practices could produce enough food to maintain and potentially even improve current levels of self-sufficiency, provided we ate differently, ate less and cut food waste. If the UK were to switch to sustainable farming methods:
- We would produce double the amount of fruit and vegetables.
- Grain production would halve due to a phase out of chemical inputs and less land being used for intensive crop production.
- Much less grain would be fed to livestock and intensive livestock production would be phased out, resulting in a 75% decline in pork and chicken production.
- We would produce double the amount of pulses (peas and beans).
- Beef and lamb, reared mainly on grass, would continue to be produced at similar quantities as today and would become our staple meat.
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