Category: governance

Intensive Poultry Units and the Well-being of Future Generations Act

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Article published by the Institute of Welsh Affairs on 4 April 2023

A public demonstration against intensive poultry units (IPUs) outside the Senedd on 15 February was just the latest eruption of public concern over the pollution of the Wye, Severn and their tributaries, which is blamed on the explosion of intensive poultry farming in Powys over recent years.

This demonstration was organised by grassroots community group Sustainable Food Knighton who successfully brought a case against Powys County Council in 2020 after they gave permission for a new poultry unit without proper consideration of the environmental impact. The event brought together a range of concerns. 

River pollution was the primary focus of campaigner Angela Jones with her ‘Death of the Wye’ coffin. Nutrients from livestock manure and fertiliser running into rivers cause algal blooms followed by a serious loss of biodiversity, and it’s not just IPUs. Dairy farming, horticulture and sewage are also implicated. 

For the rest of this article, which discusses the role of the Welsh government and the Future Generations Office and calls for stronger citizen involvement in the food system, see the IWA website.

Image: Sustainable Food Knighton

What the ideal local authority would do to support food production

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At the 2022 Wales Real Food and Farming Conference, Lucie Taylor of the Community Land Advisory Service gave a talk about what the perfect local authority would do. It was such a hit that she recorded a version of it below.

In it, she introduces the Community Land Advisory Service which has been helping people get access to land to grow food since 2013.

Then she describes a vision which covers county farms, new entrants, mapping, the planning process, parks, farm subsidies, support for commercial horticulture, land use planning, food hubs, CSA, land trusts, community asset transfers, orchards, local development plans, knowledge sharing, corporate engagement, volunteering and home gardens.

Let’s make it a reality! See https://www.farmgarden.org.uk/clas/wales/resources.

Main image: Emily Chappell and Glasgow Community Food Network

Why effective regulation is so important along the food chain

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By Jane Powell

Earlier this year the Welsh Government announced it would make the whole of Wales a Nitrate Vulnerable Zone (NVZ). This is a European mechanism that requires farmers to follow stringent rules to reduce nitrate pollution. It was greeted with fury by the farming unions, who had favoured a voluntary approach. At the root of this is the view that nitrate pollution, as a by-product of food production, is the responsibility of wider society. It should therefore be managed by negotiation, as has been proposed in Pembrokeshire, not by draconian measures imposed from above. Additionally, regulations that are not widely supported tend to be less effective, which might be why a 2009 study found that many NVZs in England showed no significant benefits even after 15 years. 

What this controversy proves, negatively, is how important it is to have good regulation. We all want clean rivers and waterways, and farmers need clear rules about what they can and cannot do, so that the playing field is level and the quality of their goods is recognised. But regulation must be fair if it is to be effective, and it must be supported by a network of trust and communication as well as credible enforcement. This applies all along the food chain, from environmental protection to nutrition, food safety and trade.

So how is Wales doing? A recent report from Unchecked UK, Safeguarding standards in Wales: Why Wales should lead the way commends the Welsh Government for its generally positive approach, and for the notable Well-being of Future Generations Act, and contrasts it favourably with the policy of deregulation that it sees in Westminster. Unfortunately, though, the UK Government’s austerity policy has weakened the regulatory agencies in Wales, and most of the report is a chronicle of the damage that has been done.

First on the list is environmental protection. Their research shows that the main environmental regulator, Natural Resources Wales (NRW), has lost 35% of its funding from 2013 to 2020, while prosecutions of environmental offences fell by 61% in the period from 2014-20. This is cause for concern. But what the report does not cover is the positive ways in which NRW could uphold standards, for instance by working alongside farmers and businesses to help them to do better, and by maintaining conversations with countryside groups and organisations.

This is important because the Well-being of Future Generations Act, as part of its Five Ways of Working, requires public bodies to focus on prevention rather than the cure, and to be collaborative and to involve their stakeholders – with the punishment of offenders as a backstop. Consultation takes up staff time. But NRW, the report says, has 53 fewer staff than it had six years ago and so it is likely that this function has also been weakened. Meanwhile, local authority spending on environmental services fell by 13% during 2009-20, adding to the problem.

The section on food and public health also makes for a depressing read. Wales has brought in some ground-breaking legislation, including its food hygiene rating system, nutritional standards for school meals and a national strategy on tackling obesity, as well as the Well-being of Future Generations Act. But because of cuts to local authority funding, the number of people working in councils across Wales fell by 37,000 between 2009 and 2018.

“This has had far-reaching effects on local authorities’ ability to carry out their duties,” the report notes. “As a result, frontline staff tend to work reactively rather than proactively, at which point the damage – be it fraud, health and safety violations, or food safety breaches – has often been done.”

When councils lose staff, they also lose expertise. It isn’t just that local health and safety inspections in Wales fell by 45% during 2015-20 – a whole culture of cooperation and local knowledge has been weakened. Again, the principles of collaboration and involvement that are so key to the Future Generations Act are threatened, as the public realm is hollowed out. Opportunities for local food democracy will be lost.

Wales does not act in isolation, of course. It has been subject to regulation by both the EU and the UK government, and both of those relationships have changed since Brexit. The Welsh government has pledged to retain EU standards of environmental protection, using the Well-being of Future Generations and Environment Acts. However, it will no longer be able to call on the European Court of Justice to hold public bodies to account, and we have already seen how NRW has been weakened by staff cuts. Meanwhile the UK government’s Internal Market Act, intended to secure frictionless trade within the UK, threatens the rights of devolved administrations to set their own (higher) standards and has caused alarm in Wales. 

Unchecked UK has conducted a survey which finds support across all political persuasions for strong regulation in Wales. Over two-thirds of people in Wales, for instance, would like to see legally binding targets for wildlife restoration. There is also strong support for maintaining quality and sustainability standards for food, and fair workplace practices. Their campaign video calls on the Welsh public to keep up the pressure on our politicians, and “protect the things that make Wales the country we all love.”

Good enforcement of regulations is certainly essential, and government has a vital role to play. But equally, we need public understanding and support to build consensus around the regulations that are put in place. That requires joined up thinking. The consumers who want higher food standards are also the taxpayers who support farmers, who in turn have a huge influence on wildlife and water quality. They are also the citizens who have been empowered to create a better world for future generations. We need to bring all that together.

It is telling that the report commends the forthcoming Agriculture Bill for strengthening food safety and environmental and animal welfare standards. What the Bill fails to do however is to consider the contribution that farming makes to food production itself, because that is held to be a market good, not a public one. But a thriving local food economy, to which farming is central, is about much more than food security or the viability of farms. It is about the sense of place that creates social as well as economic bonds, and this is ultimately the basis of regulation in its truest sense – a set of agreements arising from a shared intention. Regulation must be bottom-up as well as top-down.

Jane Powell is a freelance education consultant and Renew Wales coordinator and writes at http://www.foodsociety.wales.

Make farming part of an ambitious food policy to transform Wales

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By Rhodri Elfyn Jones

It was New York Yankees legend Yogi Berra who apparently said “It’s like déjà vu all over again”.  But it was also how I felt reading the Welsh Government’s Agriculture White Paper only a few short weeks after England’s attempt at setting out its own farming future.

One-dimensional approach

Once again, failing to link agriculture and food – particularly the food market – has led to a one-dimensional approach which will shackle farmers to support payments and perpetuate a broken market.  The White Paper mentions supply chains and economic resilience – as it seems all policies must these days – but the content does not fill me with confidence that the Welsh Government really wants to get to grips with the issue.  Its intentions have been clear now for several years but we are embarking on yet another consultation period without the slightest idea of how the oft-mentioned public goods are to be valued.  It therefore remains difficult to evaluate the likely effectiveness of the proposed scheme.

It seems the recent report from Bangor University (which fed into Hybu Cig Cymru’s “The Welsh Way” document) which showed that Welsh farms produce the most sustainable red meat in the world has come as something of an inconvenient truth to the Welsh Government.  The policy would see such farms reduce production in favour of delivering as-yet unconfirmed public goods.  The consequence would, of course, be that less sustainable meat would take the place of Welsh produce.  A climate own goal as well as being a complete failure to shift agriculture away from public funding.

Farming is realising that it is on the cusp of significant change and many farming groups are now presenting their own take on changes required.  For example, the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission have recently published Farming for Change.  It would be a great shame if many of the great ideas being discussed by the farming community were ignored in favour of an office-based idea of sustainability.

Just as with its English counterpart the Environmental Land Management scheme (ELMS), the overwhelming focus is on sustainability, but a very narrow interpretation of it, I fear.  The intentions behind the new policy are, no doubt, sincere and in the main very worthwhile.  However, it wastes an opportunity to create a wide-ranging transformative policy for agriculture, environment and, importantly, food.  It’s concerning to see the Minister in her foreword saying that “A separate approach is proposed to provide wider (‘beyond the farm gate’) support for supply chain and agri-food development”.  Why does this need to be separate?  Why not take the opportunity to link the added value to the communities which produce the raw products?

That produce – which farmers can rightly label as with the most sustainable in the world – should have huge value as the world looks to “eat less but better” where meat is in the question. Our challenge as farmers is to capture far more of that value than we are able to at present – and we must also take responsibility and step up if we want to improve our lot.   Decades of subsidies and support payments have seen the industry become and remain reliant on public money.  Sadly, we continue to talk about the level of public payments and schemes to make farms viable rather than creating the correct environment for the sector.  With such a marketable product, the new policy should at least partly be about ensuring that this value is realised by the primary producers.

Despite making reference to it, the proposed approach also largely ignores the developing trade situation and the several other areas which are intertwined.  In particular, we can think of public health and food policy – an opportunity missed.  For Wales, there is the added dimension of a rich heritage linked to the land and, as the “Iaith y Pridd” report recently showed, the Welsh language is deeply rooted in our rural communities.  It is important that the final product protects them.

Papering over the cracks

Over the last 40 years, public funding of some sort has been present in UK farming and is now baked into farm and food economics. It has been estimated that in recent years some 80% of total farm income in Wales is derived from payments under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy.  If structural change is not part of the solution, then an ever-decreasing pot of money will simply see farms cease to trade, with dire effects on rural communities. 

The recent arguments when looking at a new Welsh agricultural policy have included whether the production of food – sometimes sold at below the cost of production – and the food security that brings is deemed a public good.  The Welsh Government says No, because there is a market for food.  However, it also contradicts itself by saying that “successive governments have provided support for policies that have increased agricultural production and provided affordable food.”  The market is, of course, broken and distorted and just like the UK Government, it is ignoring the elephant in the room.

It is interesting the way the White Paper talks of the wider industry and supply chain as something separate.  It does go on to talk of supporting the creation of local supply chains and increasing the amount and value of Welsh products used in the supply chain, both in Wales and beyond.  The Welsh Government needs to ensure that its future policy has measures which actually deliver on this and not keep what’s inside and beyond the farm gate separate.

Despite the few encouraging noises, they play a bit part in the proposed policy and once again, we have an approach which papers over the cracks of a broken food system.

There is, of course, no effective food policy in the UK and it was perhaps strange that the future agriculture policy proposals for England did not wait for the conclusion of the ongoing review on English food strategy being led by Henry Dimbleby.  Once again, it seems to reinforce the failure by UK Government to link agriculture and food. 

As for Wales, there are many strategic documents which have been produced by the Welsh Government, but nothing which ties them together and feeds through to the real world.  Without such a policy encompassing agriculture, the environment, food production and processing, public health, rural economy, culture, language (the list could go on), there is a vacuum.  As Professor Tim Lang says in his excellent book Feeding Britain, we are leaving the food policy to “Tesco et al”.  This has led to a completely extractive food economy, where large companies are now dictating what small amount of money is allowed to trickle down the supply chain to primary producers. The huge imbalance of power in the market and the wealth which is being taken out of local communities is itself a cause of the current reliance on public money in food production.  With funding about to be cut, a problem postponed with support schemes for many years has now become a real issue.

Transformative policy possible

Successive Governments – UK and Welsh – have ignored this issue and it has led to a plethora of other problems.  The prevalence of ultra-processed foods has contributed to unprecedented levels of chronic conditions such as diabetes and obesity; all because we have failed to look seriously at a food policy and we have instead allowed entirely profit driven companies to control our diets and keep our producers reliant on public money. 

Having allowed and indeed encouraged this, Governments must now acknowledge their role in doing so and the need for them to be a part of the solution.  There’s a significant amount of regulations which protect consumers when you have a monopoly or oligopoly (small number of sellers in a market) but no corresponding protection for producers where you have monopsonies or oligopsonies (one or a small number of buyers).   The Grocery Code Adjudicator’s remit is far too narrow to be effective in respect of primary producers.

Regulation and the creation of a fair marketplace is therefore one potential solution.  But it could also involve the provision of a protected space in the market for the creation of co-operatives or suitable organisations which could level the playing field to some degree.  Localism and shorter supply chains would be beneficial for Wales but we must also be able to target other lucrative markets and ensure that the profits are finding their way back to our communities.  The potential solutions deserve far more thorough consideration but it’s clear that Wales needs a mature discussion about this as a matter of urgency.

The UK Government has chosen its plan and it will be the end of many English farms.  Wales needs a different approach.  If it really wants to create a sustainable future for the sector, reduce or eliminate reliance on support payments and address a whole host of other issues at the same time, the Welsh Government must look at the structure of the entire food sector – a genuine farm to fork approach. A comprehensive policy looking at the wellbeing of its rural communities has the power to be transformative for the whole of our country.  The White Paper speaks of all of these things but they must be followed through and each of the issues given equal weight.

Having seen the future trajectory for the sector as proposed by Westminster, characterised by damaging our closest export links and failing to ensure standards of imports, I firmly believe that the brightest future for Wales lies in Independence.  Across the board where food is concerned, the UK Government’s approach is disappointing. There seems to be very little interest in promoting a successful agricultural sector or dealing with wider issues such as food poverty. All of the issues touched upon in this article will be better served by policies designed by and for Wales.

In the meantime, there is still much which could be done.  I would urge everyone who reads this to impress upon the Welsh Government – through the White Paper Consultation or via your MS’s – that the current proposals are an opportunity missed.  It’s also the case that The Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 could be a firm foundation for a sustainable future for agriculture, while also dealing with the issues of food poverty, food education and creating a food market which functions for Wales’s producers and its people.  The Future Generations Act really needs to start achieving something, not just be a nice idea. 

Dr Ludivine Petetin also proposes some excellent ideas about how we can all change small things based on what we have learnt during the Covid crisis.  Dr Petetin also notes what changes policymakers at several levels could adopt.  So much is based upon common sense but the neo-liberal oil tanker takes a great deal of effort to turn.  

At the essence of the food democracy she proposes is the simple challenge of getting everybody – all of us -– engaged with the subject.  It shouldn’t be hard – we all eat – but it is an issue which we have all been encouraged not to think too hard about for too long.  The time for an agricultural policy which plugs financial holes and only deals with what goes on within the farm gate are long gone.  For a country so able to produce sustainable food, Wales needs far more ambition to reach its potential.

Rhodri trained as a solicitor and specialised in Agricultural Law, becoming a Fellow of the Agricultural Law Association in 2016. While he still practises law part-time and advises on succession and business structures, he now farms and has recently entered a joint venture involving grass-based dairying.

Images: Rhodri Elfyn Jones.

Trafodwn: a new way to talk about food and farming

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By Jane Powell

One evening in late June, two months into lockdown, 156 people logged on to Zoom to talk about food and farming in Ceredigion. It was no ordinary discussion. After hearing from a range of farmers, community organizers and environmentalists, they had spent time in small groups sharing their personal responses to the crisis that is Covid, Brexit, climate change, globalization and much else. Guided by a facilitator, they listened carefully to each other, looking for common ground and tentatively suggesting solutions.

Ben Lake MP addresses the Ceredigion People’s Assembly on Food and Farming

At the end of the two-hour meeting, when the note-takers had reported back, it was clear that the event had achieved a remarkable level of shared inspiration. There was a strong call for the relocalizing of food, self-determination for communities and support for young people to enter the food and farming sector, among other things. It had demonstrated the hunger that there is for change in the county, and the richness of knowledge and expertise present.

As one retired farmer put it: “It was quite amazing to have such a breadth of participation…to have a platform where parties involved in farming, land management, horticulture, nature reserves all on large and small scales being represented was so very worthwhile.” Another commented that he had no idea so many people cared about farming. For many, it was an emotional experience to find such warmth and compassion between hitherto opposing sectors.

The event itself came out of a somewhat unlikely collaboration between the Cardigan branch of climate protest group Extinction Rebellion (XR) and local Member of Senedd and former agriculture minister Elin Jones, with support from the farming unions and environmental groups. Ben Lake MP also spoke. As Vicky Moller, one of the organizers, said: “Elin Jones’ decision to co-host with the local Extinction Rebellion branch was in the spirit of the event. Everyone feared hostility or ding dong argument. It didn’t happen.”

People’s Assemblies

This was many people’s first experience of a People’s Assembly, one of a series of five that have so far been organized in west and mid Wales since Covid. The first was held in Pembrokeshire in late April, and it came about from work that organizers Vicky Moller and Anna Monro had been doing to support community groups during lockdown. “At our meetings people discussed the future, and it was clear that they did not want to return to the old normal,” says Vicky. “The leading area where they wanted to see change was food and farming, and so we decided to look at that in detail.”

The format of the People’s Assembly is widely used in XR, which is perhaps best known for its high-profile protests in London, Cardiff and other cities last year. “They are a taster of a growing global alternative to our adversarial model of democracy – where rival parties slug it out and we choose between them every few years, often motivated by fear of those we oppose,” says Vicky. “It’s officially known as deliberative democracy, and in Wales we are calling it ‘trafodwn’, which means ‘let’s discuss’.”

Central to all Assemblies is the work of the facilitators, who are trained in the three pillars of the method: radical inclusion (hearing all voices), active listening (dropping your own agenda to give your full attention to the speaker); and trusting the process (allowing the wisdom of the hive to generate new thinking).

“Thankfully, there is a growing number of trained facilitators available,” says Angie Polkey, one of the organizers of the Ceredigion event and herself a trainer. “We are all helping to satisfy people’s thirst to have they say, be heard and, most vitally, be part of the change that many of us know is needed for a more sustainable and just world.”

Angie explains how important it is that the Assemblies have an impact. One of the five events stimulated local action groups to form, but as she says, “the significance of the others lies as much in the inspiration they created, which will shape future relationships, as well as the feedback that has been shared with elected representatives and local Council.” It is a fundamental tenet that the participants know why the Assembly has been called and what will happen to the findings, because otherwise “people will feel disillusioned and that their time has been for nothing”.

Deliberative democracy for Wales

The People’s Assemblies described here were citizen-led and unfunded, but the principle is also used when Citizens’ Assemblies are commissioned by governments who want to make difficult ethical decisions with public buy-in, such as the abortion laws in Ireland. They use an approach similar to the recruitment of jurors to ensure that the groups are representative, and they typically run over several days or weeks with professional facilitation. A recent OECD study reviewed about 300 government-commissioned events on five continents, and a good practice guide is also available.

Wales held its first Citizens’ Assembly at Newtown in July 2019, to discuss how citizens could engage with the National Assembly for Wales (now the Senedd), and since then there have been calls for Wales to make more use of them in the recovery from Covid. The ground-breaking Well-being of Future Generations Act already sets out a process whereby public bodies are required to collaborate with the public in creating an ecologically sustainable Wales, but it is not enough on its own, as David Thorpe explains in a recent blog for the One Planet Centre.

He calls for Citizens’ Assemblies to work with the Public Services Boards of every local authority, and for the Boards to be held accountable to them. That would raise awareness of the Act and tap into the energy and expertise of community groups, which has been so much in evidence during the coronavirus pandemic. Professor Laura McAllister of Cardiff University’s Wales Governance Centre made a similar point in the Western Mail recently:

“We have a chance to reverse normal political relationships, for the public to be in the driving seat via something like a more expansive citizens’ assembly…If a consensus was reached, we could then hand over our blueprint to the parties and test their genuine appetite for change.”

“Trafodwn is a good term for this newer version of deliberative democracy,” says Vicky. “It is organised from the ground up, with both sides of the divide wanting to meet and sort things out. Something is stirring.”

Watch an interview with Vicky Moller, explaining ‘Trafodwn’ and the Aberystwyth event (12 mins)

For a full account of the five Assemblies, including the main conclusions from the Ceredigion event, click here.

Jane Powell is a volunteer coordinator of the Manifesto and took part in the Ceredigion Assembly. She writes at www.foodsociety.wales.

How local authorities and community groups can re-set the food system

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By Jane Powell

There has rarely been a more potent time to talk about change in the food system. The pandemic has brought unprecedented interest in local food suppliers and homegrown food and sparked a surge in community activity. But while for some, cooking and gardening have been new-found pleasures, there are others who are unable to go out to the shops or cannot afford to buy food. According to a YouGov poll of Welsh adults in early April conducted by the Food Foundation and shared by Food Sense Wales here, an estimated 13% were not getting enough to eat in lockdown, many of them skipping meals. All this shows the need, and also the potential, for change. Could it be time for food democracy, joining citizen action with government policy?

For many years now, community food projects of all types – gardens, surplus food distribution projects, food banks, healthy eating programmes, food cooperatives and hubs – have been quietly trying out new ways of engaging the public with good food. They may lack influence with national government, but they do have a chance with local authorities, who have statutory roles involving food, such as environmental health, trading standards and the provision of allotments. Councils are close enough to their local communities to develop the personal relationships and practical collaborations that build trust. Crucially, they also work with food businesses, buying ingredients for school meals and other council facilities. Some even own farmland.

The response to Covid-19 has put the spotlight on local food relationships and gives some pointers towards what might come next. In Ceredigion for instance, Council staff are keeping in touch with 2,500 of the county’s most vulnerable people, phoning those considered most at risk weekly and supplying 900 of them with boxes of food. Initially these came from Welsh Government, but Ceredigion led the way in negotiating a cash payment instead, and is using it to buy more locally produced foods from Castell Howell as well as fresh produce from Jones and Davies in Llandysul. They plan to re-double their efforts to support local suppliers when the crisis is over. ‘Much of the pressure for this is coming from local dairy and meat farmers,’ explains Cllr Alun Williams, ‘but it is heartening to see across-the-board consensus about this. We have an opportunity to re-set the food system.’

In Cardiff meanwhile, a Covid-19 Food Response Group was set up early on. It began with emergency food distribution but recently supported Edible Cardiff to distribute nearly 14,000 plants, seeds and growing kits to households in the city (pictured above). Food Cardiff coordinator Pearl Costello describes how important it was to nurture good relationships between the Council and local volunteers. ‘It’s not just going to the Council and saying “can you do this?”, it’s saying “we’re here as a resource”…one of the things I didn’t want it to be is quite top-down, and thankfully it’s not that. It’s about collaborating and channelling resources to where they are needed.’ Food Cardiff have issued a briefing paper for other local authorities based on their experience.

Free school meals are another way that local authorities help families most in need. Some authorities have been issuing supermarket vouchers during lockdown, but in Cardiff cash payments are given so that parents can buy the food they want. In Caerphilly meanwhile, the catering service is working with Castell Howell and other suppliers, as well as a team of volunteers, to supply five frozen meals a week, not just in term time but through the Easter holidays as well. They are also supplying bread and milk.

A great advantage of local government is the flexibility. Responses can be adapted to local conditions and draw on the knowledge that is held in communities, and people can work together in ways that suit them. In Cardiff for instance, the council is part of a formal food network. Food Cardiff is a partnership of over 30 members including public bodies, businesses and charities which since 2013 has been part of the Sustainable Food Places project (formerly Sustainable Food Cities), with a full-time coordinator.

In rural Ceredigion meanwhile, where no such partnership exists yet, a creative network of mutual aid has emerged by other means, with home deliveries of food and medicines by volunteers. New supply chains are springing up: a vegetarian baker in Cardigan has teamed up with a local butcher to get their bread out, pubs are doing meals on wheels, and community growing projects are producing supplies for home vegetable growing.

At the same time, a patchwork of local responses has much to gain from being part of a bigger story, finding common cause and identifying guiding principles that can be pushed upwards into national government. The Well-being of Future Generations Act provides an important opportunity, with its call for a social and economic transformation towards low-carbon prosperity and local resilience. Covid-19 is a foretaste of the deep change that will involve, and food is an obvious rallying point.

Meanwhile, there are some tough challenges to solve. One is the big retailers, who are the main suppliers of our food but conspicuously absent from, say, the Food Cardiff partnership. They do of course contribute to their local communities, especially in supplying surplus food and with cash sponsorship, but it is an unequal relationship which is governed as much by expediency and the edicts of Head Office as by a real care for the needs of a community. Their supply chain logistics do not favour local food production, either.

Another area that is perhaps not properly included in local authority food activity is farming. Some do source catering ingredients from local suppliers, and politicians have called repeatedly for more use of public procurement to regenerate the local economy, while a new project to stimulate the ‘foundational economy’ of which food is a part is due to start in Carmarthenshire soon. But it is not a consistent approach. Pembrokeshire County Council for instance cited ‘severe financial pressures’ as a reason for rejecting an offer from a local group who wanted to set up a community farm. Meanwhile, as Ceredigion County Council considers an application for a controversial intensive poultry unit, it must decide on the basis of planning considerations only. There will be no discussion of the type of farming that would best serve the area.

How can we develop local food democracy, allowing the public to channel their ideas into local and national government and ensuring a food system that reflects what people really care about? There are some exciting initiatives on offer at the moment: People’s Assemblies, the expansion of the Sustainable Food Places project in Wales, the Our Food initiative in Crickhowell, and countless small-scale interactions. This is what the Well-being of Future Generations Act was made for, with its new ways of working between community groups, councils and businesses. As Jane Davidson, one of its architects, says:

‘A food system that looks after future generations will support local communities, create innovative low carbon jobs, tackle climate change, enhance biodiversity, address inequality and proudly celebrate the Wales brand to the world. It can do this through thinking long term, preventatively and by encouraging innovative, collaborative opportunities between public services and food businesses, small and large. COVID has highlighted the risk of not having a food system, so now let’s take the opportunity to build one fit for our age – for Wales, by Wales.’

Now is our moment, and we must seize it.

Image: Food Cardiff. Almost 14,000 plants, seeds and growing kits have been distributed to families in the city, by 70 volunteers across 60 projects.

Jane Powell is a freelance education consultant and volunteer coordinator of the Manifesto. She writes at www.foodsociety.wales.

Building democratic food systems following COVID-19

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By Ludivine Petetin

Amidst the grimness of the COVID-19 pandemic, it can be difficult to see the opportunities arising from it. However, all over the UK and Wales there are pockets of hope and good practice that indicate how food systems could become more resilient. This blog post is based on an open access journal article that I wrote in April 2020 entitled ‘The COVID-19 Crisis: An Opportunity to Integrate Food Democracy into Post-Pandemic Food Systems’.

1. Interconnected food supply chains

The disruption within food systems and the lack of certain foods on the shelves is highlighting the interconnectedness of our food supply chains. Looking outside the UK, some countries have put in place measures to restrict the export of staple foods. They have done this for two main reasons: to guarantee their stability and avoid civil unrest, and to ensure their own food security. However, such export restrictions will have consequences for the world market in terms of food availability and price volatility, and ultimately could lead to international food shortages and a possible worldwide food crisis – affecting the most vulnerable.

Within the UK, disruptions to the ‘just-in-time’ methods of the food supply chain have indicated how closely linked all actors are: the farmer grows cereals, the miller grinds the grain, another company packages the flour, different people again take care of logistics and transport, including delivery drivers, and (often) the supermarket sells the flour – and this is not an exhaustive list. Indeed, flour is a good example of a staple food that is elusive on the food shelves – indicating how intricated but fragile the food supply chain really is.

Under the circumstances, there is a risk of a return to less environmentally friendly practices. Calls to intensify food production in response to shortages could threaten the move towards further sustainable agriculture. However, and more positively, this crisis should be seen as an opportunity to use more sustainable techniques, such as agroecology and agroforestry, and to redesign food systems post-pandemic by building a new model of multilevel food governance based on food democracy.

2. More democratic food systems

In Wales, we have seen how some local farmers, suppliers and shops have been particularly resilient in supplying the local population. In and around Cardiff, butchers like Oriel Jones and Martin Player have modified their businesses to increase their online presence and add home deliveries – indicating the ability to quickly diversify. Meanwhile, fruit and vegetable box schemes, such as the Welsh Food Box Company and Paul’s Organic Vegetables, have responded to the increased local demand. It is to be applauded that the local population can count on its local shops and growers and it is to be hoped that this momentum for local, sustainable and healthy food will remain post lockdown.

My article suggests four characteristics for a ‘food democracy’ model to build upon to increase the reliability, locality and resilience of food systems post-pandemic (combined with longer, sustainable food supply chains). Some of these new approaches are already emerging  during COVID-19, whilst others still require improvement:

  1. True information, genuine choice and alternative products being offered to consumers: this is demonstrated by the increased interest from citizens in where their food comes from (i.e. food provenance) as well as how it was produced, with a shift in consumption pattern towards local fruit and vegetable box schemes, local butchers and bakeries.
  2. Upstream engagement and a bottom-up approach in the decision-making process: this starts with local authorities being more involved in supporting local food production, and feeding into the future agri-food policy still under formulation by Welsh Government. They should act upwards, and Welsh Government should be ready to listen to them.
  3. Good health, food safety, sustainable agriculture and environmental protection, improvement of the rights of farmers and agricultural workers and their opportunities: strengthening and shortening food supply chains, leading to fewer food miles, less packaging and processing; also active participation by the public, for instance in harvesting fruits and vegetables.
  4. Restoration of faith and trust in the food system, its institutions and in farmers: this includes a stronger and fairer role for the farmer; transparent food supply chains with fair dealing; a local population interested in supporting local producers either by buying their products or becoming an agricultural worker; and stronger links between supermarkets and local producers.

3. Multilevel food systems

The COVID-19 crisis shows how food supply chains and agri-food policies functions on many levels, from the local to the international. Political decisions on agri-food made at one level impact on all the others. What is needed is increased coordination between the different levels of governments and governance within Wales and beyond. This should lead to agri-food policies that are joined up and support primary producers and local shops.

The ‘Sustainable Farming and our Land’ document published in 2019 is no longer sufficient to solve the issues faced by the sector post COVID-19. The pandemic makes it clear that agriculture and food policies can no longer be kept apart. They need bringing together, as the new President of the EU Commission is aiming to do with its new Farm to Fork Strategy, part of the European Green Deal. A holistic, forward-looking approach towards agri-food systems built on a multilevel agri-food governance is the way forward for all level of governments – from local authorities, to Welsh Government and beyond.

Dr Ludivine Petetin is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the School of Law and Politics and the Wales Governance Centre of Cardiff University. Her expertise lies in agri-food issues and international trade as well as the challenges that Brexit and COVID-19 pose to these areas.

Working co-operatively for sustainable and just food systems

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By Poppy Nicol and Alice Taherzadeh

Getting a veg box can be great way to get fresh, locally produced organic food. There’s also a high chance that you will be supporting a co-operative business or co-operative ways of working. Many local and sustainable food businesses are based on principles of co-operation rather than the culture of competition that we see in much of the food system.

Take Cae Tan for example. They are a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) project which distribute a weekly bag of vegetables every week to their members around Gower, Swansea via their veg hub. Being a member of the scheme, though, doesn’t just mean you get a weekly supply of fresh food. It is also about meeting people. There are opportunities to volunteer and an annual Harvest Supper where members can get to know each other and celebrate the harvest. As the head gardener of another CSA, Banc Organics in the Gwendraeth Valley explains, CSAs are all about cooperative principles, that is:

“owning our means of production and the workers having a stake in things, having democratic control over things and basing them on things other than the market.”

Co-operative ways of working in the food system

In our new report Working Co-operatively for Sustainable and Just Food Systems in Wales we investigate the scope for co-ops in Wales to help us move to food systems which are based on both sustainability and food justice. The work was commissioned by the Wales Co-operative Party and members of the Co-operative Group in the National Assembly for Wales because they believe that sustainability and food justice should, and can, go hand in hand.

We spoke to twelve people from projects all over Wales, including the Wales Co-operative Centre, fruit and veg CSAs, a bakers’ co-operative, dairy co-operatives and a red meat co-operative. We were inspired by their commitment to co-operative principles, particularly within the sustainable food movement, and their desire to promote social change and food justice through their projects.

We also found out that there used to be far more co-operatives across Wales which enabled small producers and business to work together to share resources and bring local food to people’s plates.

Opportunities for working co-operatively

Currently there are very few co-operatives in the Welsh food sector. However, there is great potential to encourage many more with the right support and infrastructure. We found that when businesses and individuals act together through co-operative ways of working, they have more collective bargaining power, better access to resources and potentially more resilience in the face of change. The co-operative values of equity, equality, solidarity, self-help, self-responsibility and democracy are also more likely to promote food justice as they place people at the centre of the food system.

The challenges facing co-operative ways of working

But we also discovered that cooperative projects face a lot of difficulties.

  • Education, training and advice: Currently, there isn’t enough support for co-operatives working within the Welsh food system. The opportunities for training in sustainable food production are also lacking or more difficult to access because of short-term funding. There is further identified need for improving public information on the co-operative economy.
  • Infrastructure for local food economies: In all sectors producers often have to transport food costly distances (often to England) to get it processed or to get it to retailers as there isn’t the infrastructure to support local food networks here in Wales.
  • The real cost of food: The challenge of competing in a food system dominated by industrial production of cheap food. In this system the real cost of food is not recognised and food is produced at the expense of future generations being able to feed themselves and fair livelihoods for those working in the food system.

What can we do?

There is a lot of potential for Wales to make the big policy changes needed to achieve a food system which is both sustainable and just. Based on what we found in the research we think there are four key areas to strengthen the role of co-operation in our food system:

  1. More co-ops! Support community-led food co-operatives to get set up at all levels and scales to increase the number of food co-operatives and size of the co-operative economy in Wales.
  2. Co-operative processing and distributing Promote co-operative approaches to food processing and distribution such as food hubs which would help smaller producers share resources and reduce the environmental impact of transportation by keeping things local.
  3. Networks of training and education Connect up the training landscape in Wales so that there are strong networks for training in sustainable food production as well as linking food and farming into schools and universities.
  4. More veg! Increase small-scale horticultural and arable production by providing better access to land and training for new entrants and business advice for producers in the meat and dairy sectors who want to diversify.

Bringing everyone together: Co-operative Roundtable

After the report was published in December 2019, we were invited to participate in an expert-led roundtable event on January 14th 2020 at the National Assembly hosted by the Wales Co-operative Party and the Assembly Members who funded the project. The event brought together growers, politicians, charities, community organisations, and researchers all working at different levels of the Welsh food system. This included the CSA Wales Network, Food Manifesto Wales, Food Sense Wales, Land Workers Alliance Cymru, Open Food Network, RSPB Cymru, Social Farms and Gardens Wales, Sustain, Trussell Trust, WWF Cymru.

There was a lot of enthusiasm for a more connected and co-operative food system in Wales that makes better links between food production, environmental sustainability, public health and the education system. After we presented our report, Tom O’Kane, grower at Cae Tan one of the largest CSAs in Wales spoke to everyone about the opportunities and challenges CSAs face – including training opportunities, planning constraints and access to land.  Nick Weir from Open Food Network also explained the potential for community food distribution online via platform co-operatives.

The Cardiff round table

Several attendees argued passionately for the importance of wildlife-friendly, regenerative and ecological farming and local food economies in achieving a more sustainable and just food future. They also highlighted the need to scale out (increasing in number as distributed networks) rather than scale up (increase in size). There were many people who emphasised the multiple barriers that are faced by those wanting to create a sustainable and just food system within the current unjust and unsustainable food system and they called for more ambitious and transformative change from government policy to challenge this. It was also pointed out that future meetings need to include the main farming unions as well as educational institutions and conservation groups, bringing the various sectors working within the food system into conversation with one another so that we can develop food policy which is good for people and the land at every level.

Conclusion:

The roundtable was a really valuable opportunity to bring together a range of people working across the food system and a much needed first step to create wider co-operation on the issue. However, there was also a strong sense that we need to move towards concrete action rather than just continued conversations. The roundtable presents the potential to launch a sustainable and just food network or another platform for co-operation across the food system to better inform policy. We are now in the next stages of this and exploring how we can bring together this network to achieve transformative policy action. We’ll keep you posted!

If you want further information or to get involved, then please get in touch.

Poppy Nicol: I am a research associate at the Sustainable Places Research Institute and a gardener. My research interests are in the connections between people and place. I am particularly interested in the relationships between biological and cultural diversity that come alive through agriculture. NicolP@cardiff.ac.uk

Alice Taherzadeh: I am a PhD researcher at the Sustainable Places Research Institute, an activist and a community organiser. My research interests lie in exploring how people learn in order to transform our food system. I am particularly interested in farmer to farmer models of learning and social movements. TaherzadehA@cardiff.ac.uk

Brexit – the starting point for a fresh approach to food and farming in Wales

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FRCBrexit could be the starting point for a fresh approach to food and farming in Wales, setting the standard for the United Kingdom; argues a new briefing from the Food Research Collaboration1.

Much has been made of the risks Brexit poses to Welsh food producers, especially its upland lamb and beef farmers. However, the briefing argues that Wales has a forward-looking government with several innovative pieces of legislation that could support a transition to fairer and more environmentally sustainable farming and food production, if political authority and public support can be mobilised to link them together.

The briefing, written by Jane Powell and Corinne Castle of the Wales Food Manifesto, sets out the steps needed to achieve an integrated food and farming policy for Wales post-Brexit. They emphasize two key factors that enable Wales to take these steps: vibrant networks of grassroots organisations building innovative local food enterprises and the radical pieces of legislation introduced by the Welsh government that could be used to engineer a new food economy.

Corinne Castle said:

‘Brexit gives Wales an opportunity to make a step-change into a new approach to food and farming, but it will only happen if there is a wholesale realignment of all those involved with the food system, and a willingness to see ourselves differently. Old oppositions, say between food production and wildlife, or between supermarkets and community initiatives, will have to transform. Above all, we will need to bring back more trust and respect to the vital business of feeding a nation.’

The authors recommend that the public funding that replaces the Common Agricultural Policy, must be for farming that integrates food production with care for the environment. Subsidy should be based on what farmers do, not how much land they manage, with support for new entrants.

Jane Powell commented:

‘It’s time for a fresh approach to food and farming in Wales. Grassroots initiatives in both rural areas and cities are pioneering new ways of producing and distributing food, government is changing the way it works, and global challenges are more acute than ever. We need to seize the moment and set a new course for food, one that works for everyone. A new national civil society network would be a vital first step to draw people together.’

For the full list of recommendations read the briefing: https://foodresearch.org.uk/download/14226/

Read the Executive summary: https://foodresearch.org.uk/download/14227/

1, The Food Research Collaboration (FRC) brings together academics and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to improve food policy in the United Kingdom. As an initiative of the Centre for Food Policy, at City, University of London, we support the Centre’s mission of advancing integrated and inclusive food policy. This briefing paper is part of the FRC Food Brexit Briefing series, with the full series available here: https://foodresearch.org.uk/food-brexit-briefings/

Local cooperation may be more effective than penalties in tackling nitrate pollution in Pembrokeshire

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By Jane Powell

One of the interesting angles to come out of the Brexit debate is the need for local cooperation. The balance between economic activity and care for the environment on which it depends is a difficult one to maintain, and top-down regulation is not enough on its own. But what does that look like? A new project in Pembrokeshire is trialling a partnership model to manage fertilizer pollution, and offers an intriguing new possibility.

Synthetic nitrogen fertilizer is as much a part of modern life as the car and the television, just much less visible. Chemical companies have been producing nitrates since the Second World War, when the factories that had been making explosives were turned to peacetime uses, and it’s now a cornerstone of modern farming. Applied judiciously, it speeds up plant growth and allows farmers to make the most of a short growing season.

But it comes at a cost. For one thing the manufacturing process requires a lot of oil, as nitrogen and hydrogen have to be combined at high temperatures and pressure. And because nitrates are highly soluble, they are easily washed into rivers where they cause aquatic plants to grow too fast, upsetting the ecological balance and damaging both wildlife and fisheries. This is a particular problem in Pembrokeshire, where concerns about nitrate pollution in the river Cleddau and Milford Haven have led to calls to declare the area a Nitrate Vulnerable Zone (NVZ) under EU law.

This would mean that farmers would be obliged to cut their fertilizer use, and also face restrictions on how they can spread nitrogen-rich slurry, or manure, on the land. They would for instance have to store it if the land is waterlogged, waiting for dry conditions so that it is absorbed into the soil rather than running off into rivers. Financial margins in farming are tight, and farmers say that cutting production or investing in bigger slurry tanks would put some of them out of business.

Also, it isn’t just cows that produce manure. Humans do too, and sewage plants are responsible for a fair proportion of both nitrogen and phosphorus pollution in the Cleddau. The river catchment is now ‘full’ of nutrients, making further economic development unacceptable.  Clearly, nutrient pollution needs to be reduced, but this is a problem caused by human activity in general, and it doesn’t seem fair to hold farmers solely responsible. Could there be a better solution?

At Pelcomb Farm near Haverfordwest, farmer Mike Smith and soil expert Jon Williams spread soil analysis reports out on the kitchen table. Jon points out the 2013 analysis for one particular field, which shows an imbalance between magnesium and calcium. Magnesium is important, he explains, because it is an essential part of the chlorophyll molecule. Without enough magnesium, crops cannot photosynthesize efficiently, however much nitrogen they are fed.

Magnesium also however has the effect of binding soil clay particles very tightly, and needs to be counterbalanced by calcium, which produces a looser soil structure, good for aeration and drainage. By 2017, applications of magnesium have brought the soil back into balance and increased the efficiency of nitrogen use.

By this and other adjustments, such as avoiding compaction with heavy machinery, Mike has been able to reduce his use of nitrogen fertilizer on his intensive dairy farm to a third of what it was, saving money and protecting the quality of the river water. He also keeps a careful eye on his slurry.

“For a farmer, slurry is a valuable resource, full of nutrients. We don’t want to lose it to our rivers! So we do a soil analysis before we plant, say, a cereal crop, and we analyse the slurry as well. That way, we can apply the right amount to the land and cut down on artificial fertilizer too.”

Rather than the NVZ, Mike wants to see a voluntary scheme, where farmers are accredited in rather the same way that a beach gets a Blue Flag for its water quality.

The First Milk dairy cooperative of which Mike is a member has already shown how farmers can work together to clean up their act. In 2005, Welsh Water served notice that they would no longer treat the effluent from First Milk’s Haverfordwest cheese factory at their sewage plant, because they needed the capacity for new housing development.

After prolonged negotiations between First Milk and Natural Resources Wales, an agreement was reached in 2011 whereby treated effluent from the cheese factory could be discharged directly into the Cleddau, providing that the member farmers offset these nutrients by changes to farming practices further upstream.

Building on this success, there is a new initiative to introduce a nutrient trading scheme which would allow farmers to be rewarded for better management of nitrates. Any new housing development, hotel or factory will put extra pressure on the Cleddau catchment, and so needs to come with a plan to ensure that there is no net increase in pollution.

The EU funded project BRICs, or Building Resistance into Catchments, is working on a trading scheme that would allow farmers to sell credits to developers, thus spreading the cost more fairly. It would also introduce a culture where farmers are seen as business leaders, rather than offenders to be policed.

BRICs is necessarily a partnership project. It works with a wide range of organizations, including land managers, industry, conservation organizations, the farming unions, Welsh Water, farming cooperatives, local authorities, RPK ADAS and Natural Resources Wales.

There’s a lot at stake. Not only is it important to open up new capacity for industrial and housing development in the area, but good farming practice is of vital importance in itself, and farmers need to be properly supported to do this.

Out in the field at Pelcomb, Jon gets his spade out and digs a hole. The turf comes out easily, and the soil underneath is dark, sweet-smelling, loose and crumbly, with a few stones, worms and a healthy mesh of grass roots. “This is how it should be,” he says. “Soil is a living thing, full of bacteria, fungi and worms, and it wants to be in balance”.

He explains how natural processes in the soil produce 80% of the nitrogen a crop needs, and artificial fertilizer often does more harm than good. Organic farmers avoid it altogether, relying on crop rotations and careful manure management to do the job.

“Welsh soils contain plenty of organic matter because they’ve been under grass and livestock for so long. If we can manage our soils and manures properly, we can cut our dependence on synthetic nitrogen, build soil fertility and go a long way towards reducing the carbon footprint of Welsh agriculture,” he says.

The Pembrokeshire experiment will see if a fairer system of sharing the costs of good soil management – and therefore of food production – can help build a culture of cooperation and trust that will benefit the natural world on which everything depends.

Jane Powell is the Wales coordinator of LEAF Education and is working on a case study of nitrate trading for use in secondary schools. She also writes at www.foodsociety.wales.

Image: algae covering the mudflats at Garron Pill on the eastern Cleddau, by Sue Burton.