If there’s one resolution the food industry needs to make a priority in 2024, it’s embracing nature.
Over half of UK adults (56%) want farmers to adopt farming practices that preserve and enhance the environment and nature, according to a survey of 2,250 UK adults undertaken by Ipsos this month.
This desire has been recognised to some extent by regenerative agriculture – the buzzword of 2023. However, terms such as “regen ag” and “sustainable” mean different things to different people. It can be difficult, confusing and time-consuming for farmers and food businesses to keep up with what it means in practice.
Amid all this confusion, many people are left asking: what does good actually look like?
The answer to that question needn’t be complex. Launched today, our report Without Nature There is No Food sets out a proven approach for including nature as a key component within all food businesses’ UK supply chains. It demonstrates how, in the wake of terrifying declines in nature, we can – and must – do something urgently to bring farmers, producers and consumers the clarity needed to enact real change.
Compiled by experts from the RSPB’s Fair to Nature scheme – the UK’s only certification scheme with a focus on biodiversity – the report looks at the vital role of nature in underpinning our ability to do business. From providing raw materials and energy, to the food, water, and clean air we need to survive, nature is the foundation of every aspect of human life. Biodiversity loss means these vital services are under threat.
The report outlines the solution to restoring the balance of nature in farming. It demonstrates how, if every farm made 10% of land available for good-quality wildlife habitat, we could together restore and protect wildlife on farms and also ensure the essential services nature provides are there for us in the future.
As a proven approach to delivering this in practice, RSPB Fair to Nature provides food businesses with the means to act on wildlife declines, while empowering and supporting farmers to protect and restore nature on their farms. With the benefit of the corresponding on-pack branding, the scheme also harnesses consumer buying power to deliver the transformative change needed in our food and farming system.
These credentials matter to consumers: halting biodiversity loss was one of the top three environmental impacts of agriculture that UK adults wanted to see addressed in the Ipsos study.
With so much at stake, and a new year upon us, the report makes for timely reading. It is also a timely moment to launch our free one-hour webinar on Tuesday 16 January from 12.30pm, detailed on the RSPB Fair to Nature website.
The food and farming system has an undeniable role to play in bringing nature back across the UK, and yet also has the most to lose if we fail to act. Together we have the power to effect change. I hope you will all join me in resolving to make 2024 the year that nature is an integral part of the business of food and farming.
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