Fix Food: Fix the Planet

Posted on 06/03/2026

Fix Food: Fix the Planet talk – 19th February 2026

Food represents so much more than just food. It is health, climate, culture, economy, land, labour and power.

That was the driving message behind the Fix Food: Fix the Planet talk Sue Pritchard gave in February, as part of our Root For Our Future project. The talk was a bold and urgent call to reimagine our food system as the lever for solving some of the greatest crises of our time.

This was a talk all about food, money, and power. Centred around the food system, with topics of health, climate change, and justice as a vision for the future of our food system.

“If we fix food, we fix everything.” It sounds ambitious, but when you look at the evidence, it starts to feel less like a slogan and more like a roadmap.

Food at the nexus of crisis

The modern food system sits at the centre of multiple overlapping emergencies:

Food connects climate change, biodiversity loss, public health, inequality and economic instability. Yet the food system that feeds us has become increasingly consolidated, financialised and commoditised.

Just four global agribusiness companies – often referred to as the “ABCD” group – control around 80% of the global grain supply. This extreme concentration of power means:

As the talk made clear: “It’s not a cost of living crisis, it’s a cost of inequality crisis.”

The false economy of cheap food

We are told that cheap food is good for consumers, but cheap at the checkout often means expensive elsewhere.

A report commissioned by the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission estimates that unhealthy diets cost the UK £268 billion per year – almost equivalent to the country’s entire annual healthcare budget. This is the direct cost (treating diet-related diseases) and indirect cost (such as diminished quality of life and lost productivity) attributable to our current food system.

The conclusion is stark: the investment required to ensure everyone eats well is far smaller than the cost of continuing with the status quo. However, the power of a handful of multinational food manufacturers blocks meaningful change.

Long-term downward pressure on food prices has not delivered food justice. Instead, it has driven:

A local story: Wales and the River Wye

These global dynamics are playing out locally.

In Wales, many farmers are struggling to survive. Some are selling up or being bought out by large agribusinesses, asset equity firms, or nature credit schemes. Wealth is extracted from the Welsh landscape rather than reinvested into local communities.

The consolidation of intensive chicken production along the River Wye – linked to multinational supply chains such as those associated with Cargill – illustrates how global corporate models reshape local ecosystems. Concentrated livestock systems put pressure on waterways, biodiversity and community resilience.

When power concentrates, landscapes and livelihoods change with it (and often not for the better).

Justice at the centre of food

If transformation is to succeed, justice must sit at its heart.

There is a call for a new food economy anchored in three principles:

  1. The right of every citizen – regardless of class, income, race, geography or age – to sufficient, affordable, healthy food.
  2. Regulation that curtails the power of Big Food, promotes dietary health and reduces chronic disease.
  3. A financial system that rewards real value creation – directing money towards regenerative farmers, local communities, and businesses selling healthy food.

Healthy food must be affordable and available to everyone, but this cannot be achieved by squeezing prices ever lower. Instead, political leaders must change the rules of the game so that:

  • Growing healthy, sustainable food is properly rewarded.
  • Financial returns flow to farmers regenerating natural resources.
  • Preventative health is prioritised over post-hoc damage control.

What can we do?

As individuals, we are often told that the solution lies in our shopping baskets, such as:

  • ❓ Asking questions about where our food comes from.
  • 🍩Buying fewer ultra-processed foods.
  • 🥬 Eating seasonally.
  • 🐄 Choosing less intensively produced meat.
  • 🥕 Eating more plants and whole foods.

These choices, although important, require time, money, education and access. There is privilege attached to navigating food decisions in a complex marketplace. Individual action alone cannot transform a structurally unequal system.

Another, more powerful option for individuals is to collectivise – to organise, advocate and demand systemic change together.

While individuals can shift consumption patterns at the margins, only governments and powerful international institutions can:

  • Restructure subsidies
  • Regulate corporate power
  • Invest in regenerative agriculture
  • Redesign supply chains
  • Ensure universal access to healthy food

Grow well. Trade fairly. Reward what matters.

A just and sustainable global food system would:

  • 🌿 Grow ecologically appropriate food.
  • 🌿 Trade fairly in ecologically appropriate food.
  • 🌿 Protect and enhance biodiversity.
  • 🌿 Strengthen food security and resilience.
  • 🌿 Restore dignity and income to farmers.
  • 🌿 Deliver healthy diets for all.

Food systems are not peripheral to climate strategy, health reform or economic justice – they are foundational.

If we fix food – not just at the level of personal choice but at the level of power, policy and finance – we begin to fix inequality, environmental collapse and public health crises simultaneously.

Food is not just what’s on our plate, it is the system that shapes our future, and that system can be redesigned.

Root for Our Future

This event is part of Root for Our Future, a two-year project exploring food sustainability within Torfaen. Everyone is welcome to attend one of our events. They’re completely free! This project is funded by the National Lottery Community Fund.