The first question was primarily designed to provoke discussion, all attendees recognised the need for changes in UK livestock systems. In discussion, participants indicated numerous issues currently faced by pasture systems; those that featured prominently are covered below under the following three broad headings.

Workshop participants highlighted farmers working together to create and share knowledge as important for changing farmers’ connections with soil, ecosystems and different patterns of pasture management. Farmer groups can also benefit from external research input and policy initiatives which have a focus on future sustainability and the delivery of public goods. This has the potential to change farmers’ perceptions of their role and thus reconnect them with their farming ecosystem and change how they value different parts of their farming enterprise and potentially, change pasture management strategies.

Agri-environment schemes (such as the DAERA Environmental Farming Scheme) and economic drivers which can reconnect farmers with native breeds that thrive better on native pastures than continental breeds could be impactful if payments are sufficient. By changing breed, farmers reconnect with what the land can produce without high external inputs (move from intensive to extensive systems that are more reliant on grass to feed animals) and see soil as an asset that they need to manage and value.

Recent extreme weather events are changing farmers’ perceptions by showing them that their farming systems are vulnerable to climate change and they need to adapt. As a result of this some farmers are reconnecting to their environment by, e.g., increasing sward diversity to enhance resilience to drought and flooding or deciding to include trees in their pasture systems.

Participants identified many initiatives which have been started with the aim of reconnecting citizens’ with where their food comes from and with grazing livestock. These include Open Farm Sunday, Agricultural shows, Farm access (via agri-environment schemes), and social media events. Some of the initiatives aim to inspire, engage and educate young people about the journey from farm to fork through positive stories.

Tourism can be an important lever in re-connecting citizens with nature, pasture farming and food. Re-connection can be on a passive basis, of observation while driving past in the car, or can be more active, where facilitated by farmers or organisations which encourage tourists to engage with farming. For example, farm stays on working farms can allow citizens to reconnect with farming, e.g., feeding lambs or watching cows being milked. Tourists may also have the opportunity to try local food and improve their understanding of provenance, e.g., Beef from Highland cows, Welsh Lamb. Organisations that support this, e.g., Scotland Food and Drink are thereby providing a lever for change. There are, of course, potential downsides to encouraging tourism, namely that excessive numbers of tourists can degrade landscapes or provide negative critiques of what they see, sometimes due to limited understanding of farming practices.

Re-wilding, which has been the subject of recent popular publications (Monbiot, 2013; Tree, 2018) has captured public attention and can help reconnect citizens with nature, although not always with grazing livestock. Iconic examples, however, such as the Knepp estate (Tree, 2018), can emphasise a specific role that grazing animals and pasture may have in such contexts. The role of grazing livestock in maintaining specific valued biodiversity (e.g., on chalk lands, salt marshes and machair) can also potentially reconnect citizens with nature.

Consumers are influenced by a number of different actors, including governments, supermarkets, media and farmers. Participants felt that linking consumers to healthy diets which support nature through environmentally sustainable practices could provide a lever for change in practices, although it was acknowledged that price is a key driver. Direct buying from farms or through local shops, including value-added products, such as ice cream or cheese, allows consumers to reconnect with food provenance and grazing livestock, but may not be practical for large numbers of farms.

Public sector food providers, such as schools, hospitals and care homes for the elderly may be able to take such decisions on behalf of their consumers. UK Initiatives encouraging public sector organisations to provide a healthy diet, sourced locally with sustainability criteria in mind include local food hubs, and initiatives by non-government organisations (NGO’s), such as, a Food for Life initiative and Dynamic Food Procurement (Soil Association, 2020). Such changes require a change in mindset for those in charge of procurement in local and central governments but appear to be supported by national government in the UK (House of Commons Environment Food and Rural Affairs Committee, 2021). There may also be practical issues in realising aspirations, such as schools needing to be supplied with ready prepared vegetables as they lack the infrastructure to process vegetables themselves.

Supermarkets could promote and market much more of their food in specific ways which enable consumers to make choices according to their values. Appropriate and accessible labelling (see also Re-think c below), positioning on shelves and promotion campaigns can also lever new connections between consumers and producers. Novel forms of labelling, such as increased use of QR codes indicating provenance and production method could be used.

Media (including social media) enables the communication of values and can precipitate a reconnection between consumers/citizens and farmers or farming more generally. For example, media and social media, campaigns by NGO’s and research outputs have changed individuals’ perception of how ruminant livestock contribute to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and climate change and thus their behaviours, including the need to eat less meat and dairy. This has generated debate as to which sort of livestock systems has least impact on GHG emissions and could encourage reconnections to low input pasture-based systems. Similarly, media coverage around trade deals post-BREXIT reconnects consumers with how food is produced in different countries, potentially to different welfare, hygiene and environmental standards. Purchasing decisions could then switch to buying grass fed low input livestock from the United Kingdom.

Consumers can, in theory, have a large impact on the types of production system practised, but this relies on consumers having clear knowledge about systems and their impacts. This is challenging, as the impacts of production systems are complex and are usually communicated in simplistic terms, e.g., ‘eat local’ or even ‘eat local and seasonal’. Increased recognition of the value of ruminant livestock, for example, in the creation of specific high-nature value pastures (see reconnecting citizens, below) could change consumer perceptions as to what sort of meat to eat, rather than whether to eat meat or not. This may be more difficult to achieve in ready-made meals where sources of ingredients are often difficult to establish. Sometimes reconnections are unexpected and happen because of drivers in other spheres. For example, the desire by consumers to use less plastics, has led to them to reconnect with milk delivery in glass bottles often from local dairies and thus local dairy herds; hence re-connecting the consumer with the local pasture-based producer.

Participants noted that agri-food businesses are reconnecting with the landscapes they source their raw materials from, recognising them as the ‘natural capital’ on which their businesses are reliant and understanding the need for resilient supply chains in the face of climate change and other pressures (see Box 1). This has been highlighted by a recent United Nations Environment Programme report (United Nations Environment Programme, 2021). A switch towards valuing and enhancing the natural capital underlying production could provide a strong lever for transforming livestock systems (see Box 1).

It was considered that re-aligning research programmes to recognise the socio-ecological context of food systems innovation can promote systemic change, e.g., through identifying “what works” in a specific socio-technological or socio-ecological context. Collaborative effort between classic “end-users” and “researchers” in devising research topics, methods and routes to dissemination (or co-production of solutions) have been features of previous successful United Kingdom and European research programmes [e.g., the UK Sustainable Agricultural Research Innovation Club (SARIC), EU Fabulous Farmers].

Support for “low-tech” or “tacit knowledge-intensive” innovations for the transformation of pasture landscapes was considered likely to prove more beneficial for system transformation than current high-tech focused funding opportunities. A re-alignment of research priorities to lever innovation towards end-users’ needs through collaboration at all levels from topic identification, to project evaluation and implementation is required.

Similarly, to knowledge creation and co-innovation which involves farmers, farmer-to-farmer knowledge exchange can improve the transfer of local knowledge that considers context-specific capabilities, drivers and barriers. Examples of UK networks are included above, other network include those supported by EU projects (e.g., AGROMIX and AGFORWARD) and Quorum Sense in New Zealand. Workshop attendees considered farmer-led knowledge sharing activities to be not particularly well supported within research activities.

Platforms such as Twitter and YouTube are now routine channels for knowledge exchange among communities of practice - in particular among the farming community where their popularity has been marked, enabling effective knowledge sharing and outreach. Driving the uptake of such platforms (e.g., through agricultural training and extension services) could further equip farmers with tools needed to reach a wider community of practitioners. In addition, social media connects farmers with consumers and the food production system so they can develop relationships with the farmers producing their food. Fostering these connections between different elements of the food chain can inform consumer purchasing decisions that support sustainable pasture management. The potential negative role of social media in disseminating fake information on pasture systems was also acknowledged by participants.

Retailers are working with suppliers to provide accurate data targeted at practical issues relating to sustainability and resilience, including indicators relating to water-use, soil health, biodiversity, waste and food quality, e.g., in the United Kingdom, Marks and Spencer’s Plan A (M and S, 2021).

It was felt that leaving the EU offered strong leverage opportunities for the UK in four main areas, namely, trade-deals, impacts on standards, access to foreign labour and agricultural subsidies. The impacts on standards of production provide potential levers for restricting or accepting imports which could either maintain or undermine existing standards of sustainable production and animal welfare which, in the UK, are some of the highest in the world. Negotiations about UK access to EU markets for livestock products constitute levers with significant impacts on UK producers, e.g., UK sheep and lamb production rely heavily on European export markets (Bevan et al., 2019). Conversely, access of US markets and Australian markets to UK consumers pose a threat to UK production and the standards (e.g., high animal welfare) which underpin it; however, trade agreements were made with these countries. In terms of access to foreign labour, decisions about EU free movement were anticipated to be and have proved to be, an important lever. The UK was reliant on the EU for labour, including skilled veterinary practitioners and meat processing specialists and is now choosing to provide training and higher wages to encourage UK nationals to take up these [meat processing roles. Finally, agricultural subsidy regimes have provided levers for shifting subsidy towards payments for public goods (see also reconnecting farmers a)], within World Trade Organisation constraints and ensuring adequate payment for their delivery. This reverses historic support payments focused on food production and ensures a forward focus on agri-environmental protection. In this respect, policies which ensure that subsidies for land management are received by those managing the land rather than landowners will help to make farming viable for tenant farmers, thereby ensuring more sustainable land management practices.

Problems which have arisen from existing policies provide further leverage opportunities; for example, land reform and forestry policies including tax incentives (Scotland); provide an opportunity for policy makers to address issues (such as tree planting on agricultural land) which are resulting in tensions between landowners and tenants (see Box 3). Participants felt that a general lack of coherence across policy areas needs to be addressed to ensure effective consideration of food systems. In Wales, integration of policy on food, land use, health and the environment have been pulled together under the Wellbeing of Future of Generations Act (Welsh Government, 2015) which is a powerful lever for guiding practitioners in rural development. In terms of public and private policies around healthy eating, regulations are required as levers to ensure that food reaching retail outlets is safe, nutritious and does not cause environmental damage thereby influencing private policies which reflect that. Similarly existing waste management regulations, both public and private, need to change in order to provide potential levers for ensuring minimal waste and creating a circular economy from field to fork.

Effective certification schemes backed by evidence to show environmental sustainability could provide strong levers for system change, e.g., organic certification (see also Rethink c). Policies to regulate GHG emissions on farm under Net Zero legislation are also likely to have a future impact. Similarly private policies (e.g., by supermarkets) to achieve net zero emissions from supply chains will drive change, as will voluntary policies adopted by industry bodies like the National Farmers’ Union which has launched a GHG action plan in England.

Hard institutional levers also relate to price mechanisms and market arrangements. Much of our food is embedded in globalised supply networks and food prices need to reflect the environmental and social costs of provision in order to avoid exporting negative externalities overseas, e.g., the environmental and social costs of soya provision for livestock should be reflected in livestock food prices. Local foods in short supply chains may, for example, be produced using inputs such as soy and hence do not necessarily avoid the export of such externalities. In terms of market arrangements, the introduction of measures which minimise risks of market fluctuations (e.g., in world prices) to producers, such as the introduction of contracts that ensure adequate returns, may be a lever for change. Contracts could, for example, include costs involved in assessing farm level public goods delivery (through consultancy or advisory service charges) or the costs covering the provision of feed.

The workshop identified levers based around ‘soft’ institutions which are essentially the ‘unwritten rules of the game’. The workshop participants indicated aspects related to changing markets, success criteria and rewards and the benefits of co-operative ventures, as detailed below.

In order to move away from markets where goods are exchanged rapidly without a good understanding of production methods (spot markets), towards markets based on longer-term sustainable relationships, it is important to identify levers which promote mutually beneficial relationships between producers, suppliers and customers. Such levers include accountability, transparency and more efficient feedback mechanisms along the supply chain. Currently, the proliferation of private certification schemes and the imposition of supermarket sustainability requirements on farmers (as eligibility criteria) leads to farmers being disproportionately burdened with the cost and bureaucracy of trying to deliver sound environmental sustainability. This, combined with low prices for products, which barely cover the increasing costs of production (e.g., labour, straw, inputs), leads to subsidies to farmers leaking to upstream and downstream actors. Aligned with this move, a key lever for change in soft systems/institutions would involve improved public understandings of the whole agri-food system and the roles of supply chain actors (other than farmers) in ensuring environmental sustainability. Transparency across the system should ensure that farmers are recompensed for their roles in the system thereby making farming more appealing for all, but in particular, as pointed out in the workshop, for younger farmers.

Another potential lever for producers would be a move away from the commodification of livestock products and a stronger emphasis on issues of local provenance and market specialisation. This may be supported by producer innovation, local markets/outlets or shifts in policy for larger retailers. Some larger retailers (supermarkets) in the United Kingdom already adopt such policies.

Other issues include the over-emphasis by beef and sheep farmers on last year’s yields and prices achieved (usually at auction markets) based on subjective aesthetic criteria rather than objective criteria such as actual net profit margins. A shift in emphasis towards objective success criteria including re-designed carcass criteria at abattoirs would provide a lever towards ensuring the production of high quality nutritious and tasty food that better fits the consumers’ and retailers’ criteria. Some farmers’ lack of attention to actual profit margins results from insufficient on-farm monitoring of production costs and the lack of performance (quality) measures based on objective criteria. It is therefore important to identify levers which promote better monitoring of performance and profit margins and which link profit to performance records. The beef and sheep industry could learn from the dairy industry in this respect.

Finally, increasing the number of co-operatives would strengthen the bargaining power for UK farmers [who tend to trade alone, as compared to French farmers (Filippi and Triboulet, 2011)], providing a lever for influencing relationships with processors, retailers, and consumers. However, it is apparent that in the UK there is little trust in the potential for building effective co-operatives and a correspondingly low commitment to existing schemes in the UK (MacMillan and Cusworth, 2019).

Structural elements of the food system are subject to the influence of both hard and soft institutions but give rise to a range of potential levers across livestock food systems ranging from changes to farm structures and types, to the role of farming in rural communities and changing abattoir arrangements (see Box 3).

In the United Kingdom, as in many developed countries, agriculture has become both increasingly intensified and specialised which has resulted in a decline in mixed farming systems and a substitution of labour for capital. This has resulted in a marked disconnect between pasture and arable farming (especially in the lowlands) with many farms exclusively one or the other, rather than mixed. This specialisation of farming has also contributed to a decline in the ecological diversity of agricultural landscapes. Levers for changing the polarisation of these systems may include the occurrence of problems such as weed issues or poor soil quality on arable land that could be ameliorated by the inclusion of grassland and livestock in rotations, or the high costs of importing straw from arable to grassland systems. Hence, some arable farmers are trialling the introduction of leys or cover crops and livestock to address these issues. Workshop participants considered that, while there may be constraints to widespread adoption of more mixed farming approaches (e.g., lack of expertise and infrastructure), if such approaches prove beneficial for the delivery of public goods and high-quality food, policy levers may be used to support such a transition back to mixed farming systems.

Participants questioned whether there is a missing middle in the structure of livestock farming in the UK which threatens its survival? At one end of the scale there are a number of fragmented small units (some of them being crofters/smallholders or part-time farmers) and at the other relatively fewer large industrial-scale farming units. Small to medium family-run farms create higher diversity in the landscape which is generally positive from a public goods (including animal welfare) delivery perspective and result in improved skills transfer and maintenance. Concerns were raised at the workshop over potential increases in contract farming with contractors having little incentive to maintain long-term productivity or minimise environmental damage on the land they farm. Levers (discussed above) which ensure that farmers are adequately recompensed for farming in ways which enhance the delivery of public goods as well as high quality produce, could provide more incentives for farmers (and indeed contractors) to run viable businesses as their sole source of income and ensure the retention of skilled livestock labour, which is crucial, especially in our tougher, upland landscapes. Family or small-scale farming is also under threat because of its decreasing attractiveness as a career pathway, and because of the high costs of land which make it even harder for young people/new entrants to come into the industry.

The structure of our rural communities and their services and facilities (schools, shops, pubs) are heavily reliant on the farming industry. Farming plays a key role in maintaining attractive landscapes, and in some cases provides a requirement for public infrastructure (such as roads) to be maintained all year around. Diminished or unaffordable rural infrastructure and transport systems limit the ability of young people and low-income workers – farmers and labourers to live and work in the countryside. Support for affordable rural housing for farm workers and maintenance of community infrastructures provide important levers for maintaining food production in these areas.

Finally, workshop participants highlighted that increasing regulation around abattoirs and sourcing from single abattoirs by supermarkets have contributed to the closure of a network of small and local abattoirs which serviced the livestock industry, resulting in a cascade of issues across the livestock food system (see Box 3). Levers which address those issues may, for example, include the introduction of mobile slaughter units or the need to rethink regulatory restrictions around animal movement to minimise food miles.

During discussions a number of subject areas came up under all of the 3 realms. Eight of these key areas have been highlighted in Table 2 where short summaries of leverage points for change in UK pasture food systems under each of the three realms are outlined. For example, workshop outcomes indicated that the challenge of climate change could provide leverage points for a re-thinking of pasture-based systems for farmers, consumers and researchers, a restructuring of government policy to meet those challenges and a reconnection between multiple stakeholders and the natural resources which underpin production.

Many of the issues raised, and levers identified within the workshop, have already been recognised in the literature (Lang et al., 2012; Cornell et al., 2013; Ives et al., 2018; Melchior and Newig, 2021) and in practice, however, the workshop brought them together in a unique way which envisages their inter-twined roles in transforming pasture livestock food systems. Providing a space and the time for interaction between researchers and representatives of the livestock food system focused on different aspects of the same problem proved a very effective way to share and generate knowledge (see Waterton et al., 2015). The workshop indicated the importance of recognising that pasture-based livestock food systems are viewed through multiple ‘lenses’ by the different stakeholders engaged in them. The workshop was thus a way of ‘re-thinking’ systems beyond the boundaries of any one stakeholder or academic discipline. It proved to be an effective way of testing an academic concept, eliciting excellent contributions from all participants.

Workshop outcomes revealed the depth and breadth of complexity surrounding these systems, highlighting the narrow framings which often accompany research seeking to influence the sustainability of these systems and the need for broader integrative stakeholder-engaged research approaches which take account of the global nature of such systems (Ingram, 2011; Zeitoun et al., 2016). This included the importance of ensuring that research framings ensure that ‘socially just’ solutions are prioritised, i.e., those which fairly distribute the costs and benefits of food and public goods along the entire supply chain. It showed the inequalities in power that frequently exist between stakeholders in these systems which cut across all realms of leverage (Abson et al., 2017), and often affect farmers most (Norton et al., 2016).

Findings from the workshop indicate that many of the levers identified are already being trialled around the periphery of pasture systems (in niches), and indeed some are being evaluated by scientific research. Despite that, their influence on transforming the system remains largely insignificant, indicating that they are either shallow levers, or may just be taking time to effect long-term change. Findings also revealed significant barriers to transformative change, not least the vested interests of large businesses, in keeping within the current neoliberal economic paradigm which currently rewards unsustainable practices (Holt-Gimenez and Altieri, 2013; Altieri et al., 2017). Because of barriers like this, it has been argued that unpredictable catastrophic change is needed to drive positive transformation, e.g., the impact of extreme events like COVID-19 (which had not arisen at the time of the workshop) and might have been predicted to force change in food systems (Garnett et al., 2020; Grandori, 2020; Bisoffi et al., 2021). However, while COVID may have driven temporary changes in the food sector (Jones et al., 2022) and revealed uncomfortable truths about the fragility of the food system, radical system transformation has not yet happened.

Potentially other levers which sit outside the pasture system, but within the food system, may strongly influence the system, such as the demand for meat and milk and broader dietary change, e.g., the growth of veganism (Kortetmäki and Oksanen, 2020). Since the workshop, new potential levers in the UK include national policy developments, such as the National Food Strategy (Dimbleby, 2021) and the recent Environment Act (UK Government, 2021) alongside the expansion of more bottom-up initiatives like ‘regenerative’ farming approaches, e.g., see Groundswell.¹ The extent to which these levers can influence change is yet to be revealed, but they provide hope, not least because of their recognition of the need for system-level approaches.