What is the starting block for regenerative farming?
Circular Communities Cymru, unapologetically, advancing community as the bedrock of the emerging Circular Economy, has long since recognised the opportunities of ensuring that all of our food needs can be served locally.
The starting point, with Wales facing both food inequality and food waste on an industrial scale, is to drive forward with flexible solutions, such as our Community Fridge roll-out, to deal with these inadequacies in the food system.
Longer-term, Wales faces a huge opportunity in growing food in greater quantity and variety in order to meet more of its own food needs. The benefits of greater and more stable incomes for farmers in Wales has to be a good thing in ambitions to rejuvenate our fragile rural economy and seriously fight back against rural displacement of talent. From increased jobs to sustainable and regenerative farming with the right frameworks we can reduce carbon and reduce food inequality.
But what frameworks should be used, what is the starting point? In true Circular Communities Cymru fashion, the answer is here in the community. Investing in our soils by looping back organic waste into soil nutrition, with some of the programme design that we're currently putting together with world-renowned Gerry Gillespie, will be our contribution to this evolving debate. You can read about it in his article in our library here.
As usual with our new innovation and exemplar programmes, we will be working with partners across the globe, taking into consideration the wisdom of other communities wedded to the same aim. This July sees the publication of a new book, 'True Cost Accounting for Food'. You can download a PDF a copy of the book, to purchase a print version for personal use, go to: Routledge Book Shop
Also this month, Sustain and the RSPB make an excellent Case for Local Food that you can download from Sustain, which provides evidence on some of the benefits we're alluding to regarding regenerative/circular farming.
"This report presents a vision for a revival in localised, nature-friendly food systems, supported by investment in infrastructure, skills and co-ordination, alongside policies that enable these businesses to operate successfully while providing a range of benefits to society. The report provides a comprehensive overview of the evidence to date on the environmental, economic and social benefits of localised food systems. It shows that smaller food outlets create three times the jobs as supermarket chains; and a shift in retail market share could create 200,000 jobs" - Sustain