The Source

Food is never just food. To mark Love British Food’s 25th anniversary, Love British Food and Future Countryside have commissioned a collection of essays exploring the role of food in Britain today. Bringing together diverse perspectives from across the food supply chain and beyond, the collection provides a snapshot of British food and society in 2026 – designed to inspire fresh thinking, worthwhile debate and positive action for the future. 

Meeting our nutritional needs

The connection between how food is produced and its nutritional value

In the aftermath of the Second World War, British agriculture was transformed by a single imperative: produce as much food as possible. Hedgerows that had stood for generations were ripped up, and government policy pushed farmers towards maximum yield with little regard for the environment. At the time, this was understandable. Famine and poverty were real threats, and homegrown food was essential. Yet more than seven decades later, that same system remains largely intact, even though our understanding of food, health and the environment has fundamentally changed.

Today, we are far more aware of how food production affects the natural world and our bodies. Among younger people especially, there is growing interest in where food comes from and what it does to our health. Yet the food system still rewards farmers primarily for yield per hectare, not for nutritional value. This disconnect between what society values and what the system pays for lies at the heart of the issue with modern food production.

Land sharing versus land sparing

The debate about land use often centres around two models. Land sparing argues for intensive production on the ‘best’ fields while setting others aside for nature. For policymakers, this is tidy and measurable. Land sharing, by contrast, means producing food in harmony with nature, where farming and biodiversity are inseparable. It rests on a powerful principle: we are not separate from nature, and the food we eat literally becomes part of us. Farming in harmony with nature is not just an environmental preference, it is a logical extension of valuing what we put into our bodies.

The yield obsession and what we have lost

In the pursuit of higher yields, we have become fixated on total tonnage produced, often at the expense of nutritional value. When tested, heritage varieties of grains, fruits and vegetables frequently contain higher levels of vitamins and minerals than the standardised varieties now used in the name of efficiency. Studies suggest that the nutrient density of many foods has fallen by over 50% in the last 70 years. In theory, this means a person may now need to eat double the amount of carrots, or more, to obtain the same nutrients that a single carrot would have provided half a century ago. When we measure success solely by yield per hectare, we ignore this silent decline in the true value of our food.

In the drive to introduce seeds and breeds designed for uniformity and high output, we have created monocultures that seem resilient but are proving increasingly vulnerable. The climate is changing, with severe weather becoming more common. If you only have one crop, the risk to farming businesses if this fails could be huge. A diverse mix of crops and even better, livestock, on the other hand spreads risk and increases natural resilience across the farm. Monoculture systems also depend heavily on imported inputs such as fertiliser. When the war in Ukraine began for example, fertiliser prices rose by over 400%, placing severe strain on intensive grain production across Europe.

Nutrition per hectare: a new metric

What would change if we measured nutrient density per hectare, rather than simply yield? What if we also factored in the biodiversity operating alongside food production? The farming systems that would thrive under such a framework would look very different from those that dominate today. And the business models that succeeded would be those that deliver genuine nourishment, not just volume.

Nutrient-dense food tends to be more satiating, meaning people may naturally eat less overall. By contrast, ultra-processed foods are often high in calories but low in useful nutrition, leaving the body hungry again soon after eating. Food rich in vitamins, minerals and trace elements not only nourishes the body more effectively but can help regulate appetite and reduce overconsumption.

The Food, Farming and Countryside Commission's Paying the Price report estimates that diet-related ill health costs the UK £268 billion per year. This equates to nearly £4,000 per person annually. If even a fraction of that money were redirected to support farming practices which prioritise nutrition per hectare, the impact could be transformative.

A system in need of change

The current system is clearly not working. What is truly valuable to us needs to be reflected in what we reward. Health is inherently valuable, and the food we eat is one of the most direct determinants of health we can influence. If we want farming systems that are resilient to climate shocks and geopolitical disruption, we need to start measuring and rewarding the things that are truly valuable to us.

Meeting our nutritional needs in the decades ahead will require more than marginal policy tweaks. It will require a complete reframing of what success in agriculture looks like - from yield per hectare to nutrition per hectare, from monocultures to diversity, from separation from nature to farming in harmony with it. The conversation is already shifting. The challenge now is to turn it into action.