Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what account her Department takes in the formulation of food policy of (a) reducing the carbon footprint of food produced and (b) educational research within the industry.

Delivering a sustainable and nature positive food system that helps us to meet our climate and environmental goals is a priority for Defra.

We have recently launched the Food Data Transparency Partnership (FDTP) which will focus on improving the measurement and communication of supply chain greenhouse gas emissions for the food and drink sector. This will enable the sector to better target efforts to reduce emissions. The FDTP will also develop a mandatory methodology to be used when producing voluntary eco-labels for food and drink products. This will improve consistency in how information about environmental impacts is communicated to consumers, which in turn will create a level playing field to enable comparisons between products and enable consumers to make better informed food choices in line with their values.

In addition, the Government is committed to exploring the monitoring, reporting and verification of emissions in the agriculture sector. This will enable us to understand where the greatest decarbonisation opportunities could be across the sector, considering all options.

In the Net Zero Growth Plan, the Government has committed to developing a harmonised approach to measuring carbon on farms and will set out how we will support farmers to undertake carbon audits by 2024.

We work closely with a range of experts including scientists, social researchers and economic analysts and routinely review and integrate relevant research into policy development.

Improvements in livestock productivity can reduce emissions, create a more efficient sector and reduce the impacts of pollution to water and air. Defra is funding research exploring ways to reduce emissions from livestock, including investigating the finishing and slaughter age in beef cattle and the effects on management, productivity and emissions.