Summary of the Challenge
The current food system has a significant environmental impact, representing 35% of the UK’s territorial emissions, a figure which includes imported food1. Intensive agricultural methods can also negatively affect soil health, waterways and biodiversity.
For instance it is estimated that arable soils have lost between 40%-60% of their organic carbon2. The State of Nature Report also links policies incentivising intensive food production to a significant decline in biodiversity since records began in the 1970s3. Alternative food production methods are needed that increase overall yields without putting any more pressure on our already-depleted soils.
63.1% of land in the UK is used for agriculture4, but we produce only 54% of vegetables and 16% of the fruit we consume5. Furthermore, 76% of the water needed to supply the UK with fruit and vegetables is drawn from overseas, often in countries that are water stressed and vulnerable to climate change6. Reliance on the existing supply chain model is both unsustainable and carries significant food security risks.
We need to find a way to produce more food in the same or less space, considering shorter supply chains, reducing water use, using low carbon management practices, and leveraging new technologies where available.
Our Response
This project aims to set-up a South Yorkshire Controlled Environment Agriculture Centre (SYCEA Centre). Controlled Environment Agriculture describes technologies and environments where conditions are controlled to provide enhanced growing conditions. Examples include glasshouses and vertical farming facilities.
Establishing the SYCEA Centre will enhance crop growing in urban and peri-urban areas, and on farms as part of a ‘hybrid farm’ model. Planned outcomes of the SYCEA include: improving the resilience of local food supply chains to international shocks, creating opportunities for jobs and skills training, and increasing the availability of healthy and nutritious food to local communities.
Our partners at Regather have established a Sheffield Urban Agriculture Task Force to identify and develop sites suitable for particular types of low carbon infrastructure, such as allotments and greenhouses. We will also identify appropriate low carbon technologies that will support delivery of net-zero in the Sheffield Region, and will make recommendations through the Regional Food Strategy about how to scale up low carbon production.
Footnote:
1 UK Food System GHG Emissions
2 The state of the environment: soil
3 State of Nature
4 Land use statistics: England 2022
5 Land use statistics: England 2022
6 The exposure of a fresh fruit and vegetable supply chain to global water-related risks
