An independent charity, we were set up in 2017 to help shape the future of food, farming, and the countryside.
Our strategy focuses on aligning leadership and citizens voices to make real progress towards a greener, healthier, and fairer food system.
We work in a lean and agile way, convening diverse voices around the UK —citizens, farmers and growers, communities, business leaders—challenging outdated and counterproductive narratives and creating new coalitions for action. Our research and evidence, which appears as reports, films, podcasts and other content, helps shape debate and influence narratives. Working across all four UK nations, FFCC is well positioned to share insight and analysis across countries and regions, building on what works.
Together, our work demonstrates how an integrated approach to food, farming and land use is a key plank of national prosperity and democratic renewal.
Baroness Rosie Boycott, House of Lords
FFCC is a mission-led organisation. We are hugely grateful for the confidence placed in us by our generous funders, and to work with them in service of our shared missions and purpose. Our core work as well as some specific projects are funded by Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, the Prince of Wales’s Charitable Fund (now the King Charles III Charitable Fund), the Rothschild Foundation and the Aurora Trust. In addition, we have benefitted from a gift from Animula to support The Food Conversation, and the AFN Network+ supporting our land use work.
We started off life in November 2017 as an independent inquiry led by a group of influential Commissioners. We commissioned research and sought practical solutions - including an innovation national bike tour to hear direct from citizens. This work formed the basis of a landmark report, Our Future in the Land, which was widely supported by ministers and welcomed on both sides of the aisle. Thanks to the success and impact of that report, we became an independent charity in April 2020.
The cross-cutting activities of Aligning Leadership and Citizen’s Voices are designed to increase political impact and to inform and support the work of FFCC’s core goals: to make healthy food available for all, farming a force for change, a countryside that works for everyone, and money flow to where it is needed. Central to our approach is the value we place on real and practical work around the UK, which is enabled by our country directors and presence in all four countries.
A lot of the policy and action in our field is devolved. Our country directors in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland lead specific projects relevant to their country’s political and policy landscape. We benefit from learning what works in these different jurisdictions and share this through hosting events across boundaries.
Denise Bentley, Founder of First Love Foundation and FFCC Commissioner
For each of our work programmes, we produce research and reports, as well as short films, podcasts, blogs and other rich content designed to involve citizens and specialists in telling stories and in providing arguments and evidence.
The full range of reports and publications can be found in our publications library.