The work is intended for an audience interested in policy, sustainability, and environmental change, including educators, universities, students of all ages, and those engaged in discussions around climate and agriculture.

This piece outlines the inspiration and process for UK student Lara Aydin to create a broad and comprehensive research paper on global sustainability and agriculture. You can view her full work here.

My Inspiration:

My inspiration for this project began as I explored my interests in climate change, agriculture through geography, and public policy. I was first exposed deeply into sustainability and the risks of climate change during a summer leadership program with the Bluedot Institute at the MIT Media Lab where we explored climate change, its impact on the world and how we can become sustainability leaders. During this time, I also had a great interest in food technology through school and decided I wanted to further develop this as a career. On the final day of the retreat, we were asked to do a speech and I realized that sustainability is a key factor of the future and something which affects food supply. The next summer, I was visiting my family in Turkey. During the visit, it was a very hot summer filled with water cuts. I overheard conversations about crop failures, which caused me to reminisce back to my speech from the retreat as I was hearing my vision happen in real time. As the summer came to an end, I chose my A-levels, which are a part of the U.K. education system, to be politics, economics and geography as well as an EPQ, which is the extended project qualification. I immediately knew I wanted to do my project on sustainable agriculture and the real-world risks of climate change because of what I experienced over the previous summers. Also, I had just been introduced to politics and was fascinated by policymaking and how it impacts societies which led me to join these altogether and choose my research question: To what extent do EU and U.K. policies support sustainable agriculture without putting a harm on food supply, rights, the environment and the economy?

Goals:

My goal for this dissertation was to evaluate policy effectiveness in a real-world topic, such as sustainability, and analyze impacts policies can have on people. More importantly, the goal was to enhance my current understanding on policy impact. In addition to these objectives, this dissertation serves as a stepping stone toward my career aspirations of becoming an environmental policy advocate. I aim to take on leadership roles within international organizations and help refine policy frameworks to increase awareness and enhance the current systems governing agriculture and related sectors.. Additional goals for this dissertation include increased understanding of the impacts policies have in order to learn academically, and for this work to be taken further and used for academic and research purposes by others to add to their own work.

Process:

My research process and methodology included collecting and analysing many policies and articles which examine the uptake and happiness of individuals, such as farmers. Once I analysed policy documents, I had to weigh the best and most useful ones for my specific research, I had to understand each one and gather further evidence from government reports and environmental studies, to ensure the reliability and depth of my work. Then I planned how I would lay it all out to make it clear and understandable to readers, breaking the work into clear chapters and branches of the economy, rights, food supply, environment and water. I wanted to add this depth as there was a clear linkage and multiplier effect for all the branches as one change affected all themes. This approach allowed me to give a balanced argument with clear justification and reasoning for policy frameworks and effectiveness of sustainability through environmental, political, economic and social impacts.

Left: Lara Aydin visits Berry Farm Urla, a sustainable agriculture soil-free farm in Turkey. Right Image: Strawberries grown sustainably using soilless methods to reduce water use.

Conclusion

Revisiting the impacts of EU and U.K. agricultural policies, I found clear differences in the effectiveness with some overlaps across environmental, economic, and social scales. 

EU policies, such as the CAP and Water Framework Directive, have had wide-scale structural impacts, particularly on stabilising food supply and setting environmental baselines, but often their impact is lost by inconsistent enforcement and member state variation. 

In contrast, U.K. policies, such as ELMS and post-Brexit labour regulation, seek to generate deeper behavioural change, especially in environmental outcomes, but their impact remains limited by low uptake, transition costs, and policy immaturity. 

Overall, EU policies demonstrate broader reach while U.K. policies show greater transformative potential but higher short-term risk. Lastly, the U.K. and the EU both partially succeeded in managing water scarcity.

Below I ranked the effectiveness of EU and U.K. policies which were previously analysed with an impact rating to have an overall understanding when evaluating their real-life usefulness when being used in practice.

Policy Effectiveness (1 = weakest, 5 = strongest)

This evidence shows that older EU policies score higher due to maturity and data availability, while U.K. policies score lower due to limited long-term evidence, not necessarily weaker policy making.

However, there were challenges and limitations in the completion of this dissertation, especially with the use of secondary data and policy documents. This has limited the ability to observe the on-farm results and the level of empirical verification of the effects of the policies in the real world. Furthermore, it has also been challenging to obtain data that is totally unbiased, as there has been the influence of institutional and political factors in the policy evaluation process. In the comparative analysis of the policies, there has also been the challenge of the implementation of the EU policies, as the policies have been in place for quite some time, and data has been easily accessible and the results easily evaluable. In the case of the U.K. policies, the process is still in transition.

Despite these limitations, I was able to address them by engaging critically with a broad range of literature and using the analytical understanding that I have developed throughout the research process. This has helped me to make inferences about the potential impacts in real-life scenarios. In the process, I have gained a greater understanding that the effectiveness of a policy is not necessarily based on its objectives but also its implementation. Such important aspects as enforcement and engagement have come to be seen as key to sustainability.

In addition, the research also revealed the multifaceted nature of sustainability, where there are trade-offs between the environment, food, and social aspects. This, I believe, was one of the most significant aspects of the research, as it affected the construction of the research question. It was apparent that agriculture was not an isolated entity, but was interconnected with all the aforementioned aspects. Thus, the overlap was intellectually stimulating and also crucial in the construction of an all-encompassing evaluation. With the research, I propose that the direction of agriculture should incorporate an integrated approach, where monitoring and adaptive approaches are taken. The increase in environmental and economic challenges, along with the rise of political agendas, implies that agriculture will continue to evolve, not only due to the effects of global warming, but also due to the actions of the government. The rise of technology and the shift in political ideology will ensure an increased standard for sustainability, particularly through data and results-based approaches.

Ultimately, I believe that the largest changes will come through the active engagement of the farming community in the policy transition process. A hybrid policy approach, utilizing the EU’s advantages in data collection and regulatory standardization, and the U.K’s advantages in subsidy and grant systems, perhaps represents the best way forward. This is, in fact, the broader conclusion of the dissertation, that the path forward in sustainable development in agriculture must involve the alignment of government policies with the realities of the farming community, in order to promote growth and overcome structural challenges like income instability, farm size, and knowledge access.

Next Steps

This project aligns closely with my long-term academic and career goals in areas such as environmental policy, international relations, and sustainable development through environmental, economic, and social impacts. The findings provide a foundation for further study, particularly in exploring how global institutions and governments can collaborate together to address climate challenges and how society responds to these changes.

The work is intended for an audience interested in policy, sustainability, and environmental change, including educators, universities, students of all ages, and those engaged in discussions around climate and agriculture.

To discuss this research, cite the author, or publish it further, please contact Lara Aydin at laraayseaydin@gmail.com.