The Dynamic Food Procurement National Advisory Board (a mouthful in itself!) has the aim to divert a third of all public sector spending on food and drink, to fresh local produce from sustainable local SMEs producers.
It seeks to achieve this within three years.
It is a Board not without influence: it contains members from Government Departments, Local Authorities, the Soil Association and Sustain.
They published, in March 2020:
A Manifesto for a resilient, adaptable and sustainable UK food system: Fast lessons from COVID-19, calling for:
- Local food procurement by schools, hospitals, care homes, prisons and the armed services across the UK;
- Certainty, to allow local food provision planning;
- Supply made conditional upon sustainable production methods;
- Short ‘food miles’ across production, processing and consumption;
- Identification of public sector food demands and wide publicity.
These are radical ideas that suggest considerable change in local food supply chains.
The full report can be read here.
Local food news from our blog
The All Party Parliamentary Group on the National Food Strategy
The APPG on the National Food Strategy, chaired by Jo Gideon, MP for Stoke on Trent, had its fourth meeting on 25th May to consider the way in which part 2 of the National Food Strategy might embrace the development of urban food systems, the support for rural communities, and how ‘good food’ jobs might be developed. The LFP was there. ItContinue reading “The All Party Parliamentary Group on the National Food Strategy”
Food from the Other Side of the World?
The Tariff-free trade deal with Australia being offered at the end of May, split Cabinet over food. Environment Secretary George Eustice was concerned that because of scale of livestock farming in the Antipodes, UK farmers could be undercut. Whilst these differences have been patched up in Westminster, the National Farmers Union is concerned that hundredsContinue reading “Food from the Other Side of the World?”
The Future of Seed
Seed sovereignty is about growers being able to produce and have control of their seeds – by saving seed from the crops they grow, selecting the strongest and most suitable seeds for breeding, and exchanging seeds freely with others. Sounds simple, right? At the moment, almost all commercial seeds are F1 hybrids. The seeds thatContinue reading “The Future of Seed”
