Chapter 32.
Ending food poverty without destroying the planet is an achievable reality. We can create a future where every community has access to nourishing food, where our landscapes flourish with renewed biodiversity, and where agriculture actively heals the Earth rather than depleting it. This demands a re-evaluation of our relationship with the ecosystems that support all life.
It calls for an integrated approach, embracing personal dietary shifts, innovative land management, and the potential of nature’s overlooked allies, all working in concert to create resilient, thriving food systems that truly nourish both people and the planet.
The journey towards a more abundant and sustainable food system begins with individual dietary shifts, which, though seemingly small, are cumulatively powerful. For many, the idea of completely eliminating meat presents a daunting psychological barrier, yet flexitarianism demonstrates the tangible impact of simply reducing meat consumption. This pragmatic approach offers benefits by reducing the environmental footprint of intensive livestock farming, which accounts for 14.5% of all human-induced greenhouse gas emissions—a figure greater than all global land, sea, and air transport combined. Intensive meat production also consumes over a third of the world’s crop calories while providing less than a fifth of global calories. It is also a major driver of deforestation, particularly in the Amazon, alongside consuming vast quantities of freshwater, with a single beef burger requiring 15 times more water than a plant-based alternative.
Beyond its environmental impact, reducing red and processed meat intake actively improves personal health outcomes, demonstrably lowering the risks of chronic diseases such as certain cancers, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease, while promoting healthier body weights. Experts indicate that if the British population simply adopted meat-free lunches on weekdays, it could yield a saving of up to £2.2 billion for the NHS annually by reducing diet-related illnesses. Embracing flexitarianism also addresses ethical concerns by lessening demand for inhumane factory farm practices, where billions of animals are reared in confined and unnatural conditions. Even modest reductions in meat intake—such as choosing plant-based meals a few days a week, swapping red meat for chicken or plant-based alternatives, or utilising meat as a condiment rather than a main dish—can collectively lead to climate benefits, equivalent to offsetting the emissions of 16% of the cars on UK roads. This conscious choice is not about rigid adherence, but about a flexible and achievable path that, when scaled across a population, drives systemic change, offering both direct economic savings for households and supporting a healthier populace, while avoiding pitfalls such as over-relying on ultra-processed plant-based foods or failing to ensure adequate nutrient intake like B12.
Complementing these individual dietary shifts is a reimagining of how agricultural land can be managed. A transition is unfolding towards rewilding and agroforestry, movements that embrace a wisdom often overlooked: that abundance might flourish when human intent aligns with nature’s design. Rewilding, as articulated by environmentalist George Monbiot, involves the intelligent and gentle restoration of ecosystems, trusting nature’s inherent capacity to heal and regenerate with minimal human interference. Farmers are increasingly integrating trees into their existing systems through diverse forms of agroforestry, creating shelterbelts that protect crops and livestock from wind and extreme temperatures, enriching soil health through nutrient cycling and root systems, and diversifying farm income through the sustainable harvesting of timber or fruit. These trees offer benefits to animal agriculture itself, providing shade and protection for livestock, which can lead to improved animal welfare and productivity. Carefully managed silvopastoral systems, integrating broadleaf species like sycamore and ash with grazing animals at densities of 400 trees per hectare, can even mimic the beneficial impact of wild herbivores, promoting biodiversity and healthier woodland structures.
Beyond these integrated approaches, dedicating larger areas to passive rewilding, as exemplified by projects like the Knepp Estate in West Sussex, showcases how a conventional farm can transition from intensive agriculture to ecological restoration. This project, which was previously struggling with profitability from monoculture, has brought back lost biodiversity, including iconic and rare species like turtle doves, nightingales, and purple emperor butterflies. It has also enhanced natural flood management, improved water quality, and unlocked new economic avenues through eco-tourism, nature-based education, and natural capital markets. Knepp alone generates approximately £800,000 per year from nature tourism, alongside a 22% profit margin and a 54% increase in jobs over ten years. These projects are further supported by government schemes like the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier (CSHT), and initiatives like the Rewilding Britain Innovation Fund, which offers up to £15,000 for innovative rewilding projects.
These nature-based solutions offer carbon drawdown capabilities and also regenerate entire ecosystems, providing benefits that address interconnected crises. A single hectare of new native broadleaf woodland in the UK can store between 300 to 350 tonnes of carbon over a century. Moreover, agroforestry systems demonstrate sequestration potential: silvoarable systems can store eight tonnes of CO₂ per hectare per year over 30 years, and silvopastoral systems up to 16 tonnes of CO₂ per hectare per year over 40 years. Projections indicate that establishing agroforestry on just 20% of arable land and 30% of grassland could enable UK agriculture-related emissions to reach net zero by 2050, resulting in a net sequestration rate of 21 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent per year by 2062. This offers an ecologically regenerative alternative to energy-intensive technological carbon capture and storage (CCS), which is estimated to cost tens of trillions globally and carries risks of captured carbon being re-released. These integrated forest systems can lead to new offshoot businesses, such as sustainable mushroom cultivation on wood waste.
The future of our food systems is also discovering abundance in something often overlooked: the humble fungi. The shift towards mushroom cultivation represents an innovative, waste-transforming approach that deeply collaborates with nature’s inherent wisdom. As mycologist Paul Stamets argues in works like Mycelium Running: How Fungi Can Help Save the World, these organisms are the planet’s primary recyclers and networkers, holding keys to ecological restoration and offering solutions for food systems. This understanding of fungal biology is being integrated into modern agricultural operations, moving beyond traditional monoculture towards a more symbiotic and collaborative relationship with biological processes, deriving value from the interconnectedness and vitality of living systems as explored by Charles Eisenstein in Sacred Economics.
Mushroom cultivation fundamentally transforms vast quantities of agricultural by-products such as spent straw and coffee grounds into nutritious food sources, thereby closing resource loops and fostering resilient, localised food economies. Pioneering farms across the United Kingdom vividly demonstrate this economic viability. The Little Mushroom Co. in Norfolk notably transformed a former chicken farm into a thriving mushroom-growing operation, showcasing a complete repurposing of existing infrastructure to produce nutrient-rich food with reduced water and land use. Similarly, Anglia Free Range Eggs, another Norfolk-based producer, is repurposing redundant egg sheds for mushroom production, further proving how diversification into fungi can boost both profitability and environmental sustainability.
The UK mushroom market, currently valued at over £400 million annually, is experiencing growth, with projections indicating it will reach US$2.513 billion by 2030. This surge is driven by consumer interest in health-conscious and plant-based diets, with gourmet and exotic varieties becoming particularly trendy. One major UK supplier reported a near tripling in oyster mushroom sales over three years, jumping from 370,000 packs annually in 2019 to over one million in 2022. New products like fresh Lion’s Mane mushrooms are now available nationwide in Sainsbury’s stores, marking a milestone for mainstream UK grocery. Restaurants, too, are embracing these locally sourced fungi, with establishments in Manchester actively supplied by urban mushroom farms like Polyspore. Estimates suggest even a small-scale operation producing around 500 kg of gourmet mushrooms monthly can generate gross revenues of approximately £5,000 to £10,000.
Beyond the tangible financial returns, engaging with these regenerative practices can foster a sense of purpose and connection to nature, contributing to mental well-being. The cultivation process, often less physically demanding than conventional farming, can also offer a gentler engagement with the land. This approach is not confined to the UK; similar transitions are unfolding across the globe, driven by a shared vision. In the United States, initiatives like the Transfarmation Project assist farmers in converting former animal agriculture operations into mushroom cultivation sites.
In the UK, the transition of farms towards mushroom cultivation often finds support from organisations such as The Vegan Society and Viva! Farming. The Vegan Society, through its “Grow Green” campaign, supports farmers in shifting away from animal farming towards plant protein crops. Viva! Farming is dedicated to helping UK farmers transition into plant-based agriculture, providing a network of entrepreneurs to ensure a “just transition” that is economically viable.
The sustainability loop of mushroom cultivation extends further through the potential to transform spent mushroom substrate (SMS) into biochar. SMS, the organic material remaining after harvesting, is an ideal feedstock for pyrolysis—a process of heating biomass. This conversion creates a stable, carbon-rich substance that, when applied to agricultural land, improves soil fertility and enhances water retention. It also plays a role in climate change mitigation by sequestering carbon. Research from the University of Nottingham highlights that converting food waste into biochar could cut 93,000 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent annually by 2030, demonstrating the environmental impact of such circular economy approaches.
A future of true food abundance arises from this synergistic approach: empowering individual choices to reduce impact, embracing land management practices that restore ecological vitality, and innovating with overlooked allies from the natural world. It’s a path that acknowledges the interconnectedness of human well-being, economic prosperity, and planetary health, demonstrating that the most effective solutions emerge when we work with the Earth’s wisdom, fostering systems that are not just productive, but resilient, regenerative, and truly abundant for all.
Next Chapter: New Economies: Models & Governance
Bibliography
Eisenstein, Charles. Sacred Economics (North Atlantic Books, 2011)
Knepp Estate. Pioneering Rewilding Project (West Sussex, UK, Ongoing since 2001, often referenced via Isabella Tree’s publications)
Monbiot, George. Feral: Rewilding our landscapes (Penguin Books, 2013)
Stamets, Paul. Mycelium Running: How Fungi Can Help Save the World (Ten Speed Press, 2005)
Tree, Isabella. Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm (Picador, 2018)
Anglia Free Range Eggs. Diversification into Mushroom Production (Commercial Enterprise, Norfolk, UK, Ongoing)
The Little Mushroom Co. Transforming Former Chicken Farm for Mushroom Cultivation (Commercial Enterprise, Norfolk, UK, Ongoing)
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Tato’s Mushrooms. Indoor Mushroom Farming Practices (Commercial Enterprise, Canada, Ongoing)
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University of Pretoria. Exploring Repurposed Shipping Containers for Controlled Mushroom Cultivation (Academic Research, South Africa, Ongoing)
The Vegan Society. “Grow Green” Campaign (UK Initiative, Ongoing)
Viva! Farming. Support for Farmers Transitioning to Plant-Based Agriculture (UK Initiative, Ongoing)
Watts, Craig. Successful Transition to Specialty Mushroom Farming (Individual Case Study, US, Referenced in Transfarmation Project work)