The Nation’s Food Strategy
Reimagining the National Food Strategy as a set of community-focused solutions
The information in this blog comes from Food Citizenship.
(https://foodcitizenship.info/2022/11/30/gathering-to-reimagine-the-food-system/)
Crises
Cost-of-living crisis, food insecurity crisis, poverty crisis, climate crisis, biodiversity crisis, food is linked to so many areas of our lives – the food system is linked to many crises.
This can be overwhelming, so much needs to be changed, the figures tell us this, they also show, at this point in time, we need unprecedented changes across the food system to stop many of these crises. Then there are the tipping points, that we are quickly moving towards and from which there will be irreparable damage to our environment.
With little in the way of comfort and assistance from national policy and possibly even less from international commitments to help the various crises that we face we need to focus on some positives. Small-scale, grassroots, community projects and pockets of positive impacts that show a viable alternative to the direction of travel of the world.
Small is beautiful
‘The Food Ethics Council recently brought together a group of people in the food system to explore whether they could reimagine the National Food Strategy – while putting individuals and communities at the heart of what happens next.’
One of the tasks from the workshop was to name something that you are existed for in the future of the food system, again, a difficult task given the uncertainty and the direction of travel. ‘Once they started, the hope came through.’
Of course, the National Food Strategy implemented a consultation that involved people from across the food system in the UK and suggests and advocates for policy change, but a lot is lost from consultation to policy. Feasibility, politics, and opportunity cost all play into policy recommendations - hope and the excitement of community best practice can be lost.
It can also be useful to ask if projects are scalable, realistic, and repeatable. However, it could also be just useful to ask ‘what if we could spread the local action that comes from harnessing people’s empathy, energy and frustration?’. These impacts might fail to deal with all of the deep inequalities in our food system and across the UK, or they may fail to deal with multiple crises and make one worse at the expense of another. Bringing the whole of the food system back to a set of community projects as a thought experiment can show us what is important and what works at a local level.
Community Solutions
What do you picture when you imagine community-focused solutions? Food hubs that help smaller-scale growers access a bigger market, community projects that encourage knowledge sharing and the upskilling of volunteers, or food cooperatives that share profits and build community wealth. These are certainly not the norm, but they do exist and act as an alternative to the mainstream.
Organic North, Unicorn Grocery Cooperative, The Kindling Trust and Open Kitchen are just a few examples, but they are so integral to so many people’s vision of food in Manchester.
What would you add to this list of ‘What ifs’ and community-focused solutions?
Nation’s Food Strategy (Database)
Here is a document that contains all the examples from the Food Citizenship workshop.
We encourage you to add any thoughts and solutions to the document and grow the knowledge base of community solutions. This document can also be a relief from the various crises and a chance to show each other that there are pockets of significant positive change.
‘Imagination is the ability to look at things as if they could be otherwise’ (John Dewey). If there is ever a time that we need to use our imagination it is now (Rob Hopkins use of quote)