English Our Resilient Local Food Systems (RLFS) project is embarking on a new and exciting phase. But it’s worth exploring what we mean when we say ‘resilient local food systems’, and why this matters to creating a shared vision for a future collective strategy.
Food is a big issue right now. We’re still in the midst of a cost of living crisis, and *profit-driven* inflation over the past year has pushed up food prices to record highs. Hundreds of thousands of households in the UK are living in poverty, and struggling to afford basic necessities. Meanwhile, the UK’s reliance on precarious international supply chains for half of its food is leaving our food system increasingly vulnerable to shocks and empty supermarket shelves.
We believe that there is a golden opportunity to build resilience in our food and farming system and ensure households food security across the country by investing in regional and local food systems.
Last year our former RLFS Project Coordinator Tony Little wrote a blog post presenting the need to upscale local and regional food systems, and highlighting the importance of creating a united vision and action plan to achieve this on scale. For the next 2 years we will be working in collaboration with the above organisations to do exactly this.
With new funding from the Rothschild Foundation, in collaboration with Sustain, Pasture for Life (PFL) the Sustainable Food Trust (SFT) and The Food, Farming and Countryside Commission (FFCC) we will be working to create a shared vision and action plan to achieve a substantial increase in food supplied through shorter and farmer-focused supply chains.
The next phase of our work within the RLFS project will primarily be focussing on local food infrastructure, public procurement and wholesale. We will be working closely alongside Sustain’s Local Food Retail project which will focus on boosting the role of the retail sector in local food systems.
A long-term solution
We remain resolute in our belief that solutions to food insecurity, poverty and public health must be grounded in food sovereignty. While we understand that, for the sake of households across the country, we need to act fast to upscale resilient local food systems, we also know that the proliferation of initiatives like food pantries, community fridges and food banks as a means to address the poverty crisis are only short-term solutions.
In order to address the root of the issue, we must recognise that the problem we are facing is structural. We need a total re-wiring of the food system, one which values food providers, centres local control, and which produces food in a way that works with nature.
The new phase of the RLFS project attempts to contribute to this whole system change – to move our food system from one that operates along global supply chains and in which power is concentrated in corporations and supermarkets, to localised food webs that benefit the communities they feed, the farmers and growers that produce the food and and the ecosystems they operate within.
What do we mean by ‘resilient local food systems’?
What do we mean by resilient?
Economically resilient – not relying on volatile global commodity markets, and being able to build a degree of local economic autonomy
Environmentally/climatically resilient – food produced using agroecological farming practices such as growing diverse crops that are more resilient to extreme weather patterns, pests and disease, and using low-input farming methods that improve soil health and build on-farm resilience without reliance on chemical inputs
Socially resilient – builds community in which people can rely on each other rather than being forced to rely solely on supermarkets and government hand-outs.
What do we mean by local?
We often use local as shorthand for food with locally beneficial outcomes, for the local economy, the local communities and for the local environment
Food which is produced as locally as possible – not imported from overseas when it can be grown in the UK and not transported across the country when it can be produced locally
What do we mean by food system?
The system of food production, processing, distribution and supply that works to feed people, not generate profit.
For more information on our work to upscale localised food production and short supply chains, please see our RLFS webpage, as well as our publications ‘Vocal for Local’ a ‘A Vision for Positive Trade’.
If you work local food wholesale, infrastructure or public procurement and want to be involved in creating a collaborative vision then please get in touch: peter.samsom@landworkersallliance.org.uk.
Photo credit: Salle Moor Market Garden
