Category: Counting On …

Reflections and actions during COP26 and going on

Counting on 2026 … day 19

4th February 

To return to yesterday’s astounding statistic that the UK is just 62% self sufficient for all foods, and when looking at indigenous foods (ie those that can be grown in the UK) we are disappointingly only 75% self sufficient. And for fresh fruit we are about 15% self sufficient. 

It would seem that all too often imported fruit and vegetables are cheaper – perhaps coming from countries with lower wages or countries like Spain that use cheap seasonal labour from North Africa. (This is in itself a justice issue for these seasonal workers are often abused by their their employers – https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/ethicalcampaigns/agricultural-workers-rights-almeria). 

Do we need to encourage more horticulture in the UK and encourage consumers to buy UK produce? Maybe we need a “Buy British” advertising campaign as we did in the past with eggs.

Equally the government and local authorities could ensure that the Public Food Procurement sector does more to buy locally – encompassing buying British rather than imported produce, and buying from local (often small and medium sized) producers.

However this is not a simple straightforward problem to solve. If buying British means paying a higher price for fruit and vegetables, then the poorer sectors of our society need to receive a higher income – either through improved benefits and/ or improved pay. The proliferation of food banks already shows us that we are failing as a society – and therefore being failed by our government – to ensure everyone has enough money to eat well.

Wages also feed in as a cost factor for the producers of fruit and vegetables. Growing and harvesting is both labour intensive and seasonal. Increased wage costs (due to inflationary pressures and NI costs etc) are eating away at profit margins. This has also been compounded by Brexit which has reduced the supply of seasonal workers from Europe and sometimes crops have gone unharvested severely denting the viability of businesses. We need a better system of ensuring that everyone receives a fair wage as the bedrock of our economy.

The dominance of the supply chain by big supermarkets also needs to be reviewed. Supermarkets dominate the market giving them considerable leverage over prices paid to the producers. Whilst this does drive down costs on some items, it does so at the expense of the producers. A report from 2022 by the Sustainable Farming Campaign highlights the very small profit margin received by food producers as opposed to the profits made elsewhere in the supply chain: “For 1kg of apples purchased in a supermarket (about 6 apples), the apple grower has costs of 76p, yet receives in profit just 1% (3 pence) of a selling price of £2.20”. The same report observed that organic apples sold not by a supermarket but by a not-for profit hub, received : “1kg of organic apples purchased gives the organic apple grower three times -3% (10 pence) of the selling price of £4.00 with costs of 175p.” Ie a 0.06% profit margin as opposed to 0.04%. (1)

Another major costs for the producers of fruit and vegetables is energy. Rising energy prices have, for example, particularly affected crops grow under glass. In part this is because of the UK’s past heavy reliance on fossil fuels and the impact of the war in Ukraine. A concerted shift to renewable energy would bring down energy costs but in terms of a just transition, should grants be made available to enable fruit and vegetable growers to invest in solar panels? At the same time there needs to be urgent investment in the capacity of the grid.

Support  with investment in new technologies and infrastructure would also encourage an expansion of UK based production. Relatively speaking, horticulture doesn’t need lots of land vis a vis other crops or livestock,  but does need more infrastructure per hectare. 

Another factor to be considered in terms of promoting  UK grown fruit and vegetables is the growing insecurity of the supply of imported produce. Spain, Italy and North Africa from where much of our imported fruit and vegetables come, are countries that are increasingly the impacts of change – droughts  floods etc – and which have already resulted in reduced harvests. 

  1. https://www.sustainweb.org/news/nov22-unpicking-food-prices-new/

Background reading

 – https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/POST-PN-0707/POST-PN-0707.pdf

Counting on 2026 … day 17

2nd February 

Food security is a pertinent issue. A recent Government report,  Nature security assessment on global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and national security, investigates “how global biodiversity loss and the collapse of critical ecosystems could affect the UK’s resilience, security and prosperity.” (1) 

At the top of the list of events the poses a high risk for the UK is global ecosystem breakdown: ie the ecosystems on which we depend for fresh water, clean air and food, and for predictable weather patterns, and which protect us from diseases, would cease to function. 

Without major interventions, the report states that this is a highly likely outcome based on current trends. 

Not only would this impact us locally, the UK would also be impacted by the knock on effects of systems collapse in other countries leading to increased competition for limited resources such as food and water, greater risk of global pandemics,  an increase in both armed conflict and mass migration. Partial system collapse is likely by 2030 and a global collapse as early as 2050. 

In a repeat of what has been said so widely, measures needed to reduce the likelihood of global ecosystem collapse include:-

  • Protecting 30% of global land and ocean by 2030 (now just four years away)
  • 30% of global nature to be under rest by 2030
  • Mobilising finance to close the funding gap of $700bn
  • Reducing risks from pesticide usage by 50% by 2050
  • Eliminating or reforming harmful subsidies by $500bn by 2050
  • Meeting the 1.5C Paris climate agreement target

So why aren’t we – whether as individuals, as industries or as the government – a) doing more to curtail activities that are driving this ecological breakdown, and b) doing more to increase national and global resilience?

  1. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nature-security-assessment-on-global-biodiversity-loss-ecosystem-collapse-and-national-security?internal=true

Counting on 2026 … day 16

30th January 

This last week the radio programme Farming Today has been reporting on the difficulties livestock farmers have been facing with insufficient supplies of winter feed. Last year’s hot dry summer reduced crop yields meaning there has been a shortage of things such as hay, silage, maize, sunflower seeds, rape seed etc. Farmers have had to buy in extra feed including more imported soya beans. The Agricultural Industries Confederation (AIC) said that “the UK needs a national protein strategy to safeguard feed security because that impacts food security.” 

This bemuses me. Would it not be more logical, if we are wanting to increase national protein security, to focus on growing more plant based proteins that can be fed directly to humans rather than feeding us indirectly via livestock? Gaining our protein needs from livestock rather than plants is much more inefficient in the use of land, water, fertiliser etc and generates far more pollution costs too.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002q29g
https://www.agindustries.org.uk/resource/aic-on-bbc-farming-today-programme-uk-feed-security.html

Counting on 2026 … day 15

28th January 

Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework is a global agreement, dating from 2022seeks to halt and reverse biodiversity loss – ie restoring the integrity of biodiversity. Signatories, which includes the UK, have undertaken to restore 30% of the biodiversity by 2030 – both land based and marine. (1)

In December 2025 the government published its policy paper, The Environmental Improvement Plan (2025) and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. (2) This is intended as a ‘roadmap’ first restoring nature, improving environmental quality, creating a circular economy, protecting environmental security and improving access to nature. However it is crunched in terms of minimise and enable and encourage with no measurable targets and no details as to the who and the how and the where.

More useful is the report from the Wild Life Trusts. It starts critically: “Despite often being a key player in the international stage …the UK has not backed this up with implementation at home. The UK’s international environmental leadership threatens to be undermined by the fact that the UK Government is on track to meet only four of its forth individual domestic environmental targets and remains one of the most nature depleted countries on the planet.” But it also offers positive advice: “Space in the UK is finite and there are many competing aspirations for how our land and seas should be used. A national strategic spatial approach to planning the use of both is needed to reduce and avoid conflict. This approach needs to be fully cross departmental to ensure policies for,planning, transport, energy, food and nature are all aligned.” This plan needs to show “how and where 30%of the land will be effectively conserved and restored by 2030…”

The report also reveals some shocking analysis: “…analysis shows that on,y 3.1% of land in ZD gland is effectively protected and managed for nature, whilst a maximum of 8% of English seas could be said to be protected for nature.” It goes on to recommend: “Landscape-scale habitat creation is needed, linked by corridors and stepping stones of wild places throughout our cities and countryside. Practices that damage nature must be minimised to enable nature to recover.” (3)

I’m surprised that in all these discussions about route maps to increase biodiversity and the need to allocate more space for nature, that instigating a switch to largely plant based diets doesn’t feature. We cannot maintain existing diets, existing farming practices and restore nature!

  1. https://www.cbd.int/gbf
  2. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-environmental-improvement-plan-2025-and-the-kunming-montreal-global-biodiversity-framework
  3. https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/sites/default/files/2024-09/UK and Global Biodiversity Framework – The Wildlife Trusts 2024.pdf

Counting on 2026 … day 14

27th January

“Biosphere Integrity refers to the capacity of ecosystems across the planet to support life and maintain the overall health and stability of the Earth system. This depends on the health, diversity, and interactions of the organisms that make up these ecosystems.” (1) 

This is a safety boundary that we – because of human activity – have passed. We are living in the danger zone that means crises are inevitable. We experience this through rapidly declining numbers of pollinators (essential for growing crops); increasing soil infertility; declining ability of the environment to absorb carbon dioxide; declining ability of ecosystems to absorb rain so limiting flooding; loss of species removing opportunities to benefit from them for food, medicines, building materials etc; increasing loss of green and blue spaces that maintain our physical and mental wellbeing. 

Human activities that are causing the loss of biodiversity integrity include:-

  • Deforestation 
  • Changing land uses including  the expansion of urban structures 
  • Increased intensification of agricultural 
  • Expansion of agricultural land use
  • Industrialised fishing
  • Expansion of mining activities including deep sea mining
  • Expansion of industrial processes increasing pollution
  • Expansion of activities producing greenhouse gases – eg use of fossil fuels and livestock farming
  • Increased production of novel entities and the spread of invasive, non-indigenous species
  1. https://www.planetaryhealthcheck.org/boundary/change-in-biosphere-integrity/

Global risk map of the Change in Biosphere Integrity, based on the functional integrity (HANPP) control variable. Transgression is based on the HANPP control variable. All values shown on the map refer to the year 2010. Based on data from Kastner et al. 2022.

Most boundary transgressions occur in large, continuous regions with high land-use intensity. In contrast, areas in regions without transgressions, such as the Amazon, the Congo Basin, and boreal forests, are primarily natural or semi-natural.

Counting on 2026 … day 13

22nd January

In restoring a sustainable balance vis a vis land use across the globe, whilst most attention is focused on ending deforestation and promoting reforestation, restoring wetlands is also important.  Whilst wetlands (including peatlands, marshes, floodplains and mangrove swamps) may only cover 5-8% of the Earth’s surface, they are critical as absorbers of carbon dioxide, as defences against erosion, and as preventers of excess flooding. They are also areas that have been drained and used for other purposes.

“Wetlands are critically important ecosystems that support biodiversity, climate mitigation and adaptation, food production, freshwater availability, recreation, wellbeing, and so much more. Yet we are losing our wetlands three times faster than forests.” (1)  

In the UK the Fen Lands have been drained so that the peat rich soils can be used as high grade farm land but with the disadvantage that as the land dries out, so it shrinks,  becoming increasingly at risk of flooding,  and with the effect of destabilising the foundations of roads and infrastructure across the region.

Elsewhere in the UK peatlands have suffered from the effects of burning and grouse shooting, overstocking with livestock, planting for commercial forestry, extraction for peat compost, and pollution. (2) Overall some 80% of the UK’s peatlands have been degraded.

One way of restoring peatlands and maintaining their agricultural use, is through paludiculture. Here lowland peatland is rewetted and used to grow crops that thrive in wet conditions such as Norfolk Reed used for thatching; bulrushes (typha) used as a building material, as a bioenergy crop and in clothing; sphagnum moss which can be used as a peat substitute as well as for biomecidal and industrial chemical uses; food crops such as celery, bilberries and cranberries, watercress, sweet grass grains, rice etc. (3) 

  1. https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/research-news/2022-02-02-we-need-to-talk-about-wetlands-and-how-to-save-them.html
  2. https://www.iucn-uk-peatlandprogramme.org/about-peatlands/peatland-damage
  3. https://naturalengland.blog.gov.uk/2022/09/30/paludiculture-the-future-of-farming-on-peat-soils/ and https://www.paludiculture.org.uk/

Counting on 2026 … day 12

21st January

One of the issues with the loss of a sustainable balance in land use (as highlighted by transgressing this planetary boundary) is the loss of soil fertility – and in some cases the loss of the soil itself, being washed or blown away. One solution is to restore the fertility and structure of the soil of the soil and to adopt farming methods that healthy soil. Regenerative farming is a widely used term to describe this process. This is a broad term and can mean many things in different situations. Unlike organic farming, it doesn’t come with any form of certification.  Nevertheless, any methods that improve soil fertility are to be encouraged. 

Generally regenerative farming will encompass some or all of the following principles:-

  • limiting soil disturbance
  • maintaining soil cover
  • fostering agricultural diversity and rotations
  • keeping living roots in the soil
  • integrating livestock and arable systems (1) 

What regenerative farming does not address is altering the balance of land use to one that is more sustainable – and which as outlined in the previous entry – should include restoring tree cover, as well as restoring peatlands.

  1. https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/blog/vicki-hird/what-regenerative-farming

Counting on 2026 … day 9

19th  January 

Tree planting is key to restoring sustainable human lifestyles within safe  Planetary Boundaries. Yet disturbingly the UK is falling g behind with its tree planting targets. 

“New analysis from the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) found that the UK is falling behind its tree planting targets, warning that the nation could miss the “critical window” for woodland creation needed to meet its climate and nature targets.

“The report found that more than 70 per cent of carbon removal from new trees up to 2050 will come from those that have been planted within the next five years. This is due to the time lag between when a tree is planted and when it has reached its peak carbon removal potential.

“However, if current planting rates are maintained, the total area of missed planting will be an area equivalent to three times the size of Greater London, with a third less carbon sequestered than on the Climate Change Committee’s (CCC) Balanced Pathway. This is equivalent to all residual industrial emissions in 2050.

“The CCC Balanced Pathway is the UK’s blueprint for reaching net-zero emissions by 2050, which calls for an 87 per cent emissions cut by 2040 as well as boosted efforts in renewable energy, energy efficiency and carbon capture.”

https://www.euronews.com/green/2026/01/14/uk-and-eu-tree-planting-pledges-face-reality-check-as-scientists-warn-the-climate-window-i?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=green_newsletter&utm_medium=referral&insEmail=1&insNltCmpId=257&insNltSldt=10080&insPnName=euronewsfr&ins_iid=NThmY2Q3ZTQtNDc3Yi00Y2MxLWJlYzItYWViN2RiZTRjNmNk&isIns=1&isInsNltCmp=1

Counting on 2026 … day 8

16th  January

Reversing land system change needs to include both reforestation and the adoption of regenerative farming methods – ie methods that restore the fertility of the soil, restores fresh water cycles, protects the environment from pollutants such as pesticides, fertilisers, slurry etc, that promotes increasing biodiversity and produces healthy food. Somehow nations  need to find ways of valuing the role that trees and good agricultural practice play in maintaining the wellbeing of the earth systems on which we rely. 

This might be by levying a rate or tax to cover the cost similar to the water rate we used to pay for clean water – and which could be used to pay for planting trees and/or  for setting aside land for woodlands. In the UK farmers can be paid by the Government (and thus ultimately paid for by the tax payer) to protect and enhance the natural environment – eg through the Sustainable Farming Incentive – https://www.farmingadviceservice.org.uk/category/funding-support

In a similar vein, consumers can actively chose to support environmentally friendly farming by paying a premium for the products thus produced – eg organic fruit and vegetables, grass fed meat, wild flower honey. 

It might be by levying a fee on those whose businesses pollute the environment – eg levied against beef and dairy products, or against industrial chicken farms. Denmark – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20nq8qgep3o

Governments and other institutions- like health bodies, schools etc – might promote a switch to largely plant based diets (as per the Planetary Health Diet). Denmark is developing a concerted switch to a largely plant based diet with support for farmers as well as encouragement for consumers. https://rethinkpriorities.org/research-area/plant-based-diet-shift-initiative-case-studies-denmarks-plant-based-food-grant/

Governments and farming bodies can encourage a switch to crops better suited to the changing climate in their region – eg switchIng from olives and almonds to pistachios in the dryer Spanish climate, introducing agroforestry, replacing cotton with hemp (as is happening in Turkey – https://egedeniztextile.com/turkish-hemp/) etc. https://inspain.news/spains-green-gold-rush-and-why-pistachios-are-the-future-of-farming/

Governments could mandate that public purchasing should favour sustainably produced products – both food and timber based products. This report urges the use of timber in the construction industry: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/timber-in-construction-roadmap-2025/timber-in-construction-roadmap-2025

Conversely governments can implement legislation to limit or end land use and farming practices that damage planetary boundaries. The UK and the European Union have both introduced legislation that requires companies to ensure through the length of the supply chains that not products are derived from sources where deforestation is involved: https://www.clydeco.com/en/insights/2025/02/spotlight-on-deforestation-regulations-in-uk-eu

NB both sets of policies have yet to be fully implemented.

Counting on 2026 … day 6

14th  January 

Atmospheric aerosol loading is another planetary boundary that we should avoid crossing. The global concentration of aerosol particles has more than doubled since pre-industrial times. The effect that excessive aerosol concentration could have in human health and the climate that established the need for a safe limit.

What are these particles? – salt condensed from ocean waters, fine sand from desert dust storms, ice crystals over the poles and ash from fires as well as volcanic eruptions, carbon and sulphur dioxide from fossil fuel power statist and industrial smoke stacks, hydrocarbons from combustion engines and stratospheric vapour crystals from aircraft. (1)

It is another boundary where we are currently within the safe limits and in fact the concentration of aerosol particles in the atmosphere is declining as we are across the globe tackling and reducing air pollution, providing alternatives to open cookings fires, ending crop the burning of stubble after crop harvesting, reducing pollution levels from road vehicles and from commercial cargo ships. Taking action to stay within planetary boundaries is good for the planet and for our wellbeing! (2( 

  1. https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Space_for_our_climate/Aerosols
  2. https://www.planetaryhealthcheck.org/boundary/increase-in-atmospheric-aerosol-loading/