Will the public consultation on deregulating GMOs deliver?

“Public consultation.”

Two words destined to send most people desperately scrolling for videos of cats doing funny things, or lists of the top 10 ‘must eat’ lockdown comfort foods.

And yet public consultations have meaning – or at least they should.

On 7 January the UK government launched a public consultation into the deregulation of crops and farm animals created using gene editing.

Gene editing is a new and largely experimental genetic engineering technology. We don’t know what its uses or impacts on health or the environment might be. This is because only two gene-edited crops are being grown commercially anywhere in the world: a herbicide-tolerant oilseed rape (SU Canola) and a soybean with an altered fatty acid profile. Both have had only very limited uptake in North America.

In spite of wide-ranging promises made by Defra Minister George Eustice when he launched the consultation at this year’s Oxford Farming Conference, there is no evidence gene-editing will produce more nutritious, better yielding crops and healthier animals, that it will reduce costs to farmers and impacts on the environment, or that it will help agriculture meet the challenges of climate change.

This makes the government’s continued focus on genetic engineering as a sustainabilityquick win’ all the more baffling. But that focus is also a threat to building an agroecological future that draws much-needed attention – and funding – away from truly sustainable solutions.

Beyond GM is currently collaborating with GM Freeze, as part of a Farming the Future funded initiative, to raise awareness of, and respond to, those threats. Part of that initiative includes a response to the consultation.

Three pillars

Our response to the consultation has three pillars:

• Responding to the consultation on its own terms

• Demonstrating public opposition to de-regulation

• Undermining the legitimacy of the consultation

Aware that the majority of UK citizens oppose GM but may not have, at their fingertips, the high levels of “evidence” the Defra consultation is requiring, we have produced advice to the public which sits on both the Beyond GM and GM Freeze websites. This helps those who wish to respond navigate the question and the issues they raise. This has been accompanied by shared social media visuals and a short video.

The initiative is also reaching out to Defra, the Food Standards Agency (and its Scottish equivalent Food Standards Scotland), to MPs and Peers who may be supportive, to actors in the devolved nations, to animal welfare and consumer groups and to those involved in countryside and conservation.

We’ve also created a core email group where those involved in responding to the consultation can update each other on activities and ask for support.

A concrete outcome of this group was that Beyond GM and Slow Food in the UK took the lead in producing a joint letter to major UK supermarkets, asking them to support strong regulation and make a clear statement that they will not stock foods made from unregulated and unlabelled gene-edited plants and animals.

The letter very quickly gained support from more than 50 UK organisations – and not just the usual suspects. Alongside the Soil Association and the Landworkers’ Alliance it was also signed by Green Christian, Students for Sustainability and numerous academics, among them Professor Emeritus of Food Policy at City University, Tim Lang.

This initiative has received a lot of social media support and is now picking up media attention, especially in high-readership trade magazines such as Retail Times, The Grocer and Natural Products News.

We’ve now received an unequivocal response from the Co-Op saying that its policy of prohibiting GM will extend to gene-editing, which was covered in the Daily Mail. We are in discussion with other retailers and have stepped up our outreach to supermarkets now by offering to facilitate bespoke online briefings with their teams.

Beyond GM is also co-hosting a Farmer’s Assembly in collaboration with the ETC group. Farmers are so often left out of the discussion and we fear their voices could be lost if they don’t respond to the consultation. This online meeting will be a chance to connect with peers and hear a variety of views. We hope it will be the first of more assemblies and that it will inform and support our work on responding to the threat that genome editing poses to agroecology.

Each of these actions helps respond to the consultation on its own terms and demonstrate public opposition to deregulation. But the government has also made some key missteps that provide an opportunity to undermine the legitimacy of the consultation.

A flawed process

Beyond GM has submitted a complaint to Defra Minister George Eustice about the process of the consultation. Our complaint lists the multiple ways in which the consultation is not being conducted in line with Cabinet Office Consultation Principles.

Perhaps the most important of these Principles states that: “Consultations should have a purpose. Do not consult for the sake of it” and that government should “not ask questions about issues on which you have already formed a final view”.

The government has clearly formed a final view and this alone makes the consultation a hollow exercise.

Public consultations are also supposed to be targeted, easy to understand and to respond to. They are also supposed to be informative, providing enough information to ensure that those consulted understand the issues and can give informed responses. They should also include “validated impact assessments of the costs and benefits of the options being considered when possible.”

This consultation does not meet any of these acid tests. It is notable that, in addition to complaints from the general public, we have come across researchers working in this area who find the entire consultation heavy going and/or who have failed to understand what it is actually about.

Ministers are not, of course, obliged to respond to complaints from civil society or citizens. But the fact that George Eustice and Defra Permanent Secretary Tamara Finkelstein have not acknowledged the letter at all, let alone responded to the serious concerns raised, is indicative of a level of contempt for civil society and the general public we find baffling.

We believe that the process could have been so much better – and still could be. We remain committed to trying to have that discussion with the government.

Hasty recklessness

Politically speaking there is an awful lot going on in the UK’s food, farming and environment sphere at the moment. It’s easy to dismiss gene editing as just one of many topics. But it’s worth remembering that, for the UK government, gene editing is the key tool in the ‘sustainability tool box’ and deregulation is essential to put that tool to use.

For the UK to consider removing regulatory controls from an entire class of genetically engineered products is, at best, hasty and at worst, reckless. Even those who have a more positive attitude to GM have signalled this belief to us.

Prior to the launch of the consultation, we, and others, made repeated requests to Defra to understand and even feed into the scope of the consultation before its launch. We received no responses.

Such a heads up would have signalled the government’s willingness to have a dialogue and would have helped us organise our own thoughts and preparations. But, in the end, civil society was given less than 24 hours’ notice of the launch of the consultation which runs for just 10 weeks (instead of the usual 12) until 17 March.

Ten weeks is no time at all to accelerate from zero to a full-blown awareness-raising campaign and yet this is what we have had to do.

It’s also not time enough for anyone other than those who have already formed an opinion to make a considered response to a complex issue.

The outcome is by no means written in stone, but the government’s hasty recklessness has served to exclude the general public, reinforce the same old battle lines and foment the same old divisive discussions that have stymied us all for years.

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Author: Pat THomas

Director of Beyond GM. She is a journalist and the author of multiple books on environment, health and food. Pat is a former editor of the Ecologist magazine and has also sat on the boards of the Soil Association and the Organic Research Centre.

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Growing agroecological farming businesses: supporting new entrants with the Mentoring Programme

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Written by Steph Wetherell from Landworkers Alliance. This blog post is part of the Farming the Future series. Their project; An Agroecologial Mentorship Network is a collaboration with the Ecological Land Cooperative and the CSA Network UK.

Each month, the A Team Foundation will be showcasing a grantee from the fund and how the support is helping to achieve their goals and ambitions.

New entrants to farming face a perfect storm of barriers. From inflated land prices to a lack of training opportunities, high capital costs to challenges accessing the market, building a strong and sustainable farming business is difficult. Yet we need a huge number of new farmers; in 2017, a third of all farm-holders were over the age of 65 and only 3% were under 35 years old. So how do we cultivate and support new entrants through this process?

The Landworkers’ Alliance is a union of farmers, foresters and landworkers with a mission to improve the livelihoods of our members and create a better food and land-use system for everyone. Alongside our policy and lobbying work, we work to provide practical support and assistance to our members – from training to network building.

One of the key issues that we have identified over the last few years was that the first five years of running a farming business is key. People may have experience growing or farming in another business, but running your own independent business can be really challenging. Suddenly, in addition to the practical skills you need, you are faced with the potential obstacles of marketing, sales, distribution and finance. In addition, things don’t always work out as planned and it may be necessary to change the way you work – explore new routes to market, find additional customers, or diversify or expand your production.

Alongside this we have a network of experienced practitioners who have learnt a huge amount along their farming journey and have a lot to share with new entrants. People who have made mistakes, found successes and ultimately built a strong and sustainable business. The question then became how to best match up the need with the opportunity.

Inspired by a scheme running in Canada, we undertook a feasibility study into running a mentoring programme for new entrant farmers. Looking at the Canadian scheme, along with the Making a Living From Local Food scheme run by Nourish in Scotland, and other mentoring programmes, we developed a plan for a similar UK wide programme. We teamed up with the CSA Network and the Ecological Land Cooperative to apply for funding from the Farming the Future programme, and then joined with the Organic Growers Alliance who had also been considering a mentoring programme, meaning we could run a larger two year pilot programme. Working as a collective to run the programme has brought a richness to the offering – both in terms of the experience of the steering group in designing of the programme, but also in terms of contacts and expertise in terms of the people we were able to recruit to act as mentors.

Learning from the Nourish programme, we incorporated group mentoring into our design. The ability to meet other local new entrants and learn from them as well as your mentor (plus the possibility of ongoing peer mentoring from within this group), felt like a perfect balance to the dedicated one-on-one hours. Everything was tied together with a group gathering where all the mentees and mentors would meet for a day of community building.

We launched the programme, selected the mentees, found experienced mentors and organised the group gathering… and then Covid-19 struck - everything was up in the air. Thankfully with a good chunk of work, and flexibility from the mentees and mentors, the scheme was adapted for the lockdown restrictions. The in-person group gathering became an online event, with mentors receiving three hours of training in the morning, and the mentees gathering to meet each other and learn about the other participants journeys in the afternoon. Unfortunately a few mentees were not able to take part in the scheme this year, needing to focus on the changes that the Covid-19 pandemic created, but 14 mentees have spent the last six months being mentored, and have a further three months left before the end of the scheme.

To fit around differing needs during lockdown and physical distancing, groups were given the choice of how and when they structured the mentoring. Some opted to dive into online mentoring, others waited until they were able to meet up face to face. There were also a few exceptions to the group mentoring setup, where mentee’s location or sector meant there was no appropriate group for them to be part of. In this case, they were offered an increased amount of one-on-one mentoring instead, allowing them access to the expertise that’s appropriate to them.

Feedback has been really positive from the participants this year:

“I was able to develop a great relationship with my Mentor which I would hope to maintain and nourish. His openness and willingness to share both his knowledge and intimate/crucial details of his own business operation is refreshing and invaluable.”

“The mentoring programme helped us to set 3 clear goals for this year: find, by the end of the season, where we are going to grow for the long term (we currently rent our site), reach a certain turnover target, determine what essential investments we need to do on our current site to make the growing season a success. Our mentors gave us the confidence to look for different sites options and we ended up putting an offer for the land we are currently renting (the offer has been accepted). We reached 75% of our target turnover with 6 months left in the year. We have a clearer vision about the priority investments to be made”

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AUTHOR: STEPH WETHERELL

Steph coordinates the national Farm Mentoring Programme and UK Farmstart Network for the Landworkers’ Alliance, a national union that is working to support small-scale agroecological farmers and landworkers.

Steph is also writer at The Locavore, a journal that enabled her to connect with local food around the city of Bristol. This work led her to coordinate Bristol Food Producers, a network of local growers, producers, retailers, distributors, restaurants and supporters who are working to increase the amount of local food produced in and around the city.

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READ MORE ABOUT FARMING THE FUTURE 2019

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Defending UK Pesticide Standards From Trade Deals

Written by Josie Cohen from PAN UK. Their project - ‘Protecting UK pesticide standards from post-Brexit trade deals’ - is a collaboration with Sustain and Dr Emily Lydgate from Sussex University.

Each month, the A Team Foundation will be showcasing a grantee from the fund and how the support is helping to achieve their goals and ambitions.

As an EU Member State, the UK has enjoyed the strongest pesticide regime in the world in terms of protecting human health and the environment. The current UK system suffers from major deficiencies which PAN UK and many others are working hard to fix, but it remains a huge improvement on the protections offered elsewhere. As a result, post-Brexit trade deals pose a major threat to UK pesticide standards. Agricultural powerhouses such as the US are attempting to drive down our standards so that their companies are able to sell currently-banned, chemical-laden food to UK citizens.

What are the potential impacts of a drop in UK pesticide standards?

If UK trade negotiators bow to the demands of trade partners such as the US then the amount of pesticides in food consumed in the UK could soar. American grapes, for example, are allowed to contain 1,000 times the amount of the insecticide propargite than their UK equivalents. Propargite has been linked to cancer and classified as a ‘developmental or reproductive toxin’, meaning that it can negatively affect sexual function and fertility and can cause miscarriages. Pesticides not currently permitted to be present in our food could also soon be allowed to appear. Chlorpyrifos - which has been shown to negatively affect the cognitive development of foetuses and young children and was banned in the EU in 2019 – is just one of many examples.

As well as threatening human health, a drop in UK pesticide standards would also pose a major risk to the environment. Trade partners such as the US and India have a history of challenging the EU’s relatively precautionary approach to which pesticides are allowed for use, and the UK is already coming under similar pressure. Australia, the US and India all allow the use of pesticides which the UK prohibits because they are highly toxic to bees and pollinators, including neonicotinoids which are notorious for driving massive declines in bee populations. They also authorise pesticides known to contaminate groundwater and harm aquatic ecosystems, such as the herbicides atrazine and diuron.

These risks also pose an economic threat to the future of UK agriculture. If UK food starts to contain higher levels of more toxic pesticides then British farmers will struggle to meet EU standards, thereby losing their primary export destination which currently accounts for 60% of UK agricultural exports. Equally concerning, British farmers could be undercut by a flood of imported crops grown more cheaply on a larger scale and to lower standards. It’s crucial that the Government protects British farming by defending pesticide standards, particularly in trade negotiations with agricultural powerhouses such as the US and Australia.

What are governments saying?

The US, in particular, has made it very clear that weakening UK pesticide standards is one of their top priorities. They employ a wide range of tactics including attempts to persuade the UK to abandon the Precautionary Principle, which states that action should be taken to prevent harms to health or environment as long as there are reasonable grounds for concern. The Trump administration is also pushing for requirements for the UK to consult with the US Government and private sector (including the powerful US agrochemical industry) before introducing any new regulations or bans, including those designed to better protect health or environment.  This is a far cry from the UK Government’s narrative that we are ‘taking back control’ of our trade policy.

In stark contrast, the EU has been trying to get the UK to commit to maintaining existing protections and has been clear from the outset that it will not allow imports of agricultural produce from the UK unless they meet its pesticide standards. The EU and US are offering conflicting, almost opposite paths, which have the potential to lead to two very different futures for UK health, environment and agriculture. At some point, the UK Government is going to have to make a fundamental choice – does it want to maintain current levels of pesticide protections (inadequate as they are) or bow to the US Government in trade negotiations thereby ushering in a more toxic future?

So far the response from the UK Government to this fundamental question has been very confusing and not at all reassuring. After a huge amount of public pressure, they have promised to maintain food standards but have then fought against every opportunity to enshrine this commitment into law.  Given that there are almost no opportunities in the UK for public or parliamentary scrutiny of trade negotiations, they are asking for the UK public to simply believe them that they won’t trade away our hard-won pesticide standards behind closed doors.

What are we doing about it?

Thanks to the funding from Farming the Future, PAN UK, Sustain and Sussex University trade expert Dr Emily Lydgate teamed up to expose the dangers posed by post-Brexit trade deals to UK pesticide standards. The partnership combined PAN UK’s decades of experience working on pesticides with Sustain’s in-depth knowledge of agriculture and Emily’s Lydgate’s technical expertise and academic rigour as a specialist in international trade law.

Before our project began, despite the high likelihood of ending up with larger amounts of more toxic pesticides in UK food, farms and gardens, the issue was not getting the attention it so badly needed. It was crucial to get the message out to both decision-makers and the general public so that we could start generating the kind of public outrage we have seen towards US chlorinated-chicken. Ultimately, we wanted the UK Government to feel scrutinised on the issue of trade and pesticides so that they are less willing to agree to a weakening of standards during negotiations.

After many months of preparation, on 9th June 2020, we launched our report Toxic Trade. The report compared UK pesticides standards with those of the US, Australia and India and included analysis of each country’s negotiating objectives and approach to regulating pesticides. It caused an immediate splash and was featured in a wide range of media including The Telegraph, Financial Times, Independent, Mail on Sunday and various farming press. The authors did broadcast interviews for Radio 4, Sky News and Heart FM.  It struck a chord with the public and the short video that accompanied the report received more than a quarter of a million views and 5,000 people wrote to their MPs. Many of our NGO allies shared the report, as did online influencers such as James Resbanks and Julia Bradbury.

To accompany the report launch, we conducted YouGov polling which revealed that the UK public is overwhelmingly opposed to any lowering of UK pesticide standards to meet the demands of other countries’ trade negotiators. 71% of respondents are ‘concerned’ that a trade deal with the US in particular will increase the amount of pesticides in the food they consume, with 43% of people ‘very concerned’. The same figure (71%) agree that the UK Government must resist pressure in trade negotiations with the US to overturn bans on pesticides, even if this means the “best” trade deal cannot be reached. Meanwhile, 79% are concerned about impacts to health resulting from a lowering of UK pesticide standards with 77% worried about negative impacts on the environment.

All this noise got the UK Government to sit up and take notice. Defra issued a formal response on the day and has replied with more detail since. In addition to our ongoing engagement with Defra, PAN UK has been added to the Department for International Trade’s list of stakeholders in order to offer advice and a ministerial meeting is in the process of being arranged. Labour has also been extremely supportive and we have met with both the frontbench and a number of backbenchers on the issue. Our findings have already been mentioned numerous times in parliament during the debates over the Agriculture Bill.

 What happens next?

Toxic Trade showed that the UK public cares deeply about protecting pesticide standards and the report continues to generate more attention than we could have hoped. It has got journalists and the public to take notice and kicked off ongoing conversations with key decision-makers in both government and parliament.

This momentum is fantastic but there is still a long way to go. It is very early days for UK trade and we remain some way off from completing a deal with any country. As trade negotiations continue over the next few years (and likely beyond) it is absolutely crucial that we continue to keep up the pressure on the Government. To this end the partners plan to continue to work together to conduct research, media work and advocacy.

If we don’t make sure our voices continue to be heard in the highest echelons of Government then UK citizens and wildlife are likely to end up more exposed to hazardous pesticides and, ultimately, it will be our health and environment that pay the price.

Email your MP today to tell them to protect your health and the environment by taking action against #toxictrade

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AUTHOR: JOSIE COHEN

Josie joined PAN UK in June 2017 to head up the organisation’s UK campaigning, policy and communications work. She studied politics at university and has spent the last fifteen years working as a campaigner for a range of organisations including the League Against Cruel Sports and Save the Children. For the past decade she has focused on social, environmental and human rights issues associated with large-scale agriculture, leading ActionAid UK’s biofuels campaign and working on land rights for Global Witness. She is a trustee of Sustain and an advisor to the Climate Counsel.

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Read more about Farming the Future 2019

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A Coronavirus Emergency Response Fund for future-proof farming

10 Covid crisis responses, funded by Farming The Future, that rose to meet the many challenges of the moment with short-term solutions that lead to long-term regenerative resilience.

Coronavirus exposed many cracks in the food system on which we depend. The few supermarket chains relied upon to keep food flowing onto shelves were flooded with pressure and those cranking the strained supply chain named key workers. Nations prioritised their own food supply and global imports stalled, as the UK entered its ‘growing gap’ and the fragility of our food security entered the headlines. 

In the fields farmers grafted harder than ever, planting complex growing systems whilst responding to unprecedented demand for food and rapidly reorienting their routes to market. Meanwhile, farms felt the absence of seasonal workers due to international travel restrictions, as the national workforce was impeded by the pandemic.

With restaurants and markets closed by Covid, food needed to reach people in other places and new ways. The most vulnerable citizens, already more likely to suffer from food injustice, were left counting on the kindness of their communities, dependent on desperate food banks, or relying on the army to deliver emergency food parcels without the nutrition needed during a health crisis.

Farming The Future launched an emergency response fund for organisations on the frontline, to support short-term crisis solutions with long-term strategies for future crises, fortifying the UK’s food security and regenerative food movement. Applications were invited from groups previously funded by FTF partners - The A Team Foundation, The Roddick Foundation, Samworth Foundation or Thirty Percy Foundation - so they could be accepted in a flexible format and processed swiftly, recognising the urgency and pressure already weighing heavily on organisations.

We’re proud to share the 10 projects that received funding with you here. If you would like to know more about the work, please feel free to email Robert@ateamfoundation.org 

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A support network for new ways of working

Project lead: Community Supported Agriculture Network

Partners: FarmEd, Land Workers Alliance, Organic Growers Alliance, Soil Association 

Providing urgently needed business advice to the food and farming community was a priority, with several mentorship project applications being submitted. Farming the Future therefore brought together a handful of organisations and asked them for a coordinated response to the Covid crisis. A support network was formed between the Community Supported Agriculture Network (CSA); a cooperative membership scheme that promotes fair and transparent food production, FarmED; a regenerative farming and sustainable food education centre, the Land Workers Alliance (LWA); a union of farmers, foresters and land-based workers, the Organic Growers Alliance (OGA); a peer-to-peer support network of growers, and the Soil Association; collaborating with organisations and individuals across the food and education system to promote organic food and farming since 1946.

The project provides education and advice to growers and food businesses having to rethink their business structures due to the pandemic. Using their different strengths, expertise and audiences, the organisations designed a package of support to cover diverse issues using various formats, cross-promoting and signposting to one another, to make it as accessible as possible. In this way, a stronger support network was provided for the growing community at this time of need. 

Knowledge shared through the network included tools for setting up a CSA or box scheme, stories of positive, diverse Covid responses from growers and communities to inform and inspire, expert advice from Soil Association producer and supply chain teams, and an extension of their Food for Life Programme to support cooks in schools and care homes.

By coming together to help small-scale farmers and growers navigate the immediate crisis, the network is helping to keep quality food on forks, whilst building awareness and growing engagement in the regenerative food movement. By helping more people to adopt new methods and markets, the more resilient and thriving our local food system and environment will become in the long term.

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Keeping the community kitchen cooking

Project lead: The Larder (Lancashire and Region Dietary Education Resource)

The Larder is a small social enterprise with a big vision of ‘food fairness for all’, promoting healthy, sustainable food whilst tackling food poverty and food waste. A café and catering business in Preston that cooks with local, ethical ingredients, the venue hosts local activist and wellbeing groups and is home to a food academy for learners including ex-offenders, Syrian refugees and low-income families, and trains community ‘Food Champions’.

Photo from The Larder

Swiftly transforming the community kitchen into a Covid response unit, The Larder delivers 50-150 nutritious meals a day to vulnerable members of the community who are referred by local authorities and charities. Supported by rapidly recruited volunteers and founder of the Granville Community Kitchen, Dee Woods, The Larder quickly set up and began ‘Cooking for our Community’ on 23rd March: the day that lockdown began.

Continuing to support local producers through procurement and working more closely with local charities and authorities, The Larder’s relationships have been nurtured during the crisis. As well as meals, The Larder began offering online cookery courses for the community, including a ‘Kids in the Kitchen’ programme, delivered to 36 families along with the ingredients for 10 recipes at Easter, in partnership with a local housing association.

FTF funding is contributing to The Larder’s immediate community Covid response, which will include a cookery programme for 120 families over the summer holiday, and the continued provision of nutritious meals for those in need until the end of the year. A long-term recovery strategy aims to create community food independence and empowerment, including expansion of online resources and working with local government and Syrian Resettlement programme to support people who are even more vulnerable since the crisis hit, so that they will be food secure for the future.

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Who Feeds Us? Stories from a Crisis

Project lead: Farmerama

The award-winning agroecology amplifier - Farmerama, asks the question that the Covid crisis raised for many: ‘Who Feeds Us?’ A collection of stories about people who grow and process our food, how they were affected by Covid, their hard work and incredible capacity for innovation, will make up a podcast series that aims to solidify the relationships built between the food community during the pandemic, nourishing them for the future.

Promoting those who came together to feed their communities in new ways, Farmerama will provide a platform for the underrepresented and diverse voices on the ground and at home, building bonds whilst developing awareness of the wider movement. By explaining the current state of our food system alongside responses and solutions, the dream of food sovereignty will be brought to life by mapping the paths carved during the pandemic that could lead to a resilient, new food system to serve us for many years to come. 

In order to engage many more citizens in the subject of food sustainability, equality and economics, Farmerama’s plan encompasses niche networks, celebrity influencers, local and national PR, to promote the benefits of supporting local food producers, and the importance of a regenerative food system for everyone in society. We all need to eat, therefore we all need to know: ‘Who feeds us?’

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Getting products from pasture to people during a pandemic

Project lead: Pasture-Fed Livestock Association 

The Pasture-Fed Livestock Association (PFLA) certifies and promotes 100% pasture-fed meat and dairy in the UK; recognised and renowned for its highly nutritional quality, as well as environmental and animal welfare. PFLA members include certified farmers, butcheries and dairies who work with livestock that have been pasture-fed for their whole lives.

With the catering and restaurant industry closed for business, PFLA members had to find new routes to market. A shorter supply chain for people to buy directly from producers required a new level of operation and expertise that many small businesses lacked, including marketing, sales and delivery. 

To help the pasture-fed community navigate the new supply chain, PFLA received funding to produce a package of support, including guidance for direct sales from the farm through to e-commerce, packaging and logistics. As well as being available for questions and advice, PFLA is also building relationships with larger sales platforms, advocating for its members to be represented, and supporting retail businesses in the promotion of pasture-fed produce.

The funding also enables PFLA to develop regional groups, identified by members as the best solution to supply chain issues, bringing together local farmers, butchers and retailers. This initiative is a leading example of the collaborative, local networks needed to drive resilient, thriving economies and communities, growing out of the regenerative food movement and found across the globe in emergency responses to Covid that could create long-term advances for climate, community and food justice.

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Growing the community food connection during Covid

Project lead: Growing Communities

Growing Communities (GC) offers an equitable, community-led route to market for small-scale organic farmers through a local organic veg box membership scheme and farmers’ market in East London. With growing sites, training programmes, a network of like-minded retailers and a new model of wholesale supply, GC generate income for growers as well as enriching lives and caring for the planet.

At the onset of the Covid crisis, GC received a huge rise in demand from existing and new members for the healthy, immune-supporting, nutritious food it offers. Meanwhile, farmers were left with surplus, without food markets and restaurants to supply, and an urgent need for direct routes to market, such as the one provided by GC. 

Covid created a whirlwind of staff safety regulation, creating a need for extra space to pack and store food safely. A buddy scheme was born for customers unable to collect their veg boxes, and GC home deliveries. These extra costs flew in at the same time as income from the stall and other outlets disappeared, so, despite increased revenue from sales, the books didn’t balance and the business suffered a loss. 

GC found themselves to be considered an ‘essential service’ and their staff ‘key workers’, which validated the sustainable ethos of their business model whilst they continued supplying the community with fresh, nutritious food during the crisis. With funding to help recover the unexpected financial loss, GC’s purpose has been proven during this testing time, and can now continue to be cultivated by the growing trust and loyalty between farmers, suppliers and citizens.

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A local compass for regenerative farming in public procurement

Project lead: Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group

Partners: Boomcircle, National Farmers Union, Countryside Community Research Institute, Sustainable Food Trust

The Farmland Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG), a Gloucestershire-based charity formed in the 1960s, was created by a group of forward-thinking farmers who recognised the health of the environment as a key for success in farming. FWAG provides trusted, independent advice to the farming community, on how and why to improve and benefit from the environmental value of their land within the current climate.

With food in the limelight during the Covid crisis, the long distance between people and places where food is grown has been shown up. County councils are starting to ask what they could do to safeguard the food security of their communities for the future; cue regenerative farming entering the conversation.

‘The Compass Project’, funded by FTF, includes a FWAG template for ‘Dynamic Procurement Systems’ that invites local authorities and regenerative food businesses into a circular model for regionalised economic recovery. This initiative encourages public institutions such as schools and hospitals to serve locally sourced, nutritious food, as well as investment into regenerative agriculture. 

The stimulus aims to increase short-term confidence of an economic recovery for food and farming industries, whilst hospitality and tourism get back on their feet. Longer-term, it stimulates the sustainable growth of a local economy, creating jobs, innovation and resilience, as well as producing human and environmental health benefits. This compass for public food procurement hopes to guide other regional authorities towards building a regenerative food industry, paving the way from Gloucestershire across the country. 

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Providing Manchester people with Manchester veg 

Project leads: The Kindling Trust

Partners: Veg Box People and Manchester Veg People

The Kindling Trust projects encourage the growth of local organic veg, which, working alongside Manchester Veg People (MVP) and Veg Box People (VBP) - co-ops of local growers, buyers and workers, is supplied to people, restaurants and caterers. This family of not-for-profit social enterprises champions a fairer, sustainable, Manchester-based food model that values the land and people growing food regeneratively.

FTF funding is aiding a long-term expansion of this veg box scheme, as an emergency response to the Covid crisis. Demand for VBP’s veg boxes exploded to include those struggling to access food, as collection points closed, and MVP’s orders disappeared with the orders from restaurants and institutions. Meanwhile, The Kindling Trust had to start planting at the same time as losing the volunteer base.

Responding to the needs and challenges of lockdown, operations were reorganised to provide home delivery, social support and Covid-proof volunteer opportunities. Continuing to supply veg box members and accept some new subscribers, the expansion will enable the enterprises to support and engage others who haven’t accessed their fresh organic local veg before, with more packing space, more people to pack and more time to publicise it. 

This crisis has only strengthened the working relationships, reach and value of The Kindling Trust, MVP and VBP’s work in the community. The growth in membership and operation of the box scheme, with ongoing promotion and awareness, will retain its worth well beyond the Covid crisis across the changed landscape.

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Levelling the growing field in a time of crisis

Project lead: Land Workers Alliance

Project partners: Community Supported Agriculture Network, Better Food Traders, Independent Food Aid Network, Open Food Network 

Land Workers Alliance (LWA) is a union of farmers, foresters and land-based workers that aims to improve livelihoods, food and land-use systems. Picking up on data collected during the Covid crisis showing a 113% increase in demand for veg boxes, LWA received funding to provide strategic support for veg box producers.

LWA worked with the CSA Network to identify 6-8 diverse food businesses embedded in their local communities, that can respond quickly to this and future food crises, but, despite growing demand, are reluctant to take out loans due to the recession. A mix of rural and urban farms with links to a community kitchen or food aid scheme will receive grants to help them reorientate, increase production and improve access to food.

Grants require the farms to incorporate agroecology and access to food for vulnerable people or key workers through the Independent Food Aid Network. Measures of the initiative’s success are being delivered to DEFRA - policy makers in England and Wales, whilst stories from the project are harvested for PR campaigns that encourage people to stick with local suppliers and veg boxes, and promote the benefits of regenerative farming. A short-term response to this crisis, this strategic collaboration supports community-focused solutions for the long-term transition into a sustainable and more equalised food system.

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Ensuring the seeds of food sovereignty continue to be sewn

Project lead: Gaia Foundation

The Gaia Foundation’s seed sovereignty programme works with organic seed growers and distributors to enable the transition to agroecological farming across the globe. Projects involve training new growers as well as raising awareness and creating understanding of seed sovereignty, and its role in creating regenerative, transformative change.

In the light of the Covid crisis on the precarious, unfair and unsustainable nature of our current food system, demand for organic seeds increased by up to 600%, as people tried to take food security into their own hands and land. The small businesses that produce and trade seeds found themselves overwhelmed by demand, struggling to fulfil supply whilst also cultivating next year’s crop with reduced capacity (due to self isolation / physical distancing).

FTF funding will provide the means for Gaia-supported producers to grow their operations efficiently, so they can package and distribute more seeds more easily, and ensure the cultivation of seeds for next year and many years to come. Sustainable growth will allow the seed sovereignty movement to keep up with the momentum being gained by regenerative farming following this crisis, for a more food secure future.

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Market Garden Cities creating Capital Growth

Project lead: Sustain

Sustain, ‘the alliance for better food and farming’, has supported thousands of London food gardens for over a decade, working with land-owners, growers, community enterprises, councils and local government. A survey of its network during the Covid crisis confirmed an increase in the demand for fresh fruit and vegetables, and, despite physical distancing, the importance of keeping gardens open to grow more of them.

Sustain turned to its ‘Capital Growth’ network, consisting of commercial peri-urban farms, small community gardens and individual plot-style spaces on estates, to create a pilot ‘Market Garden City’. Funded by FTF, communities of skilled growers, local volunteers and distribution networks are coming together around 50 gardens. Data from the project is being harvested for a scaling-up report of the initiative.

Aiming to increase the production and distribution of fresh food in the wake of Covid, Sustain will develop the blueprint longer-term by its ‘Sustainable Food Places’ programme, and ‘Good to Grow’ national networks. As this crisis demonstrates the urgency of urban growing for feeding city dwellers, and local authorities become more engaged in community enterprise, it’s the perfect time to implement projects that reveal and realise the potential for a localised, resilient, regenerative future food system.

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