Feeding the Future - what's on the menu for UK food and farming in a world of climate change?
British grown asparagus, pak choi and lemons could soon be making a bigger hit on supermarket shelves according to a new report by Green Futures.
Grown in renewably powered glasshouses, and labelled as low-carbon products enabling consumer choice to drive demand, these are just a few opportunities that climate change offers, says ’Feeding the Future’.
’Feeding the Future’ was commissioned by Farming Futures* and written and researched by the Green Futures editorial team. The special publication scans the horizon picking out the effects of changing weather patterns and shifting attitudes towards climate change. It looks at what and how we farm, as well as what and how we eat and retail food in the future.
The report features articles by Jonathon Porritt, Founder Director of Forum for the Future and Jeff Rooker, Minister for Sustainable Food and Farming, who writes: "While climate change poses threats to farming and food production, it also offers business opportunities."
Lord Rooker, along with NFU President Peter Kendall, and Henry Aubrey-Fletcher, President of the CLA, is keen for farming to be seen as part of the climate change solution.
Sourcing Chinese vegetables from the Norfolk fens rather than Bangkok, and printing small but powerful ’carbon labels’ on packets of crisps are just two of the stories told by pioneering retailers and manufacturers who are beginning to grasp the business opportunities offered by a low-carbon food chain.
In the report, innovative farmers talk of how they’re making in-roads into the market by adapting to shifting weather patterns and growing crops better adapted to water shortages, such as olives and sunflowers. Growers share their success in saving money through low-carbon farming techniques - using greener fuel for glasshouses, low-energy lighting and more efficient transport.
’Feeding the Future’ tells the stories of the trail-blazers in the modern food economy. As Jonathon Porritt says, "what we are seeing now is only the start of the low-carbon revolution around the corner."
