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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Grow your own food revolution plans to seed unused land
  • Date: Mon, 04 Jan 2010 19:25:54 -0700


Grow your own food revolution plans to seed unused land
Monday 4 January 2010 18.50 GMT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/04/grow-your-own-unused-land-2030

The government plans to launch a "grow your own" revolution by encouraging
people to set up temporary allotments or community gardens on land awaiting
development or other permanent use.

It aims to develop a "meanwhile" lease to formalise such arrangements between
landowners and voluntary groups and is considering establishing a "land bank"
to broker better links and ensure plots are not left idle.

Ministers believe the move could foster community spirit and skills as well
as improve physical and mental health.

Hilary Benn, the environment and food secretary, will announce the plans
tomorrow as a part of a long-awaited and much-trailed package to ensure
Britain grows more food, wastes less, reduces its dependence on imports, and
leads the way in reforming the EU's common agricultural and fishing policies.

About one in three people in the UK grows fruit and vegetables, according to
a survey commissioned by Benn's department. Ministers hope the voluntary
sector can help build on examples such as that set by the National Trust,
which hopes to have established 1,000 allotment plots on restored kitchen
gardens, agricultural land and vacant spaces, in its varied property
portfolio by 2012.

The cross-departmental policy report, Food 2030, will also support further
farmers' and community markets to boost consumption of local produce.

But, compared with the government's own sustainable development commission,
the report appears more cautious about changing agriculture, by, for
instance, encouraging less reliance on intensive meat and dairy production.

The Food 2030 report will acknowledge that livestock production is a big
contributor to greenhouse gas emissions but say that the evidence that would
allow consumers to decide whether or not to cut the environmental footprint
of their diet, is still unclear. "Not all types of meat have the same
impacts, neither do all systems of production," it will state, while adding
that livestock farming could be the only economically productive activity
possible in some hilly areas.

In a forward to the report Gordon Brown speaks of the need to ensure the
£80bn-a-year food industry thrives, but adds: "We can't carry on just as we
are. We need to produce more food without damaging the natural resources –
air, soil, water and marine resources, biodiversity and climate – that we all
depend on. We need to feed more people globally, many of whom want, or need
to eat, a better diet."

Emma Hockridge, policy manager of the Soil Association, said: " Consumers are
feeling increasingly confused by the proliferation of diet-related advice
doled out by government departments. The debate about meat encapsulates this.
Whilst it is right that we need to eat less meat overall to achieve
sustainable food production, red meat, as long as it is from grass-fed
livestock, has a critical role to play in minimising carbon emissions from
farming. This is because grasslands for grazing represent vitally important
carbon stores.

"The government makes an excellent suggestion that publicly owned land should
be converted to growing spaces. The Soil Association-led Food for Life
Partnership (FFLP) is already leading the way by encouraging schools to grow
their own food. FFLP gives communities access to seasonal, local and organic
food, and to the skills they need to cook and grow fresh food for themselves.
This also encourages people to make the link between their food choices and
the impact on their health and that of the planet."

The campaign group Sustain said the report recommended only "soft" measures,
such as wasting less food, and avoided tough issues, such as reducing
children's consumption of junk food by, for example, properly protecting
youngsters from marketing.

Jeanette Longfield, co-ordinator of Sustain, said: "The government's food
vision is hardly worthy of the name. The document proposes a series of minor
tweaks to our fundamentally unsustainable food system and ignores obvious
ideas to help British farmers, like improving the food that government itself
buys.

"What we need is an ambitious programme of investment in British farming so
that it can produce healthy and sustainable food. If the government is
serious about making our food system sustainable, it must put its money where
its mouth is and only spend taxpayers' money on good-quality and sustainable
food. What we have got is more of the same policies that have caused the food
system's current problems."









  • [Livingontheland] Grow your own food revolution plans to seed unused land, Tradingpost, 01/04/2010

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