Regenerative Farming and Sustainable Diets: Human, Animal and Planetary Health

These are just some of the pressing questions answered by a highly readable new book, Regenerative Farming and Sustainable Diets: Human, Animal and Planetary Health. The book is co-edited by two of Europe’s most respected influential individuals and campaigners for humane and sustainable food systems - Joyce D’Silva and Carol McKenna. It is a one-stop book that covers both regenerative agriculture and diet, something that has not been done before. Making a strong case for an urgent move away from industrial agriculture towards regenerative farming and the promotion of plant-based diets, it delivers joined-up thinking from leading authors and thinkers, from across the world.

“This inspiring book cuts through so much of today's wretched jargon about regenerative farming and tells it as it is. It's impossible to regenerate agriculture today without significantly reducing meat consumption.” Jonathon Porritt, Campaigner and Author

“This must-read book emphasises the importance of regenerative farming, agroforestry and permaculture. These methods of farming work with rather than against nature, restore biodiversity, help to slow down climate change. They can become truly sustainable and feed us for generations to come.” Jane Goodall, PhD, DBE, Founder - the Jane Goodall Institute & UN Messenger of Peace

“If Earth is to have a future, humans will need to live differently within the web of life that feeds us …The keys to tomorrow’s plates are in this wide-ranging, challenging, surprising, and ultimately hopeful collection of some of the planet’s finest thinkers on the future of food.” Raj Patel, Author, Film-maker and Academic

What to Expect: The co-editors have brought together an extraordinarily impressive group of individuals who are worldwide experts in their fields. This highly readable and visionary book was published on 4th September 2024 by Routledge.

It informs and inspires about how we should produce, distribute and consume food which are critical issues for all life on this planet. It includes a collection of chapters reflecting different approaches and perspectives, which explain how it is within our power to create lasting systemic change.

Chapters discuss broad ranging issues from climate change and biodiversity conservation to animal sentience, intensive farming and corporate power, plus the role of financial markets and food businesses. The book concludes with chapters discussing the routes in policy and practice to transforming the food system and achieving real-world change.

Amongst the 49 internationally respected contributors who provide well-informed and clear insight are: -

• Olivier De Schutter, co-chair of IPES-Food and UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
• Dr Vandana Shiva, physicist, environmental campaigner and founder of Navdanya
• Stefanos Fotiou, Director of the FAO Office of Sustainable Development Goals, and Director of UN Food Systems Coordination Hub at FAO and co-author Dr Rathana Peou Norbert Munns, Policy Expert at the Office of Sustainable Development Goals, FAO.
• James Bailey, Executive Director, Waitrose
• Rattan Lal, Distinguished University Professor of Soil Science and founding Director of the CFAES Rattan Lal Center for Carbon Management and Sequestration at Ohio University
• Molly Anderson, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Food Studies and Director of the Food Studies Academic Program, Middlebury College
• Shenggen Fan, Chair Professor at the College of Economics and Management at China Agricultural University
• Xiaolong Feng, Professor (Associate) at the Academy of Global Food Economics and Policy, the College of Economics and Management, China Agricultural University
• Dr Shireen Kassam, Consultant Haematologist and Certified Lifestyle Medicine Physician
• Prof Tim Benton, Distinguished Fellow in the Environment and Society Centre Chatham House
• Prof. Dr André Leu, International Director of Regeneration International
• Carl Safina, Endowed Chair for Nature and Humanity at Stony Brook University
• Philip Lymbery, Global CEO of Compassion in World Farming, President of Eurogroup for Animals and Board member of the World Federation for Animals
• Henry Dimbleby, co-founder of Leon Restaurants, the Sustainable Restaurant Association and the charity Chefs in Schools
• Seth Watkins, farmer in Iowa and former United Nations Food Systems Champion

Note: Please see this link for more details and for a full list of contributors

There is no doubt that this collection of chapters by well-known experts, academics, thinkers, farmers, corporates and scientists, represents a ‘one-stop’ book of essential reading for those seeking solutions on how we urgently transform our food systems, without eating and farming our way to extinction.

The book will be published in hardback (£135) and paperback (£32.99). Given the importance of the content, the editors have agreed an Open Access ebook. Royalties will go to Compassion in World Farming.

Joyce D’Silva D.Litt D.Univ (Hons) Ambassador Emeritus of Compassion in World Farming and respected author says, “The quality of the contributions we have received from chapter authors has been outstanding. It has enabled us to produce an inspiring book written for our challenging times and it couldn’t be more important.

“Industrial farming has poisoned the planet, reduced farmed animals to meat and milk machines and has had negative impacts on our health. This book shows how farming systems can change and regenerate the planet, give animals a decent quality of life and, by moving to more plant-based diets, we can improve our health too.”

Carol McKenna, Special Advisor at Compassion in World Farming adds, “In a world of fake news and seemingly endless rhetoric, here we have a highly readable book exploring how we can transform food systems for the better by shifting to regenerative farming and sustainable diets.

“If you seek a better world and read only one book this year, please make it this one because the next few years will be decisive if we are to stop eating our way to extinction.”

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For more information or to arrange an interview please email media.team@ciwf.org or call 01483 521 615.

Images of speakers, the book cover and associated photographs can be viewed here

About the editors (both are available for interview, articles and events)

Joyce D’Silva

Joyce has an MA from Trinity College Dublin and two Honorary degrees from the universities of Winchester and Keele. Joyce taught in India and then became Head of Religious Education at a comprehensive school in England.

 She has worked for Compassion in World Farming since 1985, including fourteen years as Chief Executive. Joyce played a key role in achieving the UK ban on sow stalls in the nineties and in getting recognition of animal sentience enshrined in the European Union Treaties. Joyce has received an RSPCA Award for a “very important contribution in the field of animal welfare”. She has given evidence to the UK and New Zealand governments, the European Commission and the United Nations on issues ranging from genetic engineering and cloning of farm animals to meat reduction and regenerative agriculture. Joyce co-edited, with Professor John Webster, the book The Meat Crisis: Developing more sustainable and ethical production and consumption, Earthscan, 2017.

In 2023 her book Animal Welfare in World Religion: Teaching and Practice was published by Routledge.

 Carol McKenna

Carol McKenna is Special Advisor at Compassion in World Farming, the leading international animal welfare environmental NGO. In her role Carol leads projects aimed at achieving systemic change towards regenerative farming including recently the Extinction or Regeneration conference. Carol is a successful campaigner and coalition builder with forty years’ experience of animal protection issues. She is a Trustee and former Chair of Eating Better, an alliance of over sixty organisations in the UK working to accelerate the transition from producing and eating too much meat and dairy to a fairer, healthier and more sustainable food system.  Co-editor of Farming, Food and Nature: respecting animals, people and the environment, Routledge, 2018.   Author of ‘The impact of legislation and industry standards on farm animal welfare’, in The Meat Crisis: Developing more sustainable and ethical production and consumption, edited by Joyce D’Silva and John Webster, Earthscan, 2017. Carol was also a founding member of the Wild Animal Welfare Committee