Representatives from Food Cardiff are set to meet local MPs and 110+ other local food leaders in the Houses of Parliament to call for all major political parties to pledge action on the climate and cost-of-living crises, and to recognise the power of local food action and policy in driving change.
They will be coming together in solidarity to celebrate their achievements and to show the resilience and ingenuity of their grassroots solutions, and how the devolved Nations’ governments can support their work through funding, policies, and integration of the food partnership model within every local authority in the UK.
On Wednesday the 13th of November, local leaders from the Sustainable Food Places network will come together with MPs in Portcullis House, Westminster, to celebrate the network’s more than 110 members and over a decade of achievement. The event highlights the role food partnerships play in providing long-term solutions to some of the most pressing issues in our food system, including food insecurity, supply chain disruption and inequity, and the global climate and nature emergency.
Food Cardiff joined the network in 2014 and has since achieved a Gold award for the area.
The network will call on the Government to support a food partnership in every local authority and a Good Food Bill in all four nations, to ensure that all UK residents can benefit from the support, innovation, and long-term solutions driven by the Sustainable Food Places movement.
The event is to feature speakers from Aberdeen, Carmarthenshire, Newry, Mourne & Down, and Cambridge, as well as Emma Lewell-Buck, MP for South Shields, who will be sponsoring the event and is a vocal advocate on children’s health, food security and access.
Sustainable Food Places is a partnership programme coordinated by three national food charities: Food Matters, the Soil Association and Sustain. The Sustainable Food Places programme has been the driving force behind the UK’s rapidly growing food partnership movement. We support food partnerships to grow and prosper by providing support, guidance, and training. By convening and coordinating a national network of food system stakeholders we are supporting change at scale. Our approach puts local communities at the heart of this work, ensuring that local food systems reflect the needs of the people they serve.
Food partnerships are networks bringing together stakeholders from across the food system to develop a shared vision for a more sustainable food future, and coordinate actions necessary to make this vision a reality. They include local authorities, voluntary sector organisations, farmers, local businesses, and residents. By championing a whole system approach to food, they connect issues such as food poverty, ill-health, agriculture, food security, and climate change to develop solutions that transform food and farming in a just and sustainable way.
