Our food system has been through many revolutions before, but we need one now to tackle climate change and create positive change for nature and our health. Largely we know what needs to change and we know that government will need to take the lead – so what’s holding things up and how can this change?

In this webinar, Jill Rutter, a former senior civil servant now at the Institute for Government, will help us understand how Whitehall works, why it doesn’t always work, what its challenges are, and how these could be overcome for the net zero challenge. Prof Neil Ward, Professor of Rural and Regional Development at the University of East Anglia and author of Net Zero, Food and Farming: Climate Change and the UK Agri-Food System, will also challenge our understanding of what government is for and ask us to reimagine what is possible. He’ll take us on a whistle stop tour of previous food revolutions, and how the state shaped them.

Jill covers;

• How Government is doing on net zero and where the sticking points are
• How Whitehall has previously dealt with large and complex problems – when this has worked or not worked, and why
• Thoughts on what needs to change – how Whitehall could be more effectively used for tackling the net zero challenge

Neil covers;

• How our understanding of the government’s role in our food system is shaped – and why we need to re-imagine this relationship
• The history of agri-food revolutions and what they teach us about what is possible
• How crises can help catalyse change and what Covid and WW2 taught us

This webinar will be chaired by Jez Fredenburgh, Knowledge Exchange Research Fellow for the AFN Network+, a UKRI-funded project to identify the key research gaps holding the UK agri-food system back from transitioning towards net zero by 2050.

About Jill:

Jill Rutter is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Government, a think tank that researches how to make government more effective. Before joining the Institute, Jill spent most of her career in the civil service, working at HM Treasury, No.10 and most recently at the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Jill is a regular commentator on a wide range of issues about government, the civil service and Brexit. She is employed as a Senior Research Fellow at UK in a Changing Europe at Kings College London. She is an adviser to the National Infrastructure Commission on net zero and was a member of Westminster Council’s Energy and Green Transition Commission.

About Neil:

As well as a co-convenor of AFN Network+, Neil Ward is a professor of rural and regional development at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia (UEA), where he was deputy vice chancellor and PVC-Academic (2013-21). He has held chairs at the University of Leeds and Newcastle University, where he was director of the Centre for Rural Economy from 2004 to 2008. He has also worked for periods on secondment to the Cabinet Office and as an advisor to the Economic and Social Research Council. His research interests are in rural economic and social change, agriculture, food and environmental policy and regional development. His latest book is Net Zero, Food and Farming: Climate Change and the UK Agri-Food System (Routledge 2023).

About the webinar series:

This webinar is part of a monthly series run by AFN Network+ which explores net zero in the UK agri-food system with leading movers and shakers. Expect deep and varied insight from across the sector, including farmers, scientists, policy analysts, community leaders, retailers, politicians, businesses and health professionals. The series is put together by Jez Fredenburgh, our Knowledge Exchange Fellow, and Prof Neil Ward, AFN Co-lead and professor of rural geography at the University of East Anglia.