UK-based food and farming charity, The Sustainable Food Trust (SFT), has voiced concerns over the government's new Land Use Framework, which was published last week.

The organisation believes that the underlying assumption within the framework—that more food will need to be produced from less land—risks perpetuating many of the major issues arising from the current food system. It argues this will lock the UK into the intensification of high-input agriculture, ultimately undermining the nation's food security and resilience.

Patrick Holden, CEO of the Sustainable Food Trust, said: "We are facing a planetary emergency in relation to our present food and farming systems. These systems are accelerating climate change, destroying what's left of the biodiversity that used to coexist with farming until 50 years ago, and damaging public health. We do not have any more time to spend months or possibly years deliberating about how best to use our diminishing agricultural land area. We need to switch with immediate effect to farming and food systems that work in harmony with nature, reduce emissions, reinstate in-field biodiversity and nourish our population, who have been made sick by nutrient-poor ultra-processed food.

"In the face of a challenge of that magnitude, the Land Use Framework is just treading water and risks taking us in totally the wrong direction. Since we are suffering from a 50-year policy mistake—one that's left us with poisoned rivers, food devoid of nutrition and hollowed-out rural communities—it's time to do something about it. We need to bring nature and food back together, not force them further apart. It is a viable strategy to produce food in harmony with nature, so why is this not getting a fair hearing? We need a coalition of the willing to come off the fence and pressure government to change course."

The Sustainable Food Trust also argues that the framework fails to make the deliverables clear and assumes that yields can be increased on less land, despite the challenges of climate change, declining soil health and supply chain disruption of inputs like nitrogen fertiliser.

Patrick Holden added: "Nowhere in the framework document, apart from bland acknowledgements of the future need for multi-functionality of land use, is it recognised that it will quite probably be impossible to produce more food from less land, unless that food is produced unsustainably using a cocktail of chemicals which will perpetuate climate change, destroy what's left of farmland biodiversity and further damage public health."

The organisation also highlights that the framework refers to the 'expansion of highly efficient sectors'—most notably mentioning the poultry growth plan—and commits to maintaining food production at current levels. It argues that, rather than this business-as-usual approach, there should be a greater focus on nutrition and a transition to sustainable, healthy diets.

Finally, the Sustainable Food Trust states that if food production is to increase sustainably, it must be achieved through agroecological approaches, rather than through intensifying high-yielding, high-input agriculture.