Landmark Issue 19 2021 SINGLE PAGES

LANDMARK 24 INDUSTRY & LEADERSHIP As the UK adjusted to our first lockdown inMarch, the RAUmade headlines around the world by finding that just 9 % of people wanted everything to go back to how it was before the pandemic. The survey of over 4,000 adults, commissioned fromYouGov, heard people say they were noticing cleaner air and wildlife, throwing away less food, and trying to buy food directly from farms in unprecedented numbers. We designed this survey in our role providing expert advice to the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission (FFCC), an independent inquiry that made recommendations in 2019, and is now helping to see them into practice. It was among the first research to reveal the public’s appetite to ‘build back better’ from the pandemic. Many of the early signs detected changes in attitudes and behaviour, for example on food waste, have been confirmed by further research. We followed this poll with a second study, asking food, farming and rural professionals what they had learned from lockdown. Nearly 400 responded, including farmers and landowners, supermarket bosses, small businesses, campaigners and government officials. This revealed an even stronger vote for change, with 80 % saying they wanted Food Commission Report Professor TomMacMillan ElizabethCreakChair inRural Policy and Strategy