North Lancashire's Gold Sustainable Food Places bid

Lancaster Guardian

Transcript

00:00Across the UK there are local food movements bringing together chefs, growers,

00:21composters, seed savers, teachers, storytellers to work together to create a

00:26healthier, fairer, more sustainable food system. If a place can evidence, impact and that they're

00:33working in a very joint up way and they're really achieving things, then they can put

00:38themselves forward for a sustainable food place award.

00:42This award scheme is a national evidence-based recognition and celebration of places taking

00:46a joined up holistic approach to food. The level of activity expected increases from

00:51bronze to silver and then gold, with the expectation that gold awardees are innovating and supporting

00:56food system-wide transformations in their place at a level that is pioneering and of interest

01:01to an international audience. North Lancashire received a silver sustainable food places award

01:06in November 2023, acknowledging progress made across six different areas of the food system,

01:13including action on food, waste and poverty, upscaling sustainable local food production

01:18and the introduction of procurement policies that support healthy and fair local food.

01:24Following a partnership-wide decision in spring 2024, North Lancashire's Food Futures Partnership

01:29agreed to facilitate a two-year process to support the region in working towards a gold

01:34sustainable food places award by the end of 2026. This will involve supporting the network across the

01:41whole area and the more people we can get involved in that the better and that will have benefits for the

01:46whole area and it will be better for the environment as well. From building the resilience of community gardens,

01:52allotments, Thrive Magazine, food clubs, where the Wildings are, network of schools,

01:57community chefs networks, to building even more community composting sites and regenerative economy initiatives.

02:04It will mean attracting and evidencing more political and institutional buy-in into our food strategy,

02:10for example by helping local institutions purchase more local and sustainable food.

02:15And it will involve supporting more businesses, organisations and individuals

02:21to get involved in creating a more healthy, resilient and fair local food system.

02:26A gold award also requires Lancaster to make progress in two key focus areas.

02:33One, building a more sustainable and just local food economy from the ground up.

02:39And two, developing Lancaster District Food Justice Partnership's Food Ladders Approach.

02:44Food Futures seeks to develop the resilience and impact of two key collaborative projects,

02:53Lancaster District's Farm Start Scheme, hosted by the Plot, and Gather, a pilot local food hub.

03:01The Plot is an organic market garden that runs a community-supported agricultural scheme,

03:05as well as hosting Lancaster District's Farm Start training programme for new entrants into horticulture.

03:11The Plot has the ambition to develop further its accredited training into training more aspiring organic growers in the Lancaster District.

03:20Food Friends is a small society lottery and the scheme was set up to financially support the Plot.

03:26This is because it's really hard to rely on government and grant funding for smaller projects in local areas like this.

03:32The community element to it is people who care about the work that's being done pay £5 a month.

03:38There's six monthly winners and each of them win £30 to spend with one of our food partners,

03:44which are all local businesses in North Lancashire, so the money's going back into the local economy.

03:50And in the next two years we want to hopefully have 500 members

03:53and that will create a sufficient amount of income to support the work being done by the Plot.

03:58The Plot is part of a new emerging collaboration of food producers in the District,

04:02so we're coming together as part of Gather, which is the new North Lancashire food hub.

04:07And Gather is a group of around ten local producers,

04:11and we've come together to try and build the shared infrastructure to sell and market our produce.

04:17So it should make it easier for us to get our produce to people in the District,

04:21but it should also make it easier for people in the District to be able to buy local food.

04:25This pilot now hopes to develop its financial resilience and grow in size and diversity.

04:31In doing so this could make it much easier for local retailers and caterers to source sustainable local produce from one place.

04:39The Plot, Lancaster District's surplus food distribution hub and the host of local food buying co-op,

04:44is partnering with Gather to do deliveries and this has opened up exciting opportunities.

04:49It offers a chance for Egg Cup to diversify its work and build its resilience,

04:53whilst also building a partnership around new community farm and solidarity economy ideas,

04:58for example pay it forward options through Gather.

05:00It is this regenerative enterprise economy that is innovative in its approach to cultivating a sustainable food economy

05:08and shorter supply chains from the ground up, built around healthy relationships, social justice and delicious food.

05:19The Lancaster District Food Justice Partnership is a collective of charitable and statutory organisations

05:27whose mission it is to reduce the need for food banks and help community members access nutritional food.

05:36It's part of local efforts to reduce ill health and it's based on the food ladders approach which is

05:43room one, catching.

05:46The Lancaster District Food Justice Partnership model involves providing emergency support for people in crisis.

05:53We have three food banks operating in the district and 21% of children in Lancaster District receive free school meals.

05:59These are provided by the Lancashire Catering Service who have Food for Life Silver and Sugarwise accreditation.

06:05There are a number of different food banks in the area, Morecambe Bay Food Bank, the Olive Branch,

06:10but also West End Impact, which gives out a tremendous number of food parcels to residents in the West End every year.

06:17In December 2024, I'm aware that the food banks saw a 25% rise in referrals.

06:24Obviously, we want to prevent food bank use through the food ladders model, but there is still considerable demand.

06:30This means helping people not currently in crisis, but who are struggling to afford or access good food.

06:40Local research shows that food clubs are a crucial stepping stone to helping people out of poverty,

06:45as they combine access to surplus food with a buying co-op that allows residents to purchase

06:51a weekly shop of healthy food at a greatly reduced price.

06:54There are 13 food clubs in our district feeding over 1,400 households.

06:58The Lancaster District Food Justice Partnership has channeled £400,000 over the last three years

07:06through the different stages of the Household Support Fund.

07:10This has gone into the buying co-op for the food clubs, enabling the continued purchase of food

07:17for community members across the district.

07:20However, if we want to enable communities to thrive, we need to build the resilience

07:25of the second rung of the ladder, and that's where we change the dynamics of the food system,

07:31so that it's not just that wealthy people can afford to eat healthily,

07:36and all people can have access to healthy and nutritionist food.

07:41Rung three, self-organised community change.

07:44This is all about working with local needs and strengths to help communities access good food

07:51themselves. Some ideas that have emerged through local community conversation include connecting

07:57food clubs with allotments and a community chef to share growing and cooking skills, and expanding

08:02opportunities for gleaning. This is harvesting surplus produce.

08:06By naming this as an exceptional area and a focus for our region's Gold Award, we hope to leverage more

08:12resources and funding to support the building of a more integrated and resilient food ladder.

08:16By tackling these two focus areas together, Food Futures aims to challenge the two-tier system,

08:22where the wealthy are supported to grow, cook, and eat healthy organic food,

08:27while those at risk of food insecurity are expected to exist through donations of surplus food.

08:33It's only by tackling social and environmental justice together that the community can truly thrive.

08:38Lord, thanks to Golden!

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