Food security - Coventry, UK.

It’s been fascinating starting to read about this subject. I have been thinking about food production for a while from the agriculture side but I’ve not read the FAO food security reports before. I am starting to take my interest further by reading a little about the social geography of food.

I found the FAO food security report for the UK. The population density is 249 lnh/sq Km (just checked - a hectare is 1/100^th of a square kilometre.) 89.7 % of the population is urban; 51.6 % population under 15 or over 64. Only 1.6 % of agricultural labour force; 23 % of those are female. For the four main food staples listed, the UK produces more or less what we consume.

I discovered a report published by the leading organic agriculture NGO in the UK – “An Incovenient truth about food” This report suggests that the current official government opinions on food security are wrong, because they are complacent about global transport and surpluses being available to feed our population. The UK is producing a lot of food but that production is heavily dependent on the global transport network – fossil fuel dependent. Also there is a high level of dependence on artificial fertilizers and pesticides – either produced from fossil fuels, from other non-renewable sources, or transported from far away. Oil is still very cheap compared to other ways of doing the same work, believe it or not!

From my observations of how people live, I think there is a key problem – disconnection from the origin of food. Even though a lot of people near where I live have access to gardens and time where they could grow food, they don’t. Food is something you go to the supermarket to buy with money you earned doing something else, it’s wrapped in plastic, it might from the other side of the world.

That’s what I would call the biggest problem in food security where I live – most people don’t give it a thought - only 1.6 % of the population are agricultural workers. The UK could be exporting useful amounts of food, if those of us with resources were using them to grow food. That kind of activity is outside the conventional economy, and it is hard for people who could just go to the supermarket to choose to do things differently.

Solutions?
I found that a group convened by our local council have done some thinking about how to move towards local food security in our town. So I’ve got the ten people who were at that meeting to track down for local leads. [I also managed to persuade another local person to join EVOKE - please give a warm welcome to p chat !]

The Environment theme group above mentioned have collected together some of the initiatives that are already happening here in their report:

Local initiatives:
MIND allotments programme + AgeConcern
Refugee Centre, Home Office funding for local scheme
LEAF: Local Environmental Action for Food
Updated new local food directory 'Food Matters' available
Transition Coventry: promotes local food production
Green Garden Café – aiming to have café in town providing local + own foods

Schools:
School Food Trust – Food for Life Partnership (BLF)
Cardinal Wiseman: exemplar school – integrated approach to farming + food (Deputy Head, Sean O'Donovan provides strong leadership)
Almost half schools engaged on Eco-schools sustainable schools scheme

There are also 3500 allotment plots in the city, which has a little over 300 000 people altogether.

I am looking at the second and third items on the Farming First climate action plan: share knowledge; build local access and capacity. I think the allotments are an important part of building local access and capacity. I am willing to bet that almost all these people could get by without growing their own food – but they choose to grow food anyway. I believe that hobby gardening is a really important part of the food security solution here in the midlands of England. Allotment gardens provide dedicated space for people to learn and share skills which could then move out into other public spaces. If we can build on the real groundswell on interest in food production due to climate change hitting the general public’s attention, we stand a chance of producing a substantial portion of our food very close to where it will be eaten. Not only more plants capturing CO2, but fewer road miles emitting it.

The local innovative solution I've found about is this one, though: the Green Garden Cafe. They are a not-for-profit solcial enterprise, they grow food on a community allotment; they work with local young people to share skills, they use locally sourced organic products as much as possible and use biodegradable packaging where they can. Nice work! I will email them and ask how things are going with their enterprise at the moment.