Food supply

Developing a Sustainable Food and Farming System

The current research of Dr Wayne Martindale was presented to the Yorkshire Agricultural society Food and Farming Group. This presentation provided an outlook to other researchers evidence in the context of work being carried out by Wayne within CFI at SHU. This work is concerned with energy balances and resource use in the farm, food and consumer supply chain.  The aim of the presentation is to show evidence for developing a sustainable food system.  this ultimately means energy efficiency must be optimised and most modern farming systems that do this- that is conventional and integrated systems- will show the better energy returns.  Organic system do not show energy returns that are as favourable and the reason for using organic methods of farming will be determined most by cultural and market issues.

A comprehensive review of current issues concerned with the UK's food securuty where you can browse documents of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee arranged with the most recently published document at the top of each section is available.  Dr Wayne Martindale's Memorundum evidence on food security is also available and is cited in the summary report Securing food supplies up to 2050: the challenges faced by the UK.