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Features

“Impotent umpire” – is the GCA unfit for purpose?

The Groceries Code Adjudicator has an important role to play in regulating the conduct of retailers – but is it falling short?

Supermarkets Ethical business Farming
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WL Glossary

The WL GLOSSARY #1 – ‘Greenwishing’

David Burrows kicks of a new series that looks into the woolly and misleading terms used by Big Food

Climate change COP26 Environment and ethics
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News

All talk, no teeth: supermarkets break promises to planet

Are supermarkets' environmental targets worth the paper they're written on? David Burrows investigates.

Supermarkets Environment and ethics
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Features

The farm-to-fork champions regenerating how we eat

Joel Hart meets the award-winning restaurateurs behind some of the UK's most exciting and sustainable eateries

Eating out Regenerative farming Eating and drinking
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News

Sold down the river? Polluters paid £14m in public funds

An investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has traced huge payouts to intensive poultry farmers. David Burrows takes a closer look.

Environment and ethics Farming
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News

The ‘Better Chicken Commitment’ lie

The Better Chicken Commitment has come under scrutiny, with leading signatories yet to make any progress on their promises, finds David Burrows

Animal welfare Eating and drinking Farming
News

Finger lickin’ bad news as KFC opens 500 new outlets

Animal welfare Environment and ethics Eating and drinking
Features

WL Meets: Dolly van Tulleken – the politics of food

Activism Cost-of-living Eating and drinking
Opinion

Sharpham Estate: “We are all part of the natural world”

Biodiversity Environment and ethics Ethical business
STORY OF THE WEEK

It is incredibly hard to change people’s minds, influence the policies of companies obsessed with bottom lines, or shift the interpretations of our ponderous judiciary. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

WL Glossary

The WL GLOSSARY #1 – ‘Greenwishing’

Climate change COP26 Environment and ethics
Features

“Impotent umpire” – is the GCA unfit for purpose?

Supermarkets Ethical business Farming
Opinion

News from the farm: Mesmeric machines & conflicted progress

Farming Guy Singh-Watson
Opinion

WL op-ed: Philip Lymbery, Compassion in World Farming

Climate change Biodiversity Environment and ethics Farming
News

What would the Right to Roam mean for farmers?

Land ownership Environment and ethics
Opinion

News from the farm: A grower’s June…

Farming Guy Singh-Watson News from the farm
News

The regen farmers challenging food system foundations

Environment and ethics Farming
Opinion

News from the farm: the cost of doing the right thing

Environment and ethics Ethical business Guy Singh-Watson News from the farm
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"Most of us have at one time or another popped som "Most of us have at one time or another popped something into our recycling bin in the hope that it will be recycled", writes David Burrows, in the first of a new series, where he looks into the woolly and misleading terms used by Big Food. "I know I have. 

"It’s called ‘wishcycling’ – and no, it doesn’t really help those who are trying to process the millions of tonnes of rubbish into something useful again.
"The phrase came to mind this week as the term greenwishing started to creep through my socials. Greenwashing we have all heard of, but what on earth is greenwishing? 
"The definition is becoming more widely used, with sustainability platform, Greenly, summing it up as “often used by companies which have altered their business models to be in line with green ethics, but in a mindless manner – meaning the company has set unrealistic goals for themselves.”
"Other definitions suggest that greenwishing is “unintentional greenwashing” – for example where a company hopes to meet certain sustainability commitments but, in reality, does not have the ability to do so…. think of it as a mix of blue sky thinking and greenwashing.
"Greenwishing is driven by the pressure to set ambitious sustainability goals – companies can find themselves committing to targets that they cannot realistically achieve, perhaps because of financial, technological, or organisational constraints.
"Which explains why the term keeps cropping up. Glasgow hosted the global climate talks (COP26) in 2021 at which there was a surge in climate commitments made by companies. For a few weeks my inbox was cluttered with media statements from companies who had made new lofty promises to the planet.
"Four years on and the wheels have mostly come off as businesses wonder how on earth they can manage the first checkpoint on this ‘race to net-zero’ – significant reductions to their total greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. That’s only five years away and most of the so-called ‘big food’ companies and supermarkets are (well) off track."

Read the full feature on Wicked Leeks, via the link in our bio. What other terms would you like to see debunked, explored and explained?
With the Right to Roam and wild camp on Dartmoor r With the Right to Roam and wild camp on Dartmoor recently upheld by the Supreme Court, the question of land rights has risen even further up the public agenda.
Land is full of competing priorities. There is regular conflict between the needs of housing and farming, and more recently rewilding has entered the fray. In recent years, the leisure use of land has also made headlines, with campaigners fighting for better public access to land in England and Wales, akin to the access rights that are free to all in Scotland. 
But what would this mean for farmland? How does this work alongside fields of crops? How would livestock be kept safe? And how do farmers feel about this? 

Steph Wetherell listens to the various voices, thoughts and opinions in our Story of the Week. Read the full feature on Wicked Leeks, via the link in our bio.
From the restaurants sourcing tastier ingredients From the restaurants sourcing tastier ingredients and the farmers reviving their soil, to the ‘big food’ companies making big (but shallow) claims, the buzz around ‘regenerative agriculture’ is hard to ignore. But can this movement really challenge the status quo, of chemical-first, intensive, and polluting food production? asks David Burrows. 

Absolutely. “Europe’s farmers just challenged the foundations of our food system,” said Ivo Degn, co-founder of Climate Farmers this week.

Degn’s social media post followed the publication of what is believed to be the world’s largest study into regenerative agriculture: 78 farms covering 7,000 hectares across 14 European countries. The results are impressive and should rock the foundations of conventional approaches. 

“The Green Revolution can be put into the dustbin of history,” explained Simon Krämer, lead author and executive director of EARA, the European Alliance for Regenerative Agriculture, which is representing many of the most progressive food producers. “The fourth agricultural revolution is unfolding now,” Krämer added as he presented the results at a briefing last week.

From the first minute of the webinar there was excitement about what the team had unearthed. “We wanted to lean into farmers to find out what it really means to be regenerating,” said EARA’s Meghan Sapp, a founding member of the alliance, in her intro. 

Between 2020 and 2023, for example, pioneering regenerating farmers achieved, on average, just 1% lower yields in terms of kilocalories and proteins, while using 62% less synthetic nitrogen fertiliser and 76% fewer pesticides per hectare. 

What’s more, those running livestock or mixed farms sourced all their feed from within their bioregion – so none of that deforestation-linked soya imported from South America, for example. For comparison, the average farmer in Europe imports more than 30% of their animal feed from outside the EU.

Read the full piece at Wicked Leeks, via the 🔗 in our bio.
In the second of our Farm Stories series, Sarah Al In the second of our Farm Stories series, Sarah Alun-Jones shares her hard-earned story as an organic grower. Here's a little of her story:

I grew up in rural Leicestershire in a small village enveloped by farmland and spent a lot of time on the farm of my childhood best friend, Emma. On special occasions, her dad would take us on rides in the bucket of his tractor and we would explore the farm for what felt like days. There was a barn full of old bikes that her dad bought at farm auctions and we would pick one and ride out around the fields, visiting the cows. One night, her mum took us out to the cowsheds to show us a stillborn calf. She thought it was important that we saw it. I remember it vividly to this day; it taught me that death is a part of life. There was always a shiny metal pail of fresh milk in their fridge, complete with a creamy top, and yet they bought most of their food in Costco. The family never seemed to have much money, they never went on holiday, in fact we took Emma on her first foreign holiday at 15, for which she packed an extra large jar or marmite, but they felt so rich in other ways to me. I loved the farm. There was always so much going on, so much life, so many siblings, machines, dogs, and her parents were busy but always home. I loved the name too: Home Farm.

While I was at secondary school, the farmers we knew were all in the process of ‘diversifying’. It was a big buzz word. It was just after the foot and mouth outbreak and the adults were all talking about farmers struggling, though as kids, we didn’t fully understand. Emma’s family opened a kennels, the Wrights started making ice cream. After this point, my idyllic memories of farms stop. I think my hormones must have kicked in and I became more interested in French cinema and boys from the high school.

But those days had more of an effect on me than I realised, and when I found myself in my early twenties, despondent and struggling to make sense of living in London, with all of my qualifications, I knew what I needed. I wanted to be outside, to see green.

Read her full story at Wicked Leeks, via the link in our bio.

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