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Action plans set out roadmap for better food systems
The Bristol Good Food Partnership has published action plans to create fairer, greener food systems over the next three years.
They consider how the city’s food is produced, shared, bought and consumed, and look to tackle the health, ecological, climate and cost-of-living crises, all of which food plays a role in.
The vision is for food across the city to be tasty, healthy and affordable for everyone, as well as good for nature and animal welfare, local businesses and communities.
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The plans were developed with community groups, growers and food businesses, and coordinated by the Bristol Food Network.
Hazelnut community farm, based in Greenbank, recently held a composting day for community members. They will be instrumental in taking some of the plan’s urban growing actions forwards – photo: Hazelnut community farm
The action plans outline steps to improve key food system areas: eating better, food justice, food waste, urban growing, good food governance and the local food economy.
These steps provide key players such as Bristol City Council’s allotments, sustainable cities and community development teams, the city’s universities, projects such as Lawrence Weston, Purple Patch and Hazelnut community farms and food growing businesses such as Lush Greens and Sims Hill with specific activities to undertake alongside more overarching aspirations that form a roadmap to achieving targets by 2027.
The urban growing strand sets a target to increase the volume of land available for growing “significantly”, as well as to increase opportunities for people, especially those from groups underrepresented in the sector – where farming and environment are two of the least diverse professions in the UK – to train and become growers.
This has been an issue in Bristol, where the demand for land and desire to grow food or enter horticulture professionally has vastly outstripped opportunity.
The council’s allotments and smallholdings team have been allocated targets to identify and map undervalued land and improve systems for matching land with aspiring growers as well as making it easier, clearer and faster for people to get permission to use council-owned land, by the end of this year.
There is a directive to ensure opportunities that support community health and social impact are prioritised.
Bristol Food Producers have been charged with persuading local MPs to make more land for growing available, while they along with Bristol Food Network and Hazelnut Farm in Greenbank are responsible for promoting already available non-council land more widely.
Other targets include diversifying promotion of available land to open opportunities up to different communities.
Lawrence Weston community farm is leading on pilot projects to engage residents from all backgrounds in food growing, in order to understand barriers to equitable land access and use, and Knowle West Media Centre will invite carers in south Bristol to collaborate on green space growing projects over the next two years.
And the allotments team will work to increase opportunities for collective growing on their sites across the city by 2027 at the latest.
Allotment holders launched a campaign last year to protest rising allotment fees and planned crackdowns on features such as ponds and trees. Now, the council’s allotments team has been charged with opening up more plots for individual and community groups, and promoting nature-friendly techniques on its sites – photo: Mark Simmons
The plan sets out a target for commercial and community led food production to use nature-friendly techniques by 2030.
To implement this, council allotments, parks and green spaces teams have agreed to work to promote nature-friendly growing methods by the end of 2025, while Avon Wildlife Trust will make relevant learning resources more widely available.
The food waste strand sets out a target for household food waste going into black bins to have reduced from its current 25 per cent to less than 10 per cent by 2030.
The food waste working group will collaborate with Bristol Waste, the Bristol Climate and Nature Partnership and others on campaigns and strategies to tackle the issue, while Heart of BS13 growing project and food insecurity charity in Hartcliife will provide training – starting with Hillfields community garden – in community food waste schemes and Bristol universities will research how to makes these viable in the long term.
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There are plans to reduce commercial food waste and increase the volume of waste food recycled, and to increase the amount of food surplus redistributed including work with the council and WECA on initiatives such as community fridges and with charity FareShare to improve links between farms, food producers and residents.
The aspiration to reduce single-use packaging and render reusable cups “the norm” is supported by pioneering environmental organisation City to Sea, with plans including a Harbour Festival cup renting scheme and community consultation to better understand ways to increase uptake of reusable options.
“Delivering on these action plans will require continued collaboration, creativity and commitment”, say Bristol Food Network, inviting any local group or business that would like to get involved to email hello@bristolfoodnetwork.org
Main image: Generation Soil
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