Dr Lydia Medland IAA Bristol Model Placement Award has been awarded funding to undertake a co-produced impact project: ‘A People-focused Approach to Food System Policy and Practice with the Soil Association’.
This impact project responds to multiple crises for the UK food system; climate change, increasing input costs, and worker and skills shortages are all underlined by very tight margins for food growers and producers. This project takes the horticultural sector as a starting point. As public and private health campaigns often remind consumers: we need our ‘5 a day’ of fruit and vegetables to prevent life-long health conditions. Edible horticulture, the sector that grows this nutritious food, requires more people than any other type of farming.
Fruit and vegetables are increasingly sourced from overseas. Yet, food security is also of public concern. Importing food from lower-income countries can displace social and environmental impacts elsewhere, leaving them out of sight and unresolved. Policy and public consensus hold that a horticultural sector should remain viable in the UK and a transition should be made towards nature-friendly farming practices that deal with issues arising in situ (See: Feeding Britain, Lang, 2020 on these debates). Agroecology, organic agriculture and nature-friendly farming are practices that seek to reduce detrimental impacts. The Soil Association is a leader in promoting these practices.
This project takes a novel approach through a collaboration that re-imagines how individuals who grow food are discussed and supported in policy and practice. Prompted by Medland’s research findings, we will re-consider who works to produce fruit and vegetables in England* and how ways in which they are labelled aid or undermine them. Furthermore, we will explore how under-valued groups could be further supported to ensure both their well-being and the longevity of the edible horticulture sector, something crucial for food security.