Feeding the Interest - Community Food and Health
Feeding the Interest - Community Food and Health
Feeding the Interest - Community Food and Health
- No tags were found...
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
communities<strong>Food</strong> is important to society in many ways. This is clearly demonstratedby <strong>the</strong> many community projects <strong>and</strong> initiatives which are tacklinglocally identified issues. However, <strong>the</strong>re is a lack of policy which linkslocal food to social need. The local food sector has <strong>the</strong> potential toalleviate social <strong>and</strong> economic disadvantage <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> impact this hason business, diet <strong>and</strong> health. There is significant scope to increase <strong>the</strong>uptake of local food. With a co-ordinated approach, locally producedfoods could be sold locally at affordable prices <strong>and</strong> still be profitablefor <strong>the</strong> supplier. This would need greater co-operation amongproducers <strong>and</strong> better connections between suppliers <strong>and</strong> consumers.Co-operative working associated with local food initiatives – suchas developing project management skills, networking <strong>and</strong> buildinglinks with local colleges <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> tourism sector – can make a valuablecontribution to community development <strong>and</strong> social capital building.communitieskey questionsWhich organisations are bestplaced to nurture <strong>and</strong> promote<strong>the</strong> local food sector atcommunity level?How can access to existing localproduce be improved to benefitconsumers?An issue for remote rural communities is getting fresh local producera<strong>the</strong>r than centrally sourced food, which is often all that is available.Even in more urban areas, people may depend on a small corner shopwith little fresh local produce. One way to exp<strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> market is toconvince local businesses that it makes good business sense to stocklocal, traceable produce.Home food production is important for some, although allotmentsare relatively scarce in Scotl<strong>and</strong> compared to Engl<strong>and</strong>. Gardenproduction of fruit <strong>and</strong> vegetables is geographically widespread, <strong>and</strong>is a significant source for some households. Traditional social pastimes,such as wild fruit harvesting, have declined in recent years, but o<strong>the</strong>rs,such as ga<strong>the</strong>ring fungi, have increased.Recent crises in food <strong>and</strong> farming have dented consumer confidence.Encouraging consumers to have direct contact with producers is oneway to improve consumer confidence. Farmers markets, vegetable boxschemes, community-supported agriculture <strong>and</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r forms of directsales, are good examples of this.14