Thin Ink is 5!
How food systems issues have evolved, what I’ve learnt, and where to go from here
This week marks five years since I started Thin Ink. So first off, thank you to all of you for reading, sharing, and commenting.
In some ways, it’s mind boggling that I’m still chugging along. In other ways, I’m proud of myself for sticking to it, even on weeks when I felt overwhelmed. It is all the sweeter when Thin Ink which is just me, myself, and I, gets mentioned by great newsletters, like Bloomberg’s Business of Food did a couple of months ago, or Devex Dish did this week.
The anniversary always brings up bittersweet feelings, BUT more on the bitter part next week. This week is more about sweet(ish).
Thin Ink began as a way to keep myself abreast on an issue I’m very passionate about and to maintain the discipline of writing every week.
I’d left a high-pressure job that required writing and reporting every day after nearly 13 years, and I didn’t want to lose that drive and direction. I was both excited and terrified, and decided that having something regular to do would help keep some of the anxiety at bay.
I’ve been extremely fortunate to have landed on my feet and to be part of a wonderful team of colleagues over the past few years. But I’ve kept Thin Ink because it complements the work I do with Lighthouse Reports and it allows me to wear my two hats (food systems and Burma/Myanmar).
Substack tells me I’ve published 242 issues so far (!?!?!), which felt like a good moment to reflect back on what I’ve learnt, how Thin Ink has evolved and were I’d like to take it next.
5 Key Changes in Food Systems
It was somewhat fortuitous that Thin Ink started in 2021, just as the term food systems was gaining traction, largely due to the Food Systems Summit held later that year. The conference was controversial and its legacy remains debated, but the terminology stuck.
Since then, there’s been a flood of interesting work in this space. I’m sure I’ve missed some important things, but these are the five changes I think about, write about, and refer to most.
There is now broad recognition that systems thinking is essential when talking about food.
Whether at the production, processing, or consumption level, food issues are deeply interlinked. The combination of COVID-19, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a third food price crisis in 15 years, and a succession of weather extremes forced us to look at the ways in which food systems intersect with conflict, climate, inequality, and so much more.
We’re “focusing on single solutions rather than systemic solutions”
COVID-19 showed the weakest links in our food systems. Can we change them?
There is also a more candid discussion about the elephant in the room: power.
Specifically, the massive imbalance between millions of food producers and consumers on one side, and a small number of corporations and power brokers that control large parts of the food chain and profit handsomely from the status quo.
Grassroots organisations have been banging on about this issue for decades. Yet we’re still being sold the idea that knowledge transfer, technical support, donor-funded projects, and the latest hi-tech fixes will solve stubbornly high levels of food insecurity, half the loss of smallscale farmers’ livelihoods, and rein in a growing public health crisis.
Thankfully, a growing chorus of voices is pointing out why techno-fixes alone are not enough.
Fight the Power… of the New Colonisers
Healthy diets remain unaffordable for billions, even as food production increases.
At the same time, many of us live in food swamps, where unhealthy options are cheaper and more readily available than nutritious ones. The result? A rise in multiple forms of malnutrition, non-communicable diseases, and premature deaths.
This evidence is helping policymakers finally recognise the importance of food environments. We’re not yet at the stage where governments are truly governing - for example, prioritising public health over private profits and unrestrained markets - but hey, it’s a start.
Two in Five People Cannot Afford Healthy Food
The Planetary Health Diet, Revisited
Global food systems are a major contributor to climate change and emissions still rising.
Food systems account for around a third to total manmade greenhouse gas emissions. The good news is that food is finally becoming a regular feature in global climate negotiations. The bad news is that this visibility hasn’t yet translated into meaningful changes in how food systems function.
Worse still, an industry-led backlash, particularly against reducing meat consumption, which has the largest carbon, water, and land footprint, is growing louder and gaining traction.
“An Unhappy Marriage With An Addiction Problem”
Agricultural subsidies remain deeply skewed and environmentally unsustainable but the evidence is now overwhelming.
We now have far better data on where subsidies go, who benefits, how they distort food systems, and what kind of social and labour harms they cause. What’s missing is political will to reform them. And perhaps a bit of spine-growing.
5 Big Myths About Food Systems I’ve Debunked
That Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will lead to global hunger.
Hunger isn’t caused by a lack of food but by access, affordability and politics. See: Are We Really Facing Food Shortages?
That we freely choose what we eat, and that regulating food environments is ‘nanny-state’ overreach.
Our diets are shaped by price, marketing, availability and policy far more than individual willpower. See: The Illusion of Choice
That increasing agricultural productivity and producing more food will alleviate hunger.
Decades of rising yields haven’t ended hunger or malnutrition, showing that productivity alone is a false fix. See: Moonstruck… and The FAD That Won’t Die
That starvation is an inevitable result of conflict, rather than a political choice.
Hunger is routinely weaponised or tolerated through policy decisions, from Ukraine to Gaza. See: Starvation as Strategy and I don’t see Palestine as an isolated story
That economic growth will automatically reduce hunger and malnutrition.
Growth can coexist with worsening food insecurity when inequality, food prices and power imbalances go unaddressed. See: We Are Going In The Wrong Direction
5 things I want to cover (or cover more) this year
If you are familiar with these topics and want to talk, drop me a line.
Food as commons.
I want to explore what it means to treat food not just as a commodity, but as a shared public good, and what that shift could unlock for equity, sustainability and democracy in food systems.
Procurement as a key lever of change.
It sounds like a boring administrative issue, but my trip to a community kitchen in Brasilia showed me how powerful procurement can be. I want to find more stories about how it can be leveraged to improve diets, support producers’ livelihoods, and restore ecosystems.
Deeper dives into how our food choices are shaped.
I’ve read two fascinating books - Food Fight and The Last Sweet Bite - over the past two months and am onto a third, Food Intelligence. I hope to interview the authors in the coming months, and I’ve got three more titles lined up before summer. Wish me luck.
More interviews and commissioned essays from diverse voices.
There are so many people doing amazing things, and I want to platform as many of them as my time and budget allow, whether that’s through conversations, or by letting their own writing do the talking.
More success stories from the frontlines of food systems change.
I’ve been guilty of what journalists are often accused of: focusing on what’s broken and not enough on what’s working. This year, I want to make a conscious effort to seek out stories that inspire as well as inform.
5 Ways Thin Ink Has Evolved
I started out focused on the nexus between food, climate, and where they meet, but I’ve come to see structural inequalities as the underlying driver of many food systems problems. My coverage has shifted accordingly.
I’m incorporating more guest voices after years of going solo, doing more explanatory writing instead of just reporting, and zooming out more often to connect the dots across issues instead of treating them in isolation.
I’ve also grown more confident in adding my own analysis, instead of just quoting excerpts from research and reports.
If you have any feedback on how to improve the content, I’m all ears.
5 things I learned about the newsletter business
Since 2021, people have reached out to ask how I started Thin Ink and what they should consider if they want to launch their own. Here’s a short version of what I usually tell them.
Start small, but be consistent. Be realistic about the time and resources you can commit, and stick with it. Consistency builds a loyal reader base and keeps you accountable.
Keeping it personal can resonate, but make sure it’s relevant. It’s about building connections with readers, not turning your newsletter into an autobiography.
Good visuals matter. They really help liven up the issue. So start taking pictures if you aren’t doing it already.
Round-ups and curated lists of interesting reports and articles add value. They help readers navigate information overload by pointing them to things worth their time or providing summaries of relevant new information.
Be cautious with using AI. Call me naive, but large language models aren’t a substitute for writing that comes from years of practice and working a beat. They can help with editing and typos, but AI-generated prose is often obvious, repetitive, and flat. Be very careful.
Thin’s Pickings
My journey from foreign correspondent to Uber driver in Trump’s America - Steve Scherer
A beautifully written and heartbreakingly poignant piece by former colleague Steve, a brilliant journalist who was in the Rome bureau around the same time as me. If you or someone you know have a journalism-related job, you can’t go wrong with Steve.
Celebrated soil scientist and food security activist Pedro Sánchez dies - Devex
A portrait of the former World Food Prize winner whose work focused “on turning tropical soils into lush and fertile lands and creating species resistant to threats”, by Rebecca L. Root.
To Eat Healthier, Our Critic Went to the Source: His Kitchen - NYT Cooking
Pete Wells’ second piece since returning to writing. It’s warm, funny, and informative.
As always, please feel free to share this post and send tips and thoughts on bluesky @thinink.bsky.social, mastodon @ThinInk@journa.host, my LinkedIn page, twitter @thinink, or via e-mail thin@thin-ink.net.
This is such a succinct and useful summary of the key issues. Thank you! And happy 5th birthday, too.
Congrats on 5 years! That reflection on power imbalances being the underlyng issue rather than just technical fixes is so crucial. I've spent way too much time in spaces where everyone talks around the elephant in the room. The way procurment can actually shift systems without needing some grand policy overhaul is underrated, and I'm curious to see what stories emerge from that angle this year.