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Features

Climate resilient & sustainable – why UK nut production deserves a renaissance

A health drive for more fibre has helped reignite the UK beans & pulses market. Could British nuts be next?

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Are Wildfarmed KitKats the future of regen farming… or its breaking point?

1.5 billion KitKats are made every year in the UK. A new partnership with British brand, Wildfarmed, changes the landscape, but to what end, asks David Burrows?

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Is hospital food the key to unlocking better outcomes for patients, planet, and producers?

The NHS serves 195 million patient meals every year, which presents an enormous challenge – and opportunity – for those pushing for positive change

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How Big Ag tied “regen” to synthetic chemical inputs and shaped European farming policy

The same multi-billion-dollar companies producing synthetic agrochemicals are also lobbying for "regen agriculture". David Burrows smells a rat.

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Mackerel is no longer sustainable. So, what fish can we eat?

As Waitrose removes all fresh, chilled and frozen mackerel from its shelves, Lizzie Rivera asks whether fish can ever be a sustainable choice?

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Poison for profit – EU exports 122,000 tonnes of banned pesticides

44 Highly Hazardous Pesticides, banned for EU use, are still being shipped to the African continent

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Waiting, watching & learning as summer slips away

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PFAS special: how can we avoid the forever chemicals found everywhere?

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Sustainable Living with Zac – How to use water wisely

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STORY OF THE WEEK

Being on the land, continuing to cultivate it, and witnessing its productivity provides spiritual and emotional satisfaction. The connection between land, justice and identity is what keeps us going. Haj Bashir, farmer in the West Bank, Palestine

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The AGtivist: UK Gov urged to follow EU’s lead and ban imports of Brazilian meat over antibiotic usage

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Worming our way to better soil with vermiculture

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Is this the UK’s most feasible & sustainable alternative to rice?

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News from the farm: Peat, EVs, capitalism and governance

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Climate resilient & sustainable – why UK nut production deserves a renaissance

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14 million Brits are food insecure – could a Right to Food Bill revolutionise access?

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“The last hope is the land we are living on” – farming under occupation in Palestine

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News from the farm: It’s getting serious (and data centres can’t help us)

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The UK crisps, snacks, and nuts market is worth a The UK crisps, snacks, and nuts market is worth a staggering £5.3 billion but almost every nut on the supermarket shelves across Britain is imported; a large proportion come from Turkey, the rest from Italy, Spain, and the US, writes Nick Easen. 

The UK once had a thriving and viable domestic market, mainly for hazelnuts and cobnuts (the latter is a type of cultivated British hazelnut). But many trees were grubbed out in the 1970s, catalysed by our accession to the European Economic Community, which promoted large scale, annual cereal cropping. With today’s falling grain prices, there’s renewed interest in these perennial proteins, which also include walnuts and sweet chestnuts.

“There is definitely growing interest from farmers. Attitudes are changing. The fact that dried nuts are nutritious, valuable and non-perishable are all helping people see the potential. Let’s not forget native hazelnuts are one of Britain’s oldest sources of plant-based protein,” explains Elsa Kent, who along with her brother and father run @glastonburynutfarm one of the UK’s largest hazelnut orchards. 

“I think there’s a real appetite for nuts. Lots of people love them even more so than beans in my view, so I’m excited about their potential. If we look at all the work done to boost pulses with the @banginsomebeans campaign from the Food Foundation and Veg Power, and what the Bold Bean Co are doing, why can’t we do the same for British nuts?”

With several high-profile growers and farmers now endorsing nuts within mixed farming systems – from Guy Singh-Watson and @riverford who have planted over 1,500 nut trees across four farms, to Roger Saul (founder of Mulberry and the organic spelt brand, @sharphampark ) who has planted hundreds of walnut trees in Somerset, is it time for a nut renaissance? 

Read the full feature on Wicked Leeks, via the link in our bio.
When Andy Burnham last sat in a cabinet meeting in When Andy Burnham last sat in a cabinet meeting in 2010 there were 35 food banks – today there are 2,700. It is not just Amnesty International that is calling for a right to food bill, the head of the current UK government has also said he wants change: 
“As a country, we should be able to deliver a right to food… It’s not discretionary, is it? It’s essential and therefore everybody should have it,” Andy Burnham told Henry Dimbleby in an interview a few years ago. 
The numbers are stark: over 14 million people are food insecure, this amounts to one in six households and 6.5 million people who have turned to charitable food providers to feed themselves, according to the Trussell Trust. While healthy food such as fruit and veg, is more than twice as expensive as unhealthy options – it’s why things need to change.
“Food security by definition means access to nutritious food, not just any calories. Nourishment matters and it must support a healthy life, which ultra-processed food and intensively produced food is increasingly found not to do,” explains Dolly van Tulleken, visiting researcher at Cambridge University’s MRC Epidemiology Unit. 
It is why the Right To Food Commission, led by Labour MP Ian Byrne, is pushing for a law that legally enshrines peoples’ access to adequate, healthy food making the government accountable for its delivery. A rights base approach would mean that those in Westminster would not be able to leave food and farming to the vagaries of the open market. 

Read the full feature on Wicked Leeks, via the link in our bio.
Nestlé is teaming up with regenerative food and fa Nestlé is teaming up with regenerative food and farming brand Wildfarmed – working with a community of British farmers to trial regeneratively farmed wheat in one of its most famous brands, writes David Burrows. 

The wheat comes from Wildfarmed’s community of British farmers who “all follow a set of standards based on holistic farming practices aimed at reducing environmental impact and bringing life back to soil”, said Nestlé, the world’s largest food company, in a press statement.

“We’re thrilled to be working with Wildfarmed,” said Emma Keller, head of sustainability at Nestlé UK and Ireland, and former Head of Food and Commodities at WWF-UK. This collaboration is all about making products “in an even more sustainable way, all while supporting British wheat farmers to adopt regenerative farming practices that are intended to support carbon reduction and increase biodiversity. With this partnership, it’s not just about growing crops a bit differently; it’s about working to grow and support a more sustainable future for farmers and the landscapes we depend on.”

This all sounds great, doesn’t it? 

Love it or hate it, Nestlé is one of the food companies keenest to plough millions into scaling regenerative practices. The company’s sales are not in great shape, and the infant formula situation (a voluntary global recall was initiated in January due to concerns they contain a toxin which can cause food poisoning) has certainly cast a shadow this year; still, its efforts to improve the resilience of its supply chains through regenerative approaches have been widely lauded, including by its key suppliers.
But what does the partnership mean for the future of regenerative farming?

Read the full feature on Wicked Leeks, via the link in our bio.
‘Haj Bashir and I speak via a translator and he we ‘Haj Bashir and I speak via a translator and he welcomes me warmly. To my ear his tone seems even and his voice matter of fact as he describes the hardships and challenges the Palestinian farmers are facing on a daily basis. It’s only when I ask how it feels to live under such conditions that he shares more.

“The burdens on the shoulders of the Palestinian farmer would be unbearable to most farmers around the world. In every village and community it’s the same, we’re farming in a prison.”

For the farmers in the West Bank, @zaytoun_cic is one way to get through such walls. 

“It serves both as lenses that see through walls, and oxygen to keep us breathing within them. It allows us to penetrate these walls and reach the outside world,” Haj Bashir explains. 

He says: “We’re living from nothing. That’s the challenge and we accept it. All of these pressures are designed to force us to leave. But we remain grounded in the knowledge that our cause is just…  Being on the land, continuing to cultivate it, and witnessing its productivity provides spiritual and emotional satisfaction. The connection between land, justice and identity is what keeps us going.

“The last hope is the land we are living on.” ‘

Story by Lizzie Rivera @livefrankly_

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