The Green Food Project takes sustainable intensification – the need to increase production while also protecting the environment – as its starting point.

The Food Ethics Council questions this narrow focus on food production. We believe that tackling hunger requires getting to grips with supply, demand, waste, efficiency and population too. The more successful we are in these areas, the less we will need to increase yields.
Sue Dibb, The Food Ethics Council’s executive director says:

“What’s clear is that a focus on food production alone isn’t enough. What we’re eating, how much we waste, how we feed people fairly and treat animals humanely all need to be part of the picture. Business as usual – even with a green tinge – is not the answer.

“The Food Ethics Council believes there is an urgent need to transform our food system to meet the challenges ahead.”

The Food Ethics Council also wants to see government departments and organisations from across the food, farming, environmental and consumer sectors closely involved in developing a sustainable food policy for the UK.

The summer edition of Food Ethics magazine takes an in-depth look at this subject. Sustainable intensification: Unravelling the rhetoric assesses how we can build a sustainable, resilient and fair food system fit for a predicted global population of nine billion by 2050.

Among those sharing their views on how we can feed the world sustainably are:

  • Professor Sir John Beddington (Government Chief Scientific adviser)
  • Tim Benton (UK Champion for global food security)
  • Abi Bunker (Head of Agriculture team RSPB)
  • Mike Bushell (Syngenta)
  • Tara Garnett (Food Climate Research Network)
  • Charles Godfray (Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food)
  • Vicki Hird (Friends of the Earth)
  • Jeanette Longfield (Sustain)
  • Andrew Opie (British Retail Council)
  • Jonathon Porritt (Founder director of Forum for the Future)

Notes to editors

  1. Defra is publishing the findings of the Green Food Project, which brings together Government, industry and environmental partners to look at how we might reconcile the goals of improving the environment and increasing food production in England, on 10 July 2012:http://www.defra.gov.uk/food-farm/food/environment/
  2. The Food Ethics Council is a charity whose aim is to create a fair food system where it is easy to eat healthily, and where animal welfare and ecological and social justice are the norm.