Loomio
Fri 17 Apr 2020 11:44AM

What is happening to UK horticulture and what space should urban FGs occupy in the changes?

RL Richard Luff Public Seen by 91

In considering the impact of Covid 19 and whether this will lead to a shift in take up of local/small scale/community veg and fruit growing and potentially create more space for urban collective forest gardens, I decided to do some quite raw research. The world of human activity is a complex and connected system and faces concurrent stress across the globe because of the pandemic (which are anyway increasing with climate change and population growth). It’s too early to say what might happen because of complexity and behaviour of feedback loops so it is just too hard to predict. So, this enquiry is limited and rather superficial as it only pieces together a few fragments in order to speculate. I am not an expert in food systems or research, so take this with a pinch of salt. Please see attached. Perhaps this can open up a discussion here on Loomio and lead to a think piece that we can take out to the world? Watch this space, but not for long the world is changing very fast.

RF

Rosie Frost Fri 17 Apr 2020 12:27PM

A fascinating read - thank you for pulling together and sharing Richard!

HGP

Hannah Gardiner (Current profile) Sat 18 Apr 2020 8:12AM

Yes I have been seeing a lot of discussion of food security, which was never on the table before. On twitter aswell, you have definitely captured the main point of the argument as far as I have seen so far;

Here are some other titbits from twitter

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/food-statistics-pocketbook/food-statistics-in-your-pocket-global-and-uk-supply We only produce 53% of the food we eat in UK

https://t.co/t4xDk9vts8?amp=1 - even if we suddenly stopped exporting all the food we grow and ate it ourselves we'd still only be able to meet 60% of our food needs

3% of household fruit and veg are currently grown on allotments (see attached image)

HGP

Hannah Gardiner (Current profile) Sat 18 Apr 2020 8:14AM

I just did a comparison of twelve studies looking at the potential for urban food growing, and found that access to land was the main factor is how much could be produced... however, expertise in growing had a big impact (on yield), as did growing method, and different areas have different levels of technical feasibility....

HGP

Hannah Gardiner (Current profile) Sat 18 Apr 2020 8:15AM

It would be interesting if the government could coordinate expertise and provide growing supplies to some of the COVID Mutual Aid groups... one challenge being ensuring social distancing is maintained whilst people do it

HGP

Hannah Gardiner (Current profile) Sat 18 Apr 2020 8:17AM

Also, the one point I don't agree with in your scenarios is that I don't think that the farming industry/supply chain is going to shut down because of illness. In fact, widespread testing (in Iceland https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/01/europe/iceland-testing-coronavirus-intl/index.html) showed that over half the people who get it don't show any symptoms. The problem with the virus is that those who do get it badly end up in intensive care, therefore overwhelming the health system.

HGP

Hannah Gardiner (Current profile) Sat 18 Apr 2020 8:20AM

also, this YouGov poll:

https://www.thersa.org/discover/publications-and-articles/rsa-blogs/2020/04/finding-the-road-to-renewal

The poll finds a majority (85%) want to see some of the personal or social changes they have experienced continue afterwards, whilst just 9% want everything to go back to how it was before the pandemic.

It also identifies significant changes to our relationship with food, family and the environment:

• Social bonds are stronger, with 40% feeling a stronger sense of local community and 39% more in touch with friends and family

• 42% say the outbreak has changed how they value food as an essential, and one in ten have shared something like food or shopping with a neighbour for the first time

• More than 19 million of us (38%) say they are cooking more from scratch and 17 million are throwing away less food (33%). 6% (and 9% of Londoners), 3 million people, have tried a veg box scheme or ordered food from a local farm for the very first time

• 51% say they have noticed cleaner air, and 27% more wildlife since the outbreak began

• Although 9% feel fitter and 27% are getting more exercise, more people (36%) say they are getting less exercise than before.


JM

Joe McCrohon Sun 19 Apr 2020 10:21AM

This is a very good document. One point I might make is that methods of production are very entrenched. Which we saw with farmers flying in workers from Romania and elsewhere in eastern Europe whilst people who were available to pick the crops couldn't. I would like scenario 3 to happen but for that probably requires a crisis involving an extreme scenario 1. We could also see a mixture of scenarios happening based upon how much money you have which would be quite unpleasant.

HGP

Hannah Gardiner (Current profile) Sun 19 Apr 2020 11:04AM

 study in the Nature Journal from March 2020 shows even current allotments in Sheffield could meet 13% of residents fruit and vegetable needs... but with conversion of suitable green infrastructure up to 122% could be met. https://news.mongabay.com/2020/03/study-finds-huge-potential-for-urban-gardens-to-feed-city-dwellers/?fbclid=IwAR2vlmDc1Gk2FKP9OP08c9LNZrv0Ic96QzbNeGV8Rx4DDPiNJCRQLCzwM6U