Local Authorities' Role
Local Authorities have a number of important parts to play in enabling a post-oil food system. Above all they can help to make land available for producing food.
The coming years will not be the first time that people have needed to provide more for their own food needs. World wars and times of financial hardship already provide precedents of what is possible - and what is needed. These gave rise to "dig for victory" campaigns in which gardens and public parks were used for vegetable production. Allotments go back a long way but numbers were boosted in both world wars. The Land Settlements Acts provided smallholdings for soldiers and sailors returning from the first war. The County Farms estates began a few years before the first war with the clear aim of enabling young people to make a living in food production, generally on just a few acres of land each.
We have suggested throughout this website that, to become more resilient, fruit and vegetable production needs to move much closer to its consumers. Urban and peri-urban horticulture in and around big cities will do much to provide for the fruit and vegetable needs of those cities, and similar patterns will be found in every market town and village. Some produce will be grown by consumers themselves, in their gardens, allotments and dachas. Other produce will be grown in small market gardens squeezed into cities or on the land immediately around cities. This small-scale commercial growing will provide an income for some of the increasing numbers of unemployed people, and as such is likely to outcompete larger-scale commercial growing on price. Both routes help to provide an affordable and resilient supply of food to people in uncertain financial circumstances.
We have also suggested that some people may want to keep a pig or a few chickens. In a resilient food system the right way to keep and feed chickens is on scraps and waste from the household or other sources. This means that the pigs and chickens need to be close to where the waste arises - which includes towns and cities.
Local authority support for this process is essential on a number of fronts:
- Land access. Local authorities (of different tiers) have long been responsible for making land available on a number of scales, from allotments to County Farms. Allotments are needed for families to grow their own food, while the county farms estates have provided land for commercial growing. County Farms estates have lost their way over time, consolidating smallholdings into much larger holdings and letting them for the best available price, simply as a way of earning income for the local authority. It is now time to rediscover the original purpose of County Farms, which is to provide land access for small-scale commercial growing. Smallholdings of 3-10 acres, and even dachas of one acre each, should be the norm. In particular commercial horticultural land is needed in periurban areas (ie within cycling distance of urban populations) and even within cities, as well as in smaller numbers around market towns and even villages. County Farms estates should consider acquiring this kind of land, even if it means selling larger, arable holdings that are further away from centres of population.
- Similarly city, town and parish councils should ensure that plenty of allotment land is available to meet what is likely to be a growing demand. If necessary consideration should be given to turning over parts of public parks or other public green space for use as allotments.
- Planning and housing need to be sympathetic to the need for urban horticultural land of this kind, and also to keeping pigs and chickens in urban areas. Planners and economic development officers should also be mindful of the need to support small millers, bakers, butchers and brewers, who will be needed in every high street.
- Planning also needs to be sympathetic to the need for peri-urban horticultural land, including for sheds and other services along the lines of the dacha model, or else to service larger peri-urban market gardens. The dacha idea includes allowing growers to make overnight stays in their shed, for example at weekends.
- Schools are in the front line in relation to the culture change that will be needed if we are all going to be able to make the move to a lower-meat, low-waste, seasonal diet (and grow some of our own food!). Schools have an important role in shaping the attitudes as well as the skills of young people, and much good work is already being done in this regard. School caterers in the East of England have done much to source more local food, but a bolder step will be needed to introduce a lower-meat, low waste, seasonal and organic diet to school meals. The gap between where we are now, and where we will eventually need to get to, can seem quite daunting.
- Social Services Authorities and those involved in finding employment and training, especially for those with special needs, should give some thought to Care Farming. Food production can provide very suitable training and employment for people with various kinds of special needs. Moreover, this can provide people with employment that is more likely to survive the coming economic dislocations.
East Anglia Food Link will be very happy to advise any local authority in the East of England who wants to discuss these issues further - do Contact Us and have a chat.