Please forward to your network mailing lists, thanks.

[Rob Simpson]

FOOD SOVEREIGNTY UK meeting: Sunday, 18^th May

  

The Warehouse Café, Birmingham

11.am – 4.00pm

 

Free booking at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/food-sovereignty-uk-meeting-tickets-11360277897  

 

 

Help us take the UK Food Sovereignty movement forward.

Food Sovereignty activists are convening a meeting in Birmingham, Sunday, 18^th May, to look at ways to build the movement and develop plans for a national gathering to focus this process. A number of exploratory meetings have already been held: the idea is to set up a core group who will direct resources to local initiatives and networks while also putting together proposals for a 2015 gathering.   

Pathways to Food Sovereignty

We will look at the challenges of setting up local pressure groups that can build campaigns at local government level. A recent gathering of activists at Walthamstow identified "pathways to food sovereignty" that groups could push for at the local level. Specifically targeted at LAs was a raft of issues that, when brought together, form the potential matrix of a Local Food policy for councils at district/borough level.  At the gathering, different interest groups identified shared ideas and good practice which could translate into interesting outcomes if pushed by coalitions of community groups at the local level.

Mobilising around Local Food policy

Food and farming is the glaring omission from the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). Embedded in the Localism Act, it is the guiding document for Local Plans that will govern all planning development nationally for the next 12 years. Sustainable development is enshrined in the NPPF as the "golden thread" guiding all planning decisions, and the absence of any planning policy provision for food and farming is a "golden opportunity" for the food sovereignty movement. All the issues raised at Walthamstow could be part of a local food policy campaign targeting the Local Plan at borough/district level.  Developing coalitions of local community groups looks like an obvious desired strategy.

Coalitions of common interest

Is envisaging Food Sovereignty UK as a coalition of common interest the way to go? Is this something which your group/movement would like to explore? We want to make Food Sovereignty as inclusive as possible. There is a wide range of allied interest groups in the UK and wouldn't representation from these at our next Birmingham meeting be a step along the road to effective local action? That is our hope. Please share this message with your network. Thanks.

 

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/food-sovereignty-uk-meeting-tickets-11360277897