Racism and xenophobia: UK food and farming charity sector leaders respond

Over recent months, we have all seen the reports of racist and xenophobic protests and violence in Aberdeen, Belfast, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, London, Manchester and Southampton. There have been grotesque scenes of street violence, arson and attacks on people’s homes, community businesses, gatherings, and places of worship, despite communities and community leaders appealing for peace, understanding and respect. There has also been news of attacks being planned, but thankfully discovered and prevented.

We are Chief Executives and Directors of charities and not-for-profit organisations in the UK, who all work to promote a fair, healthy and sustainable system for food and farming. Together, during 2026, we have undertaken a justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) programme for charity and not-for-profit leaders to help redefine justice-centred leadership within our efforts to create a fairer food system that works for all people and the planet we share.

As a food and farming charity sector, we are predominantly white and privileged - especially when looking across our leadership teams, trustees, and philanthropic donors. Within this JEDI Leadership programme, we were encouraged to actively recognise, name and challenge how power and privilege are distributed across our organisations, our sector, and the wider food system.

While working together to cultivate a collective movement across the food and farming sector rooted in equity and anti-racism, we did so against the current backdrop of rising racism and xenophobia across the UK. From our perspective and our work, the two cannot be separated.

We are publishing a joint statement to underline that our organisations deplore such violence, racist and xenophobic thinking and actions, harmful ‘othering’ and the divisive politics that lie at the core of these very troubling events over recent months.

Also, it has been shocking and unacceptable that prominent and influential people – including people involved in UK and US politics – have weighed in to hijack or even fuel these events to promote divisive ideologies of white western superiority; whilst attacking people, organisations and cultures who welcome diversity and promote equity, inclusion and racial justice. This comes on the heels of growing and deplorable anti-semitic discrimination and violence; as well as the ‘Unite the Kingdom’ rally in London, featuring hate speech, aggressive behaviour and anti-Islamic rhetoric. 

As a vital part of our work, we are proud of our commitment to be welcoming, inclusive organisations, committed to anti-racist practice and to building equity and racial justice in the food, farming and environment movements. We are motivated by a deep appreciation of the value of diversity, and by the understanding that there are systemic and institutional reasons that people from global majority*, diverse and racialised backgrounds: 

• Have unequal access to nutritious food, land and resources; 
• Often experience poor working conditions and low incomes; 
• Are living in communities that experience higher rates of household food insecurity;
• And consequently experience higher rates of preventable disease and illness, as well as barriers to the social and economic opportunities and life chances often enjoyed by people from more privileged backgrounds. 

These are matters that have structural causes that require collective action to solve, working together in common cause.

Values of sharing, welcoming, community connections, nourishment, inclusion, peace and kindness pervade the good food movement, and are at the heart of the better food and farming system that we and our organisations – at national and local level – are working together to create.

For all of our colleagues, and the communities we serve that include people from diverse faiths and ethnic backgrounds, and those from other marginalised backgrounds and identities, we want you to know that we condemn what is happening, and we stand with you. 

We commit to taking this upsurge of violence and divisive politics seriously in terms of how we work and what we might need to prepare for. We will:

• Continue to centre justice, equity, diversity and inclusion across our work; and to seek to demonstrate leadership – individually, organisationally and across the sectors, memberships, organisations and institutions that we work with.
• Develop a common approach, so that we can respond confidently and collectively, while remaining open and receptive to being challenged on how to improve.
• Talk to key people in other organisations about how they are approaching this, including those running networks and activities who operate on the frontline; and those who can advise on the approaches, experiences and narratives that can help persuade people to support a better way forward.
• Continue to improve how we approach events and communications, and what diverse voices and perspectives we platform at events and in publications, with core values and our charitable and public-interest objectives at the heart.
• Discuss our approach to anti-racism internally and with partners, on how best to prevent unacceptable, racist, discriminatory, threatening or violent behaviour, and how best to challenge this if it arises in our activities, at events, or in the communities we serve.
• Challenge power and centre the voices and lived experiences of those people and communities most affected by injustice in the food and farming system.
• Make space and host discussions, to help our teams, members and stakeholders develop solidarity in the face of violence and divisive politics, and a deeper understanding of how this impacts our work, organisation and staff members.

We also commit to lift each other up with kindness and compassion. In that spirit, we say this:

Take heart. Inclusive values and acts of kindness and beauty are being lived out every day in charities, schools, colleges, universities, nurseries, care homes, hospitals, gardens, farms, kitchens, bakeries, community enterprises, places of worship, workplaces and food partnerships up and down the country. These don’t tend to feature prominently on the news and social media, but they are proudly and powerfully present everywhere, and expressed in every culture and community, even in these very difficult times.

Working for a better food and farming system means working for a better world. Please join us.

Eating Better and Sustain convene the JEDI Leadership programme. In 2026, charity and not-for-profit leaders who work on food, farming and environmental issues came together as the first cohort, working together to think about how to advance systemic change and create a cultural shift that can have a ripple effect across the sector. This joint statement is part of our collective commitment to action, supported by cohort participants:

• Kath Dalmeny, Chief Executive of Sustain: The alliance for better food and farming - see the alliance’s recent progress, and our commitments and actions, on Diversity Outreach
• Rebecca Sunter, Interim Executive Director, Eating Better - see the alliance’s commitments to action and work on Nourishing Justice
• Julia Kirby-Smith, Executive Director, Better Food Traders
• D’Arcy Williams, Chief Executive Officer, Bite Back
• Bonnie Hewson, Director, Farming the Future 
• Dan Crossley, Executive Director, Food Ethics Council
• Carina Millstone, Executive Director, Foodrise - see also the the Foodrise anti-oppression statement
• Katharine Jenner, Executive Director, Obesity Health Alliance
• Jamie Agombar, Executive Director, SOS UK, which coordinates The RACE Report

If you’d like to ask about the experience of the JEDI Leadership group, contact one of the signatories listed on this statement.

If you work in the sector, please consider taking part in one or more of the groups and activities, contact:

• Kath Dalmeny, CEO of Sustain: sustain@sustainweb.org
• Sareta Puri sareta@sustainweb.org, leading on the Sustain alliance's Diversity Outreach programme.
• Idman Abdurahaman idman@eating-better.org, leading on the Eating Better alliance's Nourishing Justice programme.

* Note on language: ‘Global majority’ refers to “people who are Black, Asian, brown, dual-heritage, indigenous to the global south, and or have been racialised as 'ethnic minorities'" and "represent approximately 80% of the world's population", according to educator and activist Rosemary Campbell-Stephens, who coined the term. Read more on the BBC website: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c981g43vmmro 

Sustain uses a Diversity Style Guide to help us write about, portray and provide a platform for equity, diversity, inclusion and racial justice in the food and farming system. 

Sustain and Eating Better support the Culture Roots Collective, a hub for Black and People of Colour in food and agriculture, including a photo gallery from which the image for this statement was sourced.