Tag: sustainability

Building the food economy in Monmouthshire and the Brecon Beacons: 1200 acres wanted

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By Duncan Fisher

In Monmouthshire and the Brecon Beacons, we have started to build a new local food economy. The undertaking is vast but the best way to achieve it is to start. Launched on 30 March this year, local community benefit society Our Food 1200 / Ein Bwyd 1200 is searching for 1200 acres of land for local small-scale regenerative horticulture; 1200 acres would be enough to feed every household in the region with seasonal vegetables.

An appeal went out to landowners to make land available for horticulture. In the first week, 21 offers of land were received. Once all these are assessed and profiled online, the search for growers can begin. All over the UK, skilled growers are looking for land to grow on and we would like them to come here. Working with the local regenerative horticulture training course at Black Mountains College, we will also nurture a new generation of growers from among young people raised here.

The aim is, over 10 years, to rebuild a vibrant local economy, serving additionally the nearby towns and cities of Cardiff, Newport, Bristol and Hereford, so that all local farmers can access new markets that pay better prices and offer them and buyers more security. And keeping local ownership of the supply chain, means profits are kept ‘near the roots’. Local trading builds community.

Some 75 people attended the online launch event, including representatives from Public Health Wales, Monmouthshire County Council, Powys County Council, Brecon Beacons National Park Authority, Tyfu Cymru, Black Mountains College and the National Trust.

Speakers included landowners who have already leased land to successful horticulture enterprises, such as John Morris in Crickhowell. John leased land to Katherine and David Langton to create the farm pictured above. Speaking about his experience, he said: “It’s not a new concept: farmers have always rented out their land. But renting land for horticulture is a bigger commitment because of the infrastructure change that’s required with polytunnels and so on.”

Local land agent, Stewart Waters of DJ&P Newland Rennie, said “most farmers have that small parcel of land – 2-5 acres – that’s not entirely suited to the rest of their farming system. I can see that a young and enthusiastic grower could bring a completely different dynamic to a farmer’s life. And of course it’s providing what is these days a very scarce opportunity for young farmers and new entrants to get a start.”

Catherine Mealing-Jones, CEO of the Brecon Beacons National Park, pledged support. “We’ve got huge potential in this area and in surrounding communities to feed ourselves and others with the best-quality, local seasonal produce. But we’ve got to start doing something quite fundamentally different. We are expected to offer the Brecon Beacons National Park as a test bed for the thinking that will shape future policy. And I really believe that if we work together, we can make the changes that we want to see.”

For more on this project, watch the discussion at the Wales Real Food and Farming Conference last November, where Duncan spoken in a panel with Prof Tim Lang, Monmouthshire RDP Manager Michael Powell and farmer Peter Greig.

Duncan lives in the Brecon Beacons and is leading the Our Food 1200 project with Sue Holbrook. He is a campaigner for sustainability and also, with another hat on, for child welfare.

Image: Tim Jones/As You See it Media.

Rethinking food: a response from Paramaethu Cymru

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Paramaethu Cymru, the Welsh arm of the Permaculture Association (Britain), has responded to the Assembly consultation on rethinking food in Wales. Here is the introduction and a link to the full article.

paramaethu logo1.1   Paramaethu Cymru is in contact with more than 500 individuals, families, groups and small businesses across Wales with interest in permaculture practices. They especially include growing food in healthy, sustainable ways. It also teaches design principles to people on courses, short or long, and easily understood, so that they are empowered to make earth-friendly, people-friendly choices in their lives.

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Trafod dyfodol bwyd a ffermio – discussing the future of food and farming at a recent gathering

1.2   A permaculture approach requires careful design commencing with Survey and Analysis, so we welcome this survey and especially the fact that it requests referenced evidence rather than simply opinion. However, the short time scale given to it may not lead to thorough and inclusive bilingual responses, especially in these months when food producers are particularly busy.

1.3   Permaculture is guided by three ethics: Earth Care, People Care and Fair Share. Earth Care is implied in the issues you selected. A Permaculture approach is also guided by 12 principles, one of which is to integrate, rather than segregate. It results in a planning design which takes a holistic view, exploring interrelated outcomes, seeing our relationship with food as a web of connection to other factors (eg soil health, human health, biodiversity, social justice, employment, education, history and culture), as indicated by the 2015  Aberystwyth University Food Values project, and the 2009 IAASTD Agriculture at a Crossroads Global Report. Our response tries to explore some of those interconnections.

To download the full response, see Rethinking food – Paramaethu Cymru

Our fragile food system

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Tony Little has been involved in sustainable food and farming for nearly 20 years and was a key member of staff at Organic Centre Wales for 14 of those. He is actively involved in the Organic Growers Alliance and the Community Supported Agriculture Network UK, and recently set up the Sustainable Farming Consultancy.Tony Little

I spend a lot of time thinking about the agriculture in Wales, and I spend a lot of time listening to Welsh Government and other commentators on its future. One word crops up again and again and that word is resilience. And rightly so, for our food and farming system is fragile in the extreme.

Consider this. Practically all Welsh agriculture is based on just three products; lamb, beef and milk, and we export nearly all of it. Any ‘shocks’ to any one of these  – price volatility, collapse of export markets, animal health crises, fluctuations in exchange rates, regulation changes, exit from the EU – have disproportionately larger impacts on Wales compared to other countries with a wider production base. Of course many of these things are not independent of one another, so they can and do happen all at the same time to more than one sector.

In case anyone thinks I’m having go a livestock producers, I’m not. They are vital for nourishing the nation, cycling nutrients on the farm, habitat management, biodiversity and a great deal more. However, if we want a more resilient system, basing it on a very small number of products, whose fortunes are dictated by factors by and large outside our sphere of influence, is not the way I would go about it.

Diversifying the production base by strengthening arable and horticultural production, has to be the way to go, and there is massive potential to do so in Wales. There are over 4,000 ha of Grade 1 and 2 land in Wales, over 95% of which is currently under grass, and many more thousands of hectares of Grade 3 land that could grow crops, albeit in more challenging conditions. We grew crops in these areas in the past, and there is no technical reason why we could not again.

I don’t pretend that it’s easy – I’m in the process of introducing horticulture to an upland sheep system, so I know! Access to machinery, lack of skills and knowledge after a generation of specialised livestock production, the relatively high risk associated of horticultural enterprises and other factors conspire to make to it all rather challenging.

But it is absolutely necessary. No one really thinks the status quo is satisfactory. Over the 14 years I have been working in Wales I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of farmers I’ve spoken to who think that specialised beef and sheep production is a sound foundation for a profitable, and therefore resilient, business, and the annual farm income figures from the Farm Business Survey at IBERS tend to bear me out on this.

If our farming and food businesses are going to live, thrive and survive into the future – and our communities with them – we have to make fundamental changes. We’d be well advised to start now, before the wheels really come off.

Developing Sustainable Dietary Guidelines

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by Pamela Mason

Wales should consider developing sustainable dietary guidelines. Like most existing dietary guidelines, dietary guidelines in the UK have a narrow view of how diet relates to health. In essence, they restrict the concept of diet to the amounts of nutrients contained in foods and the concept of health to the presence or absence of diseases caused by the lack or excess of of one or more nutrients in the diet. While the amounts of nutrients in foods and diets is of course relevant for health, this is only one of the characteristics of diets that are relevant to disease, health and well-being.

Foods and diets are more than carriers of nutrients. Foods are produced, transformed and supplied within food systems whose characteristics influence health through their impact on society and the environment. Food systems can be socially and environmentally sustainable promoting justice and protection of the living world. Alternatively they can create many types of inequity and threats to natural resources and biodiversity. At a social level, the context of eating, like when, why, where and with whom meals are consumed as well as the symbolic and emotional values of foods, dishes and meals contribute to the enjoyment of eating, the building of memories and customs and the strengthening of relationships and connections, all of which are important to health and well-being.

Conventional dietary guidelines treat foods as mere carriers of nutrients, so understating the relationship between diet and well-being. They treat foods as mere carriers of nutrient, overlook the cultural dimensions of diet and typically fail to consider the link between diet and the social and environmental sustainability of food systems. Healthy, sustainable dietary guidelines derive from socially and environmentally sustainable food systems.

In Wales, we need sustainable dietary guidelines that take into account not only the nutrient content of food and diet, but also the impact of the means of production and distribution of food on social justice and environmental integrity. The Well-Being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 is about improving the social, environmental, economic and cultural well-being of Wales and sustainability must be embedded into everything public sector bodies in Wales do. Given that food is essential to, and at the centre of, life sustainability should also be built into the food system across Wales. Sustainable Dietary Guidelines would help to improve the availability of healthy, sustainable food choices and hence, over time, a more sustainable food system fit for the 21st century.