There, efforts are underway to regulate UPF production, marketing, & consumption despite strong industry resistance. These “offer crucial lessons for scaling action globally”.

The papers are worth devouring (pun intended) in full. But if you don't have time, I've done the leg work for you.

“The continuing rise of UPFs in human diets is not inevitable; rather, this rise can be disrupted and reversed through sustained social mobilisation and collective action”, it added. The 43 global experts behind the papers pointed to successes in Latin America & sub-Saharan Africa.

Reining in this global health challenge requires “urgent, coordinated public policies and collective actions” such as regulating food environments & corporate practices, & ensuring fresh, healthy food is available, affordable, & easy to prepare, said the series.

www.thelancet.com/series-do/ul...

Side note: I’ll be in Kuala Lumpur next week to attend the 2025 Global Investigative Journalism Conference & speak on a panel about investigating world hunger. So if you’re also coming or happen to be there, do drop me a line. Food recommendations very much welcome.

gijc2025.org/program/sche...

So here's Who Owns The Farmland - Redux, where he explained the differences between land ownership and land use, why Europe's march towards consolidation of farmland is both inevitable and desirable, and how caring for the soil and land is more about practices and less about scale.

Alan is Professor Emeritus at Trinity College, Dublin, & runs CAPreform.eu blog, a go-to source for anyone looking for detailed expert analysis of all things CAP.

He shared some thoughts provoked by my newsletter, which I found to be fascinating. So asked him to elaborate them over a Zoom call.

Myanmar journalists in exile are "unable to escape the grim realities of the junta's brutality because their days are spent gathering news of the loss, grief, and despair back home" but downplay their trauma, writes our fellow from Kayin State.

kite-tales.org/en/article/w...

Coming from a country of small farms & now living in 2 where farms are getting larger, I find these global trends deeply personal & political.

So I break down 11 fascinating findings & share my two cents: are bigger, more intensive farms the food future we want or are we heading there by default?

Why? Because land ownership is one of the clearest indicators of wealth, power, & inequality - in farming as in society. How land is owned & used shapes everything from policy decisions to people’s livelihoods.

See Chapter 3 + background paper.

doi.org/10.4060/cd70...
doi.org/10.4060/cd73...

It comes with striking new data and insights:

➡️ 1.7 billion people now live in areas where crop yields are at least 10% lower because of human-induced land degradation.

But what really caught my eye are the new figures on farm sizes and land distribution.

Thanks to Jose Luis Chicoma, who co-edited and also wrote in the report, for sharing the thought processes behind the project and what they are hoping to achieve.

Here's hoping we see more open discussions and actions on this topic.

news.thin-ink.net/p/how-to-eat...

It suggests concrete, structural & actionable ways to address the yawning power gap & has this cracking opening line:

“Food systems will not be transformed unless power is confronted - not as an abstract concept, but as concrete control over land and water, markets and labor, taste and narratives.”

Eating this elephant requires naming, confronting & doing so with big, bold actions, not timid little changes at the margins.

It's based on a great new report: “The Elephant At The Table: Policy Pathways to Confront Power in Food Systems” (hence, my title). thenew.institute/en/media/the...

If you want to hear more from @thinink.bsky.social, she joined me on the Not Now But Soon podcast to talk about food and fiction and how they intersect in the propaganda of authoritarian governments: issues.org/not-now-but-...