We were set up in 2017 as an independent commission to help shape the future of food, farming, and the countryside. In 2026, we are embarking on an ambitious new three-year plan, tackling the most intractable barriers to food systems transformation head-on. Our work will focus on three strategic priorities:
Power, politics, and economics. We will challenge the assumptions that limit progress – interrogating the political and economic structures that shape our food systems and identifying the levers for transformative change.
Citizens, communities, and diverse voices. We will deepen our engagement with farmers, businesses, and communities – especially those whose perspectives are too rarely heard – to show the breadth and depth of public appetite for a better food future.
Real change in places. Collaborating with partners in places, we will name the local, regional, and national barriers to transformation, and resource and share the practical, inspiring stories that show another way is possible.
To learn more about the impact of our work, so far, read on ...
FFCC occupies a distinctive space, identifying and working on the sticky issues, convening leaders across the whole system, involving diverse and seldom heard voices in policy, exposing and taking on the real barriers to transformational change – and working to overcome them.
Below are some of the ways we see evidence for the impact of this work.
The Food Conversation was designed to challenge long-held assumptions about what ‘consumers’ want and helped to shift policy makers’ understanding of the public appetite for change. Learn more about how we ran the largest ever conversation about food here.
Impact: Food Conversation citizens have been invited into the heart of policy development, with the Citizens Advisory Council helping to shape the government’s new Food Strategy. Our evidence, alongside years of work by others, contributed to a significant shift towards government intervention on food. We are now seeing new policy announcements from governments, new food strategies in England and Northern Ireland, and a growing momentum around food in all four nations.
FFCC first called for a Land Use Framework for England in Our Future in the Land report in 2019. Since then, we’ve run on-the-ground pilots, published influential reports, coordinated workshops to support Defra's Consultation on Land Use, convened leaders across all four nations and more. All this has helped build a broad alliance around the concept of a multifunctional, land-led, transparent and inclusive Land Use Framework. FFCC's influence can be seen in the House of Lords report, the Royal Society’s Living Landscape report, the Glover Review and the Geospatial Commission’s report which shaped the final framework.
Impact: In March 2026, the government published the Land Use Framework. It embeds many of the principles that FFCC first set out and advocated for. FFCC's work continues, as we turn attention to the implementation of the framework.
Since our much celebrated Farming for Change report in 2020, FFCC has continued to influence and shape the debate about the transition towards a more sustainable, equitable and resilient future for farming in the UK. Recent reports, like Paying the Price, have been cited in parliament and gained national media attention, our content and films have been widely watched, a recent podcast series attracted a significant farming audience. FFCC's forums and events, including the annual joint Oxford Farming Conferences dinner, the long-running Farming Leadership Group, sessions at Groundswell, and All-Party Parliamentary Group on Farming, draw high-level political and media interest, while bringing diverse farming perspectives to the centre of the policy conversation.
Impact: Key FFCC narratives, such as the long-term squeeze on farmers' finances and the need to build systemic resilience, are increasingly reflected in mainstream and industry media, farming organisations, and government policy.
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.
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.
