Growing our Future UK

The UK food system faces complex environmental, social, and economic challenges. It significantly contributes to climate change and ecological degradation, while the UK population experiences growing food insecurity and related health issues. Poor profitability forces many farmers out of business, and the average age of farmers is rising. Recent global issues like the cost-of-living crisis and international conflicts worsen these problems. 

In the face of this adversity, we must reimagine our food systems.  

A regenerative farming and food system offers hope. It could reduce UK agricultural emissions by up to 27%, revitalise soils and ecosystems, improve farmer livelihoods, and enhance public health. The journey towards a regenerative future has started, but there is still a long way to go. 

Forum’s Growing Our Future UK initiative is a multi-year, multi-stakeholder programme aimed at accelerating the transition to a just and regenerative food system through co-designed action research. It supports existing industry actions, diagnoses systemic challenges, and builds market-level actions. 

 Key questions addressed are: 

To help answer these questions, we are running a series of modules. Each one is briefly described below. Find out more by following the links, and to participate in any of this work please contact the team.  

We aim to nurture the enabling conditions for positive change – building a shared understanding of the opportunities to scale up regenerative and climate-resilient practices within the sector, while fostering greater shared ambition, stronger relationships, and commitment to action among stakeholders able to deliver that change. 

We will collaborate with changemakers from across the orchard sector - with growers firmly represented - as well as from industry, policy and civil society, public health, and the wider market. Together we will work to accelerate the scaling of regenerative and climate-resilient approaches, guided by the ultimate goal of securing a thriving future for the UK orchard fruit sector, including securing decent livelihoods for food producers and workers, improved access to affordable healthy diets, and the restoration of the natural world. 

Our aims are to: understand the challenges and potential pathways for progress towards a just and regenerative UK orchard fruit sector; showcase scalable solutions, innovations and best practices; generate recommendations and calls to action; support the capacity of UK orchard fruit stakeholders to act and collaborate further for a regenerative transition; and generate insights about making positive change happen. 

For more information on our Orchards Fruit programme, visit our page or contact Libby Lyon.

The UK dairy industry has been subject to repeated waves of financial challenge, increased environmental scrutiny, and a continuously declining farmer numbers. Our Future of Dairy programme hopes to help build a more positive future. We believe in the power of reimagining the relationship between people, milk, and the land through collective action and systems thinking.  

The programme started in June 2024 and is kicking off with a focus on Devon. By looking closely at one region we hope to create some real action on the ground, while connecting into national conversations and programmes. We are actively recruiting collaboration participants from within Devon and interested parties from across the rest of the UK. We will seek to answer the following questions;  

To find out more, reach out to Mareyah Bhatti. 

We invite voices from across the UK's food system to join us on the journey towards a regenerative future. Whether you are a farmer, business, policymaker, NGO, or investor, your contribution is crucial. 

This work is supported by the Carbon Innovation Fund, John Ellerman Foundation, People’s Postcode Lottery, the Benefact Group, the Betty Lawes Foundation, and generous donations.  

For more information on Growing Our Future UK and how to get involved or support,
please contact Duncan Williams.