Natural Resources and Land Use: Our Work

The SDC works closely with Government and other interested parties to both formally and informally address the issues set out above.

Specific areas of work currently in progress include:

� Future of Agriculture On-line Debate � the SDC will facilitate a workshop for policy makers in January 2007 to explore new and existing challenges to achieving a nationally and internationally sustainable food and farming sector in the UK. To inform this process, the SDC is hosting an on-line debate and will also meet with key stakeholders to seek their views. The views received will then be used to inform a short set of questions that will frame the workshop discussion.

� Take part in this debate

� Supermarket thematic review � the third of the SDC�s thematic reviews will focus on the role of Government in enabling supermarkets to deliver a sustainable food system in the UK. It will consider the Government�s commitments to sustainable food over the last nine years, and how it has helped and hindered supermarkets deliver a more sustainable food system in the UK since 1997. It will then go on to explore how government should better facilitate supermarkets to deliver a more sustainable food system in the UK in the future.

See our Supermarkets Project Page for more details and to contribute to this work.

� $100 barrel oil study � the SDC intends to commission a study considering: the direct impact of increased energy prices upon UK farm businesses; and the wider impact of increased energy prices on the competitiveness of the UK agricultural industry.

� Rural Climate Change Forum � John Gilliland, SDC Commissioner, is co-chair of the RCCF with Ian Pearson, Minister of State for Climate Change and the Environment. The Forum allows for dialogue with Government, in addition to authoritative advice and leadership for rural stakeholders on climate change and rural land management.

For more details see Defra RCCF.

� Food Assurance Schemes � following the SDC�s report on the sustainability implications of the Little Red Tractor scheme, the SDC in Scotland commissioned a further study assessing Scottish food assurance schemes, membership of which is rewarded by public funding from Scotland�s Rural Development Programme. Part of the SDC�s report, to be published in early 2007, will examine the extent of public benefit arising from individual farmers taking part in food assurance schemes.

Have your say on our work programme