Feeding ManchesterOctober 2009

Kath Dalmeny

Policy Director of Sustain: The alliance for better food and farming (www.sustainweb.org)Also Trustee of Growing Communities (www.growingcommunities.org)

…CAMPAIGN for standards for food, and food education

…HELP BUSINESSES to usemore sustainable food

…RAISE AWARENESS offood and climate change

…BUILD NETWORKS to share experience and support

…DO RESEARCH into food,health and sustainability

…HELP GOVERNMENT develop food strategies and policy

This is what we do at Sustain…

…CAMPAIGN to get newlegislation to drive change

…HELPCOMMUNITIES take back control of their food

Non food81.6%

Catering1.5%

Agriculture7.4%

Fertiliser manufacture

1.0%

Food manufacturing

2.2%

Packaging0.9%

Transport incl overseas

2.5%

Home food related2.1%

Retail 0.9%

Figure: Greenhouse gas emissions from the food chain, shown in relationto total UK greenhouse gas emissions (Food Climate Research Network, 2007)

Greenhouse gas emissions from UK food consumption

Biomass of fish in 1990

Biomass of fish in 1999

Fairness in the supply chain

Self-sufficiencySelf-sufficiency ratios for a sample of

commodities 1980-2005 Defra (2006) Fig 6-2, p 34

Use local and seasonal ingredients Support environmentally friendly farming (e.g. organic) Eat more plants; eat less meat, grown to higher standardsEat only sustainable fish Choose Fairtrade-certified products Avoid bottled waterPromote health and well-being - cook with generous portionsof vegetables, fruit and starchy staples, cutting out the junk.

And of course, don’t forget energy, water and waste…

What is sustainable food?

• Use the power of the public purse• Change mainstream food• Build supportive local and national policy• Help communities take control• Get organised

How do we bring about change?

1 in every 3 meals eaten outside the home are in publicly funded institutions (schools, hospitals, care homes, etc.); and 1 in 4 people is employed in the public sector, so has tremendous influence.

Why isn’t all of our money (£2.2 billion per year) being spent on healthy and sustainable food, served by well trained staff?

At the Royal Brompton Hospital, London, 24% of food purchased is local, from an

organic source, and a healthier choice

Use the power of the public purse

• 9 LEAs already use MSC logo on menu (Norfolk, Herts, Tower Hamlets, Surrey, Coventry, Havering, Vale of Glamorgan, Cardiff, Cheshire)

• Nearly 2,000 schools participating• Over 570,000 children offered sustainable

seafood regularly

Sustainable fish in schools…

Change mainstream food

The problems

Communities taking control

Community food work

• Set up to address social or environmental need: Values driven• Heavily reliant on local skills and facilities, and voluntary labour• Can be supported or blocked by local policy on e.g. land / funds• One way or another, having to face up to “the money thing”

Service delivery Trading Grant funding

How can community food projects become sustainable* and contribute to resilience? Especially when they are….

* In the broadest sense of the word – long-lasting, but alsoeconomically, environmentally and socially sustainable.

OrganicLea:Hornbeam Centre

Cookery classes andfarm visits

Service delivery

Bridport Centre forLocal Food

Pumpkins on Prescription!

Communities and producers trading directly share more of the value (and values!)

Trading

Trading:Growing Communities

Growing Communities’ box scheme supplies fruit and veg to 484 households across Hackney providing sustainably produced fruit and veg to over 1,000 people in our community every week.

The box scheme and farmers’ market together provide a key outlet for 44 small-scale farmers and producers who are local and organic. This includes 4 food producers from our immediate area: our newest producer is Hatice Trugrul who makes traditional Turkish pancakes, using organic ingredients from farmers at the market.

75% of the veg and 24% of the fruit supplied by our box scheme came directly from local farms while 59% of our fruit and 81% of our vegetables are fairly traded. 780 bags of fruit and vegetables are packed each week – over 96 tonnes annually. The average distance travelled by producers to the market is 56 miles.

Over 1,500 people shop at the market every Saturday. 94% of customers at the market walk, cycle or take public transport to get to the market. Annual turnover of producers at the market is nearly £500,000.

Salad production from our sites reached 260 bags per week this year. Yields were the equivalent of 24 tonnes per hectare per year and we generated just over £8,800 from sales of Hackney grown produce – from a total land area of 0.5 of an acre.

The turnover of the organisation as a whole for last year was around £330,000. 100% of that income was self-generated. We employ 18 part-time staff. 80 volunteers worked with us over the last year along with 2 apprentice growers.

In July 2008 we introduced a Pensioners’ discount for the box scheme. We already accept Healthy Start vouchers which allow people on low incomes to get discounted veg or fruit bags. 30% of people joining the box scheme considered themselves to be on a low income.

At Growing Communities, we monitor our Key Principles to see what we are achieving over the course of each year. Here are some of our results for 2008.

What Growing Communities is achieving

Growing Communities Food Zones

www.growingcommunities.org

Patchwork FarmApprentice SchemeStarter Farms

Growing Communities: next steps

Replication…

We need to back it up with (here are just a few examples):

• land use and planning policy, protecting food growing land (and requiring it for new homes), and retail diversity

• public procurement policy buying sustainable food

• training a ‘green collar’ army in horticulture, food trading

• building distribution infrastructure that can work with less (or no) oil

• sharing models that work

• telling permanent stories about mutuality, resilience and trading

Supportive local and national policy

People growing their own food is great. People running social enterprises trading food is even better. Communities, and farmers, can make a good living that protects the environment

Local food strategies can help…

Capital Growth: www.capitalgrowth.orgFood Climate Research Network: www.fcrn.org.ukFood Co-ops: www.foodcoops.orgGrowing Communities: www.growingcommunities.orgLondon Food Link: www.londonfoodlink.orgMaking Local Food Work: www.makinglocalfoodwork.co.uk[Social enterprise support; Models of good practice; Research, evidence and evaluation; Governance training; Support or advice to set up food co-ops, Country Markets, co-operative farmers’ markets]Real Bread Campaign: www.realbreadcampaign.orgSustain: www.sustainweb.orgSustainable food guidelines: www.sustainweb.org/sustainablefood

Find out more…