All-island Food Poverty Network – Belfast, September 2018
I was invited to give a keynote presentation on my innovative ‘Food as a Lifestyle Motivator’ project, at this year’s All-island Food Poverty Network meeting in Belfast which was hosted by Food Standards Agency Northern Ireland and Safefood.eu.
Presentations provided a rich insight into Ireland’s action around the food poverty agenda. Other presenters at the event included Ms Naomi Davidson of FSA NI who presented food insecurity data in Northern Ireland; Ms Sharon Polson (Dept of Communities) provided an overview of social supermarket pilots in Northern Ireland. Then Mr Michael McDonagh (CrossCare foodbank, Ireland) shared his view on how to create longer term solutions to food banks. Finally Dr Sarah Sheridan presented fascinating findings from Ireland’s recently published report ‘Food Access and Nutritional Health among families in emergency homeless accommodation’.
On reflection I felt the meeting was a richly informative, yet somewhat humbling event that illustrated very similar challenges to what we face here in Plymouth. My presentation was very well received, and resulted in a range of new contacts, who are interested to liaise with her about innovative solutions to food poverty.
I am leading on Food Plymouth’s food poverty theme, and am currently working with local strategic partners to bid for funding to support the co-creation of a food poverty action plan for the city…we will inform you of progress of this workstream. If you are interested please get in touch with me directly: clare.pettinger@plymouth.ac.uk
