Rob Percival
@rob-percival.bsky.social
5.8K followers 370 following 190 posts
Author of 'The Meat Paradox'. Head of Food Policy at the Soil Association https://www.soilassociation.org/. Agroecology, Food Systems, Sustainable Diets. Views my own. http://linktr.ee/rob_percival_
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Reposted by Rob Percival
1stepsnutrition.bsky.social
❗️ICYMI: On 10 September 2025, UNICEF published its Child Nutrition Report 2025, Feeding Profit: How food environments are failing children

For the first time ever, among school-aged children and adolescents globally, overweight has exceeded underweight as the dominant form of malnutrition.
rob-percival.bsky.social
Yes, and the food movement needs to confront it much more directly.
rob-percival.bsky.social
Tracy started down this path a while back. Completely out of step with the surrounding food movement, and very very ugly.
Reposted by Rob Percival
Reposted by Rob Percival
jasonhickel.bsky.social
We have this new paper, led by Meghna Goyal, which provides the first global view of inequality in the agri-food system. We find that agricultural production has increasingly shifted to the South, but income is increasingly captured in the North.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Increasing inequality in agri-food value chains: global trends from 1995-2020
Agri-food systems are increasingly globalised. In the last three decades, as national food systems have become more interdependent, the distribution o…
www.sciencedirect.com
rob-percival.bsky.social
This from UNICEF: “the unethical business practices of the ultra-processed food and beverage industry undermine efforts to put legal measures and policies in place to protect children from unhealthy food environments”.

Same in the UK as globally.

www.theguardian.com/global-devel...
Junk food leads to more children being obese than underweight for first time
Cheap ultra-processed food behind rise in overweight children, with one in 10 now obese globally, says Unicef
www.theguardian.com
rob-percival.bsky.social
Fantastic new report from Wildlife Trusts on the environmental footprint of UK pig and poultry farming.

🐔 1/3 of UK wheat is grown for feed
🐷 Annual waste = 4,160 Olympic pools
💧 Some regions face extra pressure on rivers and soils

Read more 👉 wildlifetrusts.org/news/huge-im...
Huge impacts of UK pig and poultry farming revealed for first time | The Wildlife Trusts
New report shows sector’s pollution harms rivers and wider countryside
wildlifetrusts.org
Reposted by Rob Percival
rahmstorf.bsky.social
I was shocked when I first saw these results from standard climate models used in IPCC reports: for high emissions, the Atlantic overturning circulation #AMOC shuts down in all 9 models that ran past 2100, and is well on the way to shutdown by 2100.
Our paper on that is out today.🧵
Reposted by Rob Percival
bdumontae.bsky.social
The benefits of #agroecology are not a notion but a fact!

✅ A meta-analysis of 170 studies, spread across 21 countries in Europe, highlights that agroecology increases #biodiversity in agroecosystems, soil C storage, and N2O mitigation

Paper is led by Cian Blaix 👉 doi.org/10.1016/j.ag...

#climate
Reposted by Rob Percival
unpopularscience.bsky.social
This sounds insane to speak out loud, but is a real statistic:

The global seafood industry kills at least 1 trillion wild fish every year to supply 1% of the world’s food.

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Here, we estimate global numbers of wild-caught finfishes using FAO capture production (landing) tonnages (2000–2019 data) and estimates of mean individual weight at capture, based on internet-sourced capture and market weights. We estimate that between 1,100 and 2,200 billion (1.1–2.2 × 1012), or 1.1–2.2 trillion, wild finfishes were caught annually, on average, during 2000–2019. At the global level fish and seafood products constitute the third major source of dietary protein consumed by humans after cereals and milk, representing 6.4% of total protein supply (19.8% of
total animal protein supply), 1.4% of total fat supply, and 1.2% of total calorie supply.
rob-percival.bsky.social
But only so much one can say in a 600 word op-ed!
rob-percival.bsky.social
Yes, I know that's what the industrial meat people do. I've been far from silent on all that.
rob-percival.bsky.social
It's a 600 word op-ed, of course it's written in broad brush strokes!
rob-percival.bsky.social
Nowhere have I maligned plant-based products as 'bad'.
rob-percival.bsky.social
If you can't read beyond the headline, then I really can't help you.
rob-percival.bsky.social
Sure, here's what I wrote.
rob-percival.bsky.social
Hi Alexander. Nowhere did I claim that "all processed foods are alike". Or that nutritionally unbalanced minimally processed diets would be healthy.
rob-percival.bsky.social
(The opening paragraph is a bit loose, thanks to some creative editing by the Grocer - all I actually wrote was "Yes, minimally processed foods are better for your health." The rest is their confection.)
rob-percival.bsky.social
Lots to unpick on the 'healthy UPF' front as well. Plausible at a product level (or perhaps even a dietary level, for the purposes of a clinical trial), but creating a consistently healthy ultra-processed food environment? Very different (and arguably difficult) challenge.
rob-percival.bsky.social
Yep, the study challenges/contradicts the hypothesis that all UPF are intrinsically harmful (though this isn't the hypothesis actually being tested), while affirming that ultra-processed diets shape health outcomes for reasons which extend beyond nutrient composition (which IMO is really the point).