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What is ‘sustainable food’?

  • by JW

… systems with low carbon input … low water and high biodiversity …

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What is ‘sustainable food’?

Food, the transition movement and life after the coronavirus – Vision Group for Sidmouth

How is food produced and where? – Vision Group for Sidmouth

The future of the farming and food industries – Vision Group for Sidmouth

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The Sustainable Food and Farming team at the consultancey ADAS looks at the question:

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What is sustainable food?

Whichever way we look at it, the food that we eat is going to have an impact on the environment it is produced in. Unless we all return to being hunter-gatherers (which frankly isn’t sustainable either!) our food will have to be farmed.

The challenge for society is to work out what we should eat, and how it should be grown, in order to be sustainable. But what do we mean by sustainable? There are a whole bunch of different ways to describe sustainable, it can be:

Low climate impact
Low water use
High biodiversity
Low input (pesticides / artificial fertilisers)
High welfare

However, just because a food ticks one of these boxes, does not mean it ticks them all. Over a short series of articles we’ll explore what these items mean and how they relate to the food we eat…

What is sustainable food?

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What is sustainable food? – Part 2

In our last article, we discussed the different elements that make food sustainable, and looked in more depth at farming biodiversity farming systems. systems with low carbon input. As we follow on the sustainable food series, here we examine low water and high biodiversity… 

In our next article, we’ll discuss low input and high welfare systems, and provide a summary of what to look for when making sustainable food choices.

What is sustainable food? – Part 2.

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About the Sustainable Food and Farming team

The ADAS Sustainable Food and Farming team help clients to address their sustainability challenges. Our agricultural background means we’re equally at home meeting face-to-face with farmers as we are engaging with senior management in global food and drink businesses. 

ADAS – Leading the way in environmental research