In the coming year, the SGFP will be centring our focus on the question:
'What does Shropshire need to achieve Civil Food Resilience? '
We believe that all of our collective work as partnership members feeds into a web of resilience, but there is so much more that we need to do to ensure our food security in a changing world.
SGFP Co-Director & Coordinator Daphne Du Cros gave a talk this week to the National Association of Local Councils on Civil Food Resilience and the role of food partnerships in scaling up and coordinating local and regional food security action. This presentation sought to highlight how vulnerable the UK food system is to shocks and that we are largely unprepared for crisis. We live in a time for great complexity: The food system is a vast and sprawling machine, reliant on technology and satellites that are fallible, and it must operate flawlessly to feed citizens, where as a society we have moved away from feeding ourselves. Cath Dalmeny, Chair of Sustain, recently said that retail industry leaders admit that they are now "Sourcing from scarcity, rather than abundance". This is a concerning admission, especially in a time of 'poly-crisis': Wars across the globe, climate change and extreme weather events impacting domestic production and that of our largest suppliers (Spain and the Mediterranean, for example), economic and political instability, and our own health. All these things overlap and send ripples across our food system.
To date, the absence of a National Food Strategy has meant little guidance has been provided to citizens and the devolved nations and counties in terms of food system infrastructure and crisis response. Civil Food Resilience is increasingly being framed as a facet of National Defence, but this is poorly understood ‘on the ground’, with very few Local Emergency Fora or Council Resilience Teams understanding how food fits into the crisis response structure.
In her talk, Daphne argued that Food Partnerships are well-positioned to engage with Civil Food Resilience and coordination. In a sense, these structures can offer a modern day response to the County War Agricultural Executive Committees in war time due to their specialised knowledge, with Professor Tim Lang recommending the establishment of Food Resilience Committees as a role-extension of Food Partnerships. The sustainable food places network offers an umbrella structure to communicate and mobilise its wide membership. Similarly, Food Partnerships know their networks from the micro-level of individual projects to the city, county and regional levels. They are the best positioned to coordinate and mobilise their local networks in response to food-related crises.
This short video on Food Ladders offers some great insight into how this might look - where do your actions fit in?
In the new year, Civil Food Resilience will be our big focus at SGFP. And we're asking you to roll up your sleeves and join with us, from your own home garden, your community green spaces through to local farms, businesses and organisations. And while it's not just about supply and demand, it will take everyone to 'Dig for Resilience' - sharing space, ideas, skills and developing plans at the neighbourhood and community level to ensure that no one gets left behind when a crisis occurs..
This work is timely....
Just this past week, Steve Reed, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, confirmed that work is underway to develop a national food strategy, which will begin stakeholder engagement through DEFRA in the new year. With a new report set to come out through the National Preparedness Commission in the new year on Civil Food Resilience for the UK and the lack of a current framework for it, this could very well be the year that recognises food action as a national priority (because, after all, food security is National security). It is our hope that through the Sustainable Food Places Network food partnerships will be invited to help shape this strategy, along with other national level (non-industry) organisations working in food.
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