Environmental policy instruments analysis on England’s food strategies in the 21st century

Rivera Fernandez, Roberto; De Vito, Laura

Abstract

The new UK government announced their intention to create a new food policy strategy which will focus on four key areas: food security, health, environment, and economy. This would be the fourth time since the creation of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) that a strategy to transform the UK’s food system is shaped. Food systems’ contribution to environmental decline has been acknowledged for decades, with every food strategy presenting ideas to minimize it. This paper aims to help understand how environmental concerns have been intended to be addressed in previous national food strategy iterations, through the lens of policy instruments to investigate what kind of policy mix was used on each strategy, as well as understanding what similarities and differences exist between them. By applying Hood and Margetts' NATO framework, this study classifies and compares the policy instruments proposed in each strategy. The analysis reveals that nodality (information) instruments are consistently the most proposed, highlighting a trend towards using information dissemination as a primary tool for environmental aspects in the food strategies. This preference suggests a reliance on educating and informing the public and stakeholders to drive environmental change. Ultimately, this paper contributes to a deeper understanding of policy instrument selection and its implications for sustainable food systems.

• Presentation Conference Type: Presentation / Talk
• Conference Name: Political Studies Association Annual Conference
• Start Date: Apr 14, 2025
• End Date: Apr 16, 2025
• Acceptance Date: Apr 1, 2025
• Deposit Date: Jul 15, 2025
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 15, 2025
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/14699205