Congratulations to Green Futures Associates on securing Esmee Fairbairn Foundation Funding for the innovative Urban Agriculture Consortium. Food Plymouth has been supporting this initiative since its early days. Indeed Jeremy Iles who heads up the Consortium joined us and our partners in the Thrive Plymouth Year 5 Spaces and Places for Food Expo event in January 2019. We look forward to similar collaborations in The future and we wish Jeremy and the Consortium every success. Please read on for further information on the Consortium and its work .
Green Future Associates is delighted to have been awarded a £199,000 grant from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation to help support & catalyse the growth of nature-friendly food growing & tree husbandry in urban & peri-urban areas across the UK
Working as part of the new Urban Agriculture Consortium we will offer policy advice, advocacy, business, land, planning & legal support, peer-mentoring, training & coordination to support pioneering projects to meaningfully up-scale at all levels.
We will work with urban food producers, community food networks, universities & local authorities in 20 pilot towns and cities to see what will work in the wake of Covid-19, and to explore models which can be replicated elsewhere in the UK.
We will contribute to a greater strategic understanding about how to support urban food growing, as well as providing immediate, practical benefits such as skills-sharing, business enterprise support, and policy support for practitioners & local authorities & other key stakeholders.
Jeremy Iles, heading up the Urban Agriculture Consortium said:
“This is a valuable and timely intervention: food security in Britain has been shown to be under threat from unsustainable global supply chains. At the same time there has been a huge upsurge in interest in growing food with many new urban growers starting since the Covid lockdown began.
“Urban agriculture offers many environmental, sustainability, community, and well-being benefits, but faces specific challenges: new approaches to land access & security, procurement policies and financial models are needed”
“We’d like to see all our towns and cities becoming Growing Places – it’s a win-win opportunity as part of a new more sustainable normal”.
Laurence Scott of Esmée Fairbairn Foundation said:
“At Esmée Fairbairn we’re interested in more sustainable food systems. We feel that urban agriculture, at scale, has the potential to shorten supply chains, reduce the emissions associated with food production and to enable local communities to become more engaged with how their food is produced. We expect that expert advocacy and the provision of specialised expert support in a number of demonstration locations will help make the case for the wider uptake of urban agriculture across the UK”.
Notes to Editors:
- The Urban Agriculture Consortium is a new grouping of established stakeholders working collaboratively to support and catalyse the growth of urban and per-urban nature friendly food growing.
Stakeholders include: Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Network UK, Green Future Associates CIC, Middlesbrough Environment City, Open Food Network, Permaculture Association, Regather Sheffield, & Social Farms & Gardens. Dr Jess Davies (Lancaster University) is part of the steering group.
Further supporting stakeholders include: Friends of the Earth, Groundwork UK, Grow Bristol, Incredible Edible Network, Nourish, Real Farming Trust, RSA Food Farming & Countryside Commission, Shared Assets, Sustainable Food Trust, & The Orchard Project.
Sustain & the Sustainable Food Places Network have also offered their backing.
Further consultations with the Landworkers’ Alliance, Farm Start Network & others continue.
- Green Future Associates CIC (GFA) supports organisations and communities to achieve a more sustainable future, with a specific interest and expertise in the community and environmental benefits of local food growing. contact Jeremy Iles at: jeremy@greenfuture.org.uk 07950 266389
3. Esmée Fairbairn Foundation (EFF) aims to improve the quality of life for people and communities throughout the UK both now and in the future. They do this by funding the charitable work of organisations who are building an inclusive, creative, and sustainable society. The Foundation is one of the largest independent grant-makers in the UK. In 2019 EFF made grants of £36 million towards a wide range of work within the arts, children and young people, the environment, food, and social change. They also have a £45 million allocation to social investments for organisations with the aim of creating social impact. For further information see www.esmeefairbairn.org.uk
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