Food, Farming and Countryside Commission: Our Common Ground

We cannot carry on treating our food, farming and countryside as we do currently. We are failing our citizens, our communities and our environment.

'Our Common Ground' marks the halfway stage of the RSA Food, Farming and Countryside Commission inquiry.

To understand what challenges the food industry, farmers, and the countryside face we’ve reviewed hundreds of policy proposals, hosted expert discussions, and cycled right round the UK to meet people in their communities.

This interim report takes what we’ve learnt and sets out the five themes for further work to achieve our ambitious vision for the future of the countryside:   

1. Meeting our global obligations: in which we connect our changing place in the world with our responsibilities to combat climate change and transform farming systems. Read this chapter online

2. Securing the value of land: in which we connect mediating the multiple needs and demands on land use with novel financial instruments to make this work. Read this chapter online

3. Good work for a thriving economy: in which we connect shifting patterns of work in a changing economy with people’s aspirations for meaningful work and rich lives. Read this chapter online

4. Good food for healthy and flourishing communities: in which we connect the ways that food is grown, produced and eaten, with the effects on people’s health and wellbeing. Read this chapter online

5. More than money: in which we connect all the resource flows through rural economies with ways to revitalise rural democracy. Read this chapter online

Download the full report (pdf, 6MB)

This is a progress report, setting out our emerging thinking. Please help us inform the next stage of the RSA Food, Farming and Countryside Commission by letting us know what we got right and what we missed. E-mail FFCC@rsa.org.uk