# Banter 116: 22Apr26 Food Resilience, with Daphne Du Cros {% embed url="" %} ### Video Timeline: Food Resilience 22APR26 (min:sec): 00:00 - 04:00 Introductions and reasons for being here 04:00 -48:14 Presentation 48:14 - 82:29 Q & A *** ### Presentation: Food Resilience 22Apr26 {% file src="/files/ZcqgDKTtrZMVRVvSseUk" %} You are welcome to download this presentation. A markdown copy is at the bottom of the page *** ### Meeting Summary: Food Resilience 22Apr26 Apr 22, 2026 11:52 AM London ID: 834 5460 8536 ### Quick recap This meeting was a discussion on food resilience led by Daphne Du Cros from the Shropshire Good Food Partnership. Daphne presented the current vulnerabilities in the UK's food system, including heavy dependence on imported food (40% overall, higher for horticultural produce), high levels of ultra-processed foods, and lack of seed resilience. She outlined eight steps for building food resilience at the community level, including getting people talking about the issue, assessing local assets and gaps, developing action plans, and building skills and capacity. The discussion covered practical examples like community seed banks, growing spaces, and local food distribution networks. Participants shared their experiences and challenges, including difficulties engaging town and parish councils on food resilience issues. The conversation also touched on regenerative agriculture, the impact of COVID-19 on local food systems, and potential collaboration between food partnerships and corporate entities. ### Next steps * Andrew: Develop a questionnaire/process for local communities to assess and prioritize food resilience actions, based on the topics discussed. * Sue: Follow up with local contacts and/or Sustainable Food Places Network to check the status of the local food partnership and potential replacement of departed staff member. * Caroline: Drop a link to her TED talk on creating positive visions of local food systems in the chat for other participants. * Lynn: Contact Daphne (and possibly join her lunch with Janet) to discuss adapting the Eleanor Essex workbook or creating a separate resource to better address food and health issues for parish councils. * Michael Holton: Follow up with Daphne separately to discuss local food resilience initiatives in Shropshire and potential support/consultancy for the organization. * Daphne: Share presentation and additional resources (including those mentioned in passing) with Graham and participants after the meeting. ### Summary #### Food Resilience Discussion Meeting Daphne led a discussion on food resilience, asking participants to share their motivations for attending. Several attendees, including Sue, Andrew, and Annie, expressed concerns about food security, climate change, and local food systems. Daphne introduced herself and her work with the Shropshire Good Food Partnership, highlighting the importance of community-based approaches to building food resilience. She mentioned the existence of 123 food partnerships across the UK through the Sustainable Food Places Network and encouraged attendees to connect with local initiatives. #### Food Resilience Partnership Initiatives Daphne presented on food resilience and the work of food partnerships across the network. She explained how food partnerships connect various organizations and work on policy, research, and supporting the local food economy through initiatives like the Shropshire Good Food Trail. Daphne highlighted the vulnerabilities in the UK's food system, including heavy dependence on ultra-processed foods and limited seed production resilience. She noted that while government awareness exists, action is not happening quickly enough, and food partnerships are filling the gap in the meantime. #### Food Partnerships Community Resilience Strategy Daphne discussed the role of food partnerships in building resilience within communities, highlighting the need for proactive communication and preparedness in the face of potential food system crises. She emphasized the importance of relying on communities and building capacity at the hyperlocal level to prevent panic and maintain social stability during crises. Daphne mentioned ongoing efforts by the Shropshire Good Food Partnership and the Sustainable Food Places Network to share knowledge and best practices across the UK, with Wales leading the way through the Future Generations Act. #### Shropshire Food Resilience Initiatives Daphne discussed food resilience initiatives in Shropshire, including pilot projects with local councils and the development of a food strategy. She outlined a step-by-step approach to building food resilience, starting with engaging communities in conversations about food security and running scenario planning exercises to prepare for potential crises like supply chain disruptions or disease outbreaks. Daphne emphasized the importance of mapping local assets and gaps, developing emergency response plans, and building community skills and capacity, while also addressing sustainable production practices in the region. #### Food Resilience Collaboration Strategies Daphne discussed the importance of collaboration between town and parish councils, food partnerships, and community organizations to address food resilience challenges. She highlighted the unique contributions each group brings, such as councils' policy levers and legitimacy, and food partnerships' network connections and local knowledge. Daphne emphasized the need to break down silos and think holistically about food systems, encouraging participants to assess their local community's food assets and resilience. She also shared insights from Shropshire's pilot project, which involved eight key steps to address food resilience, including community assemblies and building networks between urban and rural areas. #### Community Food Resilience Initiatives Daphne presented on community food resilience initiatives, sharing examples from Bishop's Castle including a community seed bank, training programs, and surplus food distribution through initiatives like Supersonic. She outlined various strategies for building food security including accessing publicly owned land through "The Right to Grow" initiative, establishing local farmer's markets, implementing gleaning networks, and developing community processing infrastructure. Daphne emphasized the importance of growing diverse, abundant crops with good storage potential and stressed the need for proactive community engagement rather than reactive preparation for food system challenges. #### Food Resilience Community Engagement Strategies Daphne presented on food resilience and community engagement, discussing challenges and opportunities for town and parish councils. She emphasized the importance of regenerative agriculture and peer-to-peer exchange among farmers. The group discussed strategies for engaging councils on food resilience, including highlighting vulnerable populations and connecting food issues to broader council priorities. Daphne suggested using resources like Tim Lang's report and the "Just-in-Time to Just-in-Case" document to make the case for food resilience. The group also explored ways to involve businesses and communities in local food initiatives, including corporate volunteering and converting lawns into productive gardens. *** ## Suggested Links: Food Resilience 22Apr26 ### Contact Daphne Du Cros: ### [Feeding Dorset Partnership (Sustainable Food Place)](https://www.helpandkindness.co.uk/feeding-dorset-partnership) ### [Affordable and Emergency Food projects in Dorset](https://www.helpandkindness.co.uk/food-projects) ### [Sustainable Food Places](https://www.sustainablefoodplaces.org/) ### [Creating positive visions of our local food systems" - TED talk by Caroline Wajsblum](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASitl0YZdLQ\&utm_source=chatgpt.com) ### [Maslow Hierarchy of Needs has food as an essential](https://www.bitesizelearning.co.uk/resources/maslows-hierarchy-of-needs-theory) ### [The “Space to Grow” report](https://www.myearthgarden.com/potager-garden-a-french-style-of-productive-gardening/) ### [Even better than a cottage garden is a potager garden](https://www.myearthgarden.com/potager-garden-a-french-style-of-productive-gardening/) * ### [BareFood – The Food Resilience Game](https://www.tabledebates.org/resource/barefood) * ### [Grain ETC Report (2025)](https://www.etcgroup.org/content/top-10-agribusiness-giants) * ### [Tim Lang – "Just in Case" Civil Food Resilience Report](https://nationalpreparednesscommission.uk/publications/just-in-case-7-steps-to-narrow-the-uk-civil-food-resilience-gap/) * ### [Nourishing Britain (Nesta)](https://www.nesta.org.uk/report/nourishing-britain/) * ### [FFCC – Food Narrative Report](https://ffcc.co.uk/) * ### [Sustain – Ammonia Map](https://www.sustainweb.org/food-for-the-planet/ammonia-map/) * ### [Bridle et al. (2026) – Food Crisis Pathways](https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/items/d302dd1f-0b4e-40b2-879b-e0c4390c822b) * ### [Landmatch England](https://landmatchengland.org.uk/) * ### [The Right to Grow](https://www.incredibleedible.org.uk/what-we-do/right-to-grow/) ### Chat: Food Resilience 22Apr26 \ 00:17:21 Graham Stoddart-Stones-Great Collaboration, Bembridge: Dorset has been working for a while on Food Resilence - Feeding Dorset Partnership (Sustainable Food Place) network here: . \ 00:18:12 Graham Stoddart-Stones-Great Collaboration, Bembridge: More in Dorset: support and development of the Affordable and Emergency Food projects across the county \ 00:18:30 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboratiom:
00:20:38 Graham Stoddart-Stones-Great Collaboration, Bembridge: Please make a note for your diaries: on 06May26, the banter session will be all about building a market garden so as to boost food resilience
00:37:39 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboratiom: Could we please have a link to the map of food partnerships?
00:38:15 Amanda Davis: Parish Cllr \ 00:47:17 Kirsten Newble Cambridge: This has been so useful, thank you so much. Really sorry I have to go to another meeting now. I'll watch the rest on the recording. \ 00:56:47 Michael Taite: Thank you Daphne. Apologies for having to duck out early. Very good to know about Landmatch England. Soil and food security are of particular interest to me. As you pointed out, we grow c.60% o our food, but most of that is intensively produced, so relies upon imported agrochemicals and animal feed. \ 00:57:29 Annie L , in Llanidloes, in Powys: It would be amazing if the part of this Zoom that is Daphne speaking could be made into a shareable resource as this talk is so clear and concise. \ 00:57:46 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboratiom: Reacted to "It would be amazing ..." with 👍 \ 00:58:02 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboratiom: We can do this \ 00:58:08 Graham Stoddart-Stones-Great Collaboration, Bembridge: Great thinking, Annie - will take this up with Daphne \ 00:58:49 Annie L , in Llanidloes, in Powys: Reacted to "Great thinking, Anni..." with ❤️
00:59:07 David Faulkner: Fantastic presentation - could the slides be shared as well as the zoom recording please \ 00:59:27 Graham Stoddart-Stones-Great Collaboration, Bembridge: Always - the slides are always made available \ 00:59:40 Annie L , in Llanidloes, in Powys: Replying to "Always - the slides ..." How can we access them? \ 01:00:25 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboratiom: Replying to "Always - the slides ..."
01:01:04 Michael Holton - Brunslow Shropshire: Really positive
01:04:03 Graham Stoddart-Stones-Great Collaboration, Bembridge: I will track through all the references that Daphne has mentioned today and make them available in the Knowledgebase page for today’s session \ 01:04:48 Annie L , in Llanidloes, in Powys: Replying to "I will track through..." Thank you! That’s very helpful. \ 01:05:09 David Faulkner: Reacted to "I will track through..." with 👏
01:06:47 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboratiom: We can think about d... \ \[Full message cannot be displayed on this version]
01:06:53 Annie L , in Llanidloes, in Powys: How does one raise a hand? \ 01:07:29 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboratiom: Replying to "How does one raise a..."There's a React button at the bottom of the Zoom screen 01:08:00 Graham Stoddart-Stones-Great Collaboration, Bembridge: Move mouse to the bottom of the screen, and a bunch of icons pops up - select ‘React’, and ‘Raise Hand’ is the penultimate option
01:09:35 Katy Anderson Shropshire: Apologies I need to move to another meeting - thank you!
01:10:49 Graham Stoddart-Stones-Great Collaboration, Bembridge: For thoughts about helping the soil recover, see banter session 111 “What have the worms ever done for us?”
01:11:23 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboratiom: Here's the link to local food partnerships \ 01:12:35 Daphne Du Cros:
01:13:11 David Faulkner: Thank you so much Daphne - amazing work. Need to go now \ 01:15:27 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Sue Burton, community orchards? We've planted fruit trees in a few play parks around the edges.. \ 01:18:56 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboratiom: Some parishes don't even have an overall emergency plan
01:19:51 Sue Burton Battle TC East Sussex: I had a “fight” on last night at TC meeting to get a water butt that volunteers can use for the orchard. I half won !
01:20:17 Graham Stoddart-Stones-Great Collaboration, Bembridge: The TED talk by Caroline: \ 01:20:23 Caroline Wajsblum: TEDxFrome - "Creating positive visions of our local food systems" - Caroline Wajsblum \ 01:20:47 Annie L , in Llanidloes, in Powys: Thank you everyone, this was really useful for me. I am organising a pot luck community event to talk about all these issues and begin to encourage people talking to eachother and figuring out our roles. I am not a confident speaker so what I really seek is speakers (like Daphne? ) or good resources to share….. But I think talking about these issues, and also figuring out what we have as individuals to offer, is a first step…. Now I have to leave but thank you thank you….. \ 01:21:11 Annie L , in Llanidloes, in Powys: Daphne , do you have an email contact? \ 01:21:21 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboratiom: The Maslow Hierarchy of Needs has food as an essential, may help with part of a discussion
01:23:42 Cllr.Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: Thanks, great session but I must leave
01:25:20 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboratiom: We'll be building up our Great Collaboration knowledgebase on food resilience, include this topic in an SLCC webinar on May 12th , and at regional seminars in Shrewsbury (May 14th), Taunton (June 3rd) and Northampton (November 4th)
01:27:48 Michelle Golder Haslingfield Sth Cambs: Thank you. Very helpful session. I look forward to sharing the video and materials!
01:28:12 Graham Stoddart-Stones-Great Collaboration, Bembridge: The “Space to Grow” report that Michael mentioned:
1:31:16 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboratiom: Some companies support employee volunteering
01:32:41 Daphne Du Cros:
01:33:51 Caroline Wajsblum: apologies have to go now, thanks very much please do share this recording with me. Many thanks x
01:34:13 frank deas Killearn: Even better than a cottage garden is a potager garden ## Food Resilience presentation 22Apr26 - Markdown copy: ## Civil Food Resilience & Local Action **Dr Daphne Du Cros**\ Shropshire Good Food Partnership *** ### SGFP: How We Work & What We Do * SGFP: how we work & what we do * Where we can have impact: grassroots, local food resilience *** ### Food Systems Approach We take a **food systems approach to transition** – food is our *magic tool*. #### Key Areas: * Partnership work * Policy & research * Local food economy * Land & climate * Education * Health & wellbeing * Advocacy *** ### Working Across the Bioregional Scale **Place-based approach includes:** * National engagement (policy & collaboration) * Regional networks * Local food partnerships * County councils * Town & parish councils * Businesses & organisations * Neighbourhoods & communities * Individual households / farms *** ### Current Context: The Good News & The Bad News * Food system pressures increasing * Biodiversity loss & ecosystem collapse * Food shortages and supply risks * National Emergency Briefing context *** ### Pathway to Acute Food System Crisis Drivers include: * Cyber-attacks * Extreme weather events * Existing climate-related issues * International conflict * Food price / availability shocks * Existing societal vulnerabilities ➡️ These can escalate into **acute food system crisis** *** ### Reframing Communications * Crisis + fear = destabilisation * Get comfortable with discomfort * Be proactive * Emphasise community & local leadership * *“We are the ones we’ve been waiting for”* *** ### Civil Food Resilience Response * Coordinate civil food resilience cluster & policy work * Activate UK Sustainable Food Places network * Share knowledge regionally * “Feeding Resilience” initiatives * Support councils (backcasting & community labs) * Identify challenges & opportunities *** ### Capacity Building Framework #### Short Term * Scale up awareness & governance #### Medium Term * Identify food needs (prioritise vulnerable groups) * Map food assets #### Long Term * Build diverse infrastructure * Prepare operational plans #### Ongoing Enablers * Upskill communities * Strengthen local food systems * Rebalance power towards communities *** ### Working in Partnership * Reflect on pandemic lessons (trust) * Systems thinking: no silos * Whole-of-society approach * Communicate effectively * Build community * Identify vulnerable groups * Build skills & confidence * Assess assets and needs * Scenario planning (“what if?”) * Plan using local spaces *** ### Delivery Model 1. **Risk Assessment** * Shared understanding * Strengths & priorities 2. **Strategy & Plan** * Define actions * Roles & responsibilities * Communication plan 3. **Practical Action** * Community food activities * Stronger networks * Urban–rural links *** ### Case Study: Little Woodbatch * Community food resilience strategy * Growing together * Diverse permaculture systems * Seed bank & production * Upskilling courses * Diversification * Food bank links * Community chef pilot * Compost club pilot *** ### Get Growing * The Right to Grow * Allotments & community gardens * Waitlists & buddy systems * Land sharing with farms * Training (horticulture & food skills) * Knowledge sharing *** ### Micro Infrastructure * Seed banks / libraries * Tool & machinery sharing * Library of things * Skills & knowledge sharing * Local markets * Garden shares * Gleaning networks * Transport systems * Processing, retail & storage development *** ### Community Prepping * Community larders, pantries, freezers * Surplus sharing * Dry goods storage * Food banks * Rescue & redistribution * Water & energy systems *** ### Decentralise: Relocalise * Build community infrastructure * Local routes to market & direct sales * Strengthen urban–rural linkages * Know your farmers * Increase diversity & storability * Support regenerative systems *** ### Plan: Proactive & Responsive * Community mapping * Identify assets & hubs * Scenario planning & timelines * Define roles & protocols * Maintain hard copies * Ensure full participation *** ### Resources * BareFood – The Food Resilience Game * Grain ETC Report (2025) * Tim Lang – Civil Food Resilience Report * Nourishing Britain (Nesta) * FFCC – Food Narrative Report * Sustain – Ammonia Map * Bridle et al. (2026) – Food Crisis Pathways * Landmatch England * The Right to Grow *** ### Food Resilience banter session 116 - Audio-Transcript: 62 \ 00:12:11.070 --> 00:12:29.279 \ Daphne Du Cros: Graham, if I may, since we're waiting for people to trickle in, it would be really interesting for me and my colleague, Katie, who's on the call as well, if people would… if there's anybody who wants to volunteer or kick it off to say what has made this 63 \ 00:12:29.280 --> 00:12:38.319 \ Daphne Du Cros: particular subject, or this theme for a banter session of interest to you? Why… why have you signed up today, and why food resilience? 64 \ 00:12:39.180 --> 00:12:40.509 \ Daphne Du Cros: I'd love to hear. 65 \ 00:12:40.510 --> 00:12:43.359 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones-Great Collaboration, Bembridge: Looks like Sue was raising her hand. Off you go, Sue. 66 \ 00:12:43.360 --> 00:12:54.899 \ Sue Burton Battle TC East Sussex: Oh, I will… oh, no, I… yes, well, I can straight away tell you why that is, apart from always interested in food and my… 67 \ 00:12:55.000 --> 00:13:07.439 \ Sue Burton Battle TC East Sussex: diet and carbon footprint related to food and packaging and all that stuff. But then, having watched the people's, whatever it's now called, the people. 68 \ 00:13:07.440 --> 00:13:08.950 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones-Great Collaboration, Bembridge: Briefing. 69 \ 00:13:08.950 --> 00:13:10.760 \ Sue Burton Battle TC East Sussex: urgency Briefing. 70 \ 00:13:11.340 --> 00:13:21.689 \ Sue Burton Battle TC East Sussex: And I watched the one about food, and they talked about, local and resilience, and I thought, I need to know more. That's me. 71 \ 00:13:22.100 --> 00:13:35.419 \ Daphne Du Cros: Wonderful, good. And if… I'm going to run through a range of things, but… so do let me know if there's anything in particular that I haven't answered that you'd, that you'd like me to revisit at the end. Andrew, please. 72 \ 00:13:35.420 --> 00:13:38.080 \ Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboratiom: Sure, I discovered, 73 \ 00:13:38.540 --> 00:13:44.989 \ Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboratiom: by looking at the government's PREPARE campaign, which talks about all the things we might be thinking about in terms of 74 \ 00:13:45.170 --> 00:13:52.589 \ Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboratiom: There's a website presentation talking about emergency rooms of different kinds, weather, floods. 75 \ 00:13:52.800 --> 00:14:02.189 \ Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboratiom: power outages and so forth, and the one thing that wasn't there was food supply shortages. I'm thinking, well, of course, those can happen as some of these other emergencies. 76 \ 00:14:02.390 --> 00:14:22.079 \ Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboratiom: Then we had the experience a few weeks ago where the government had been given an intelligence briefing about the dangers of food security, which had been apparently suppressed, and the newspapers had to sort of dig it out of government through a Freedom of Information Act. So I'm thinking, actually, this is… this is, this is, you know, it's like the elephant in the room, isn't it? As far as government's concerned, it's not being acknowledged. 77 \ 00:14:22.250 --> 00:14:29.110 \ Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboratiom: Great to see that the National Lottery has started their Climate Action Fund this year. Their theme is about food security. 78 \ 00:14:29.280 --> 00:14:41.570 \ Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboratiom: So that's, you know, the word is spreading, but obviously, I had a good chat with Daphne earlier this week. We need to help the spread, but also, you know, what do people do… do locally? Absolutely. 79 \ 00:14:42.200 --> 00:14:43.780 \ Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboratiom: That's enough for me. 80 \ 00:14:44.050 --> 00:14:46.899 \ Daphne Du Cros: Thanks, Andrew. Frank, it would be great to hear from you. 81 \ 00:14:46.900 --> 00:14:56.490 \ frank deas Killearn: Thank you. I'm in a primarily rural area, so we've got a range of villages that come together. We recently lost 82 \ 00:14:56.500 --> 00:15:13.100 \ frank deas Killearn: We recently lost a barn that was doing community-supported agriculture and trying to sell veg boxes, and we've got an egg food program that's also fallen by the wayside. So, it's trying to understand, as communities who are committed to climate action, what can we do? 83 \ 00:15:13.100 --> 00:15:22.739 \ frank deas Killearn: There's a really good, healthy, local growing group that advises each other, swaps seedlings, does good things like that, but it's then trying to work out what happens in the rest of the process. 84 \ 00:15:23.630 --> 00:15:27.169 \ frank deas Killearn: So, great pick-up tips from other people and learn what your thoughts are. 85 \ 00:15:27.360 --> 00:15:27.960 \ Daphne Du Cros: Great. 86 \ 00:15:28.930 --> 00:15:35.820 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones-Great Collaboration, Bembridge: Daphne, we're up to what I think is going to be as many as we're going to get, so if you'd love to start the ball rolling, thank you. 87 \ 00:15:36.050 --> 00:15:37.470 \ Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboratiom: And he's got a hand up, yeah. 88 \ 00:15:37.470 --> 00:15:38.169 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones-Great Collaboration, Bembridge: Hope, right? 89 \ 00:15:38.250 --> 00:15:55.310 \ Annie L , in Llanidloes, in Powys: Oh, just, you know, Brexit, climate change, monoculture, food supply, the war in Iran, how much food Britain imports, and, Tim Lang's videos have been really alarming and interesting. 90 \ 00:15:55.400 --> 00:16:02.380 \ Annie L , in Llanidloes, in Powys: And Kat in Wales is doing a lot of organizing around this, which is really good. And, 91 \ 00:16:02.510 --> 00:16:08.710 \ Annie L , in Llanidloes, in Powys: Yeah, I just am, like, motivated to organize locally in my kind of small market town. 92 \ 00:16:09.140 --> 00:16:10.260 \ Daphne Du Cros: Wonderful. 93 \ 00:16:10.800 --> 00:16:20.209 \ Daphne Du Cros: Yes, all of those little things, all of those hiccups, those tiny things. Can I go ahead and see the… the presentation that I've put up? 94 \ 00:16:21.700 --> 00:16:22.300 \ Daphne Du Cros: Great. 95 \ 00:16:22.690 --> 00:16:38.839 \ Daphne Du Cros: All right, well, hello everyone, thank you for joining. Yes, this certainly is a timely conversation, so I really appreciate you joining, and I hope that the People's Emergency Briefing will incentivize more people to 96 \ 00:16:39.080 --> 00:16:43.179 \ Daphne Du Cros: To start asking these questions, and to engage with 97 \ 00:16:43.180 --> 00:16:47.269 \ Daphne Du Cros: The what-ifs about food, and the what's next about food. 98 \ 00:16:47.270 --> 00:17:06.920 \ Daphne Du Cros: So I'm Daphne Ducrox. I live in Shropshire, I'm from Canada originally. I moved over here to do a PhD in food policy many, many years ago, and was so shocked at the state of the food system that I hightailed it out of London to Shropshire and bought a small holding. 99 \ 00:17:07.180 --> 00:17:23.009 \ Daphne Du Cros: Where we've run a market garden and have now transitioned to more of a community farm approach, where we engage with our community, and I'll talk a little bit more about that later, but the key thing being, how do we build resilience together? 100 \ 00:17:23.349 --> 00:17:32.109 \ Daphne Du Cros: What I want to talk about is, my role at the Shropshire Good Food Partnership, and as I say, my colleague Katie is on the call as well. 101 \ 00:17:32.480 --> 00:17:36.139 \ Daphne Du Cros: What is it that we do as a food partnership? 102 \ 00:17:36.650 --> 00:17:55.999 \ Daphne Du Cros: I've included a map. We are not the only food partnership. There are 123 food partnerships across the UK through the Sustainable Food Places Network, so you may find that there is one in your neck of the woods. Please get in touch with them. Many of them are doing really great work in food resilience capacity building. 103 \ 00:17:56.160 --> 00:18:05.469 \ Daphne Du Cros: So I'll speak to that, as well shortly, but I think that what we can do as food partnerships is offer a really place-based 104 \ 00:18:05.830 --> 00:18:12.709 \ Daphne Du Cros: appropriate to context, and really plumbed-in, networked-in approach to food resilience. 105 \ 00:18:12.870 --> 00:18:30.710 \ Daphne Du Cros: I have been supporting a group of food partnerships across this network to understand what they're doing in building food resilience. And I guess part of that is the context of where we are nationally. Food partnerships generally work 106 \ 00:18:30.810 --> 00:18:47.040 \ Daphne Du Cros: across the food system. Don't let this image, you know, overwhelm you. What I wanted to do with this… this image, which is from a report from Corinna Hawks, this just shows that food has a superpower. 107 \ 00:18:47.050 --> 00:18:54.199 \ Daphne Du Cros: Food connects to so many different places in our system that it's an incredible lever for systems change. 108 \ 00:18:54.410 --> 00:19:01.920 \ Daphne Du Cros: It's, it's one of the few things that if we do some sort of intervention in one area, like 109 \ 00:19:02.160 --> 00:19:18.820 \ Daphne Du Cros: teaching kids about food, we can see ripple effects across time and departments and sectors and space. We can have incredible impacts using food as a tool. So, I would encourage you, as the day goes on. 110 \ 00:19:19.010 --> 00:19:31.420 \ Daphne Du Cros: Think about… think about food, and how it touches your life, and the things that you use to buy food, cook food, throw away food, and the different parts of the system that food touches in our lives. 111 \ 00:19:31.830 --> 00:19:41.370 \ Daphne Du Cros: Within the Food Partnership, we do a lot of different kinds of work. We try to build networks within Shropshire and the marches. 112 \ 00:19:41.530 --> 00:19:43.790 \ Daphne Du Cros: In different areas, 113 \ 00:19:44.050 --> 00:19:51.530 \ Daphne Du Cros: within the food system, we have 400 members who do loads of different things. Those might be councils. 114 \ 00:19:51.760 --> 00:20:04.350 \ Daphne Du Cros: Community organizations, community gardens, farms, farm clusters, academic institutions, schools, hospitality businesses, hotels, loads of different organizations. 115 \ 00:20:04.350 --> 00:20:19.730 \ Daphne Du Cros: So we try to connect the dots across those, so nobody's working in isolation. We understand the web, and it's the web that connects us. We work on policy and advise in policy, we do research, we support our local food economy and make visible the 116 \ 00:20:19.730 --> 00:20:21.809 \ Daphne Du Cros: Food sector in our area. 117 \ 00:20:21.950 --> 00:20:27.660 \ Daphne Du Cros: We do that through something playful called the Shropshire Good Food Trail, which is a way of shining a light on 118 \ 00:20:27.660 --> 00:20:45.190 \ Daphne Du Cros: as we say, the people who make, grow, sell, serve, and share good food. So we just… we want to tell the stories. And I think humans are storytelling creatures. We really need to be talking about the wonderful things in our area, get people understanding where their food comes from, and why it's important. 119 \ 00:20:45.420 --> 00:20:52.079 \ Daphne Du Cros: And we engage across a number of spaces, is what I sort of want to get across here. So this is our food systems lens. 120 \ 00:20:52.920 --> 00:20:58.170 \ Daphne Du Cros: And we also work at different scales, so we connect with 121 \ 00:20:58.170 --> 00:21:05.940 \ Daphne Du Cros: on the microscale, individual farms, and then communities, town and parish councils, obviously Shropshire. 122 \ 00:21:05.940 --> 00:21:30.189 \ Daphne Du Cros: We also work with our partners across the marches for a bioregional approach, and that's Herefordshire, Monmouthshire, and Powis. We'll talk more about Powis later, because they're doing absolutely incredible work, as Annie has said. And we also contribute to the national dialogue on food resilience, getting food farming, and sustainability into the national curriculum, and a number of different areas. So. 123 \ 00:21:30.510 --> 00:21:33.100 \ Daphne Du Cros: The amazing thing about food is that it travels. 124 \ 00:21:33.290 --> 00:21:50.700 \ Daphne Du Cros: we can tell the stories of what's happening in best practice in our communities, and we can share those at the national level. We can also take what's going on at the national level and distill it and tell people in our town and parish councils why this is relevant, what is happening, and we can support their work. 125 \ 00:21:50.700 --> 00:21:54.479 \ Daphne Du Cros: Because this, this is a really interesting and emerging area. 126 \ 00:21:55.660 --> 00:22:01.209 \ Daphne Du Cros: Which brings me to this part. What is our current food system context? 127 \ 00:22:01.370 --> 00:22:10.440 \ Daphne Du Cros: again, Annie said, very rightly, that we are in a really vulnerable situation. Tim Lang's report. 128 \ 00:22:10.440 --> 00:22:29.530 \ Daphne Du Cros: laid that out last year to underscore just how vulnerable we are within our food system, and the reports keep coming, in a number of different ways, from a number of different angles. Andrew mentioned the ecosystem collapse report that was suppressed by government, not a good look. 129 \ 00:22:30.090 --> 00:22:42.820 \ Daphne Du Cros: the Food Farming and Countryside Commission released a really exceptional, community-engaged report from their food conversations about 130 \ 00:22:42.890 --> 00:22:59.730 \ Daphne Du Cros: what people really want from our food system, and that was really intended to tackle the narratives, the false narratives of, oh, well, we couldn't possibly do that as government because people don't want the nanny state, and oh, but people want to eat chicken and chips in schools. 131 \ 00:22:59.860 --> 00:23:11.540 \ Daphne Du Cros: And that really was… this report was used as a tool to say, no, people want regulation, we want you to help keep us healthy. 132 \ 00:23:12.380 --> 00:23:29.850 \ Daphne Du Cros: And, another really interesting report was from Dolly Van Tulloken and Henry Dimbleby, which, I've put in the resource pack that will sort of go along with this afterwards, but that talked about just how heavily lobbied government has been, and to our detriment as citizens. 133 \ 00:23:29.980 --> 00:23:43.219 \ Daphne Du Cros: Also, we've got a massively top-heavy centralized food system, corporatized food system, and there's a really excellent report on that. So there are a number of things at play 134 \ 00:23:43.410 --> 00:24:00.199 \ Daphne Du Cros: and obviously geopolitical climate, not having recovered fully from the pandemic and the cost of living crisis. So, we are seeing more crisis events coming hard and fast and compounding. 135 \ 00:24:00.300 --> 00:24:09.269 \ Daphne Du Cros: even above and beyond the sort of chronic condition of society that is, that is a lack of knowledge. It is… 136 \ 00:24:09.410 --> 00:24:13.460 \ Daphne Du Cros: Socioeconomic deprivation, poor health. 137 \ 00:24:13.610 --> 00:24:28.839 \ Daphne Du Cros: heavily… heavy dependence on ultra-processed foods. We are… in the UK, our diet is 50% ultra-processed food. Bumped that up to 67% for school meals. It's… it's a shocking situation. So, we… 138 \ 00:24:28.840 --> 00:24:33.780 \ Daphne Du Cros: we are vulnerable. We don't, produce enough of our own food, we import 40%. 139 \ 00:24:34.030 --> 00:24:35.689 \ Daphne Du Cros: And that's overall. 140 \ 00:24:35.790 --> 00:24:46.059 \ Daphne Du Cros: That's a lot more when it comes to horticultural produce, fruit and veg, and the places that we get them from are going to be most heavily impacted by climate change. 141 \ 00:24:46.080 --> 00:24:47.590 \ Daphne Du Cros: One of the… 142 \ 00:24:47.610 --> 00:24:56.830 \ Daphne Du Cros: key things for my soapbox is we talk about food a lot, in terms of food resilience and crisis preparedness. What is 143 \ 00:24:56.830 --> 00:25:10.440 \ Daphne Du Cros: really very rarely mentioned in that conversation is seed. So, seed resilience, seed that underpins our food system, be it the blade of grass, the, you know, the corn, that is grown. 144 \ 00:25:11.760 --> 00:25:20.249 \ Daphne Du Cros: The… all of our horticultural produce, everything we eat comes from a seed, be it, you know, through something else, but… 145 \ 00:25:20.480 --> 00:25:36.849 \ Daphne Du Cros: Directly or indirectly, we are incredibly vulnerable once it comes to seed production in the UK, and that's not an area that's getting enough research or focus, so I have been working with Sussex University on a project that will be fed back to DEFRA on how we feed back 146 \ 00:25:36.850 --> 00:25:43.099 \ Daphne Du Cros: How we get more seed resilience built into our conversation about food system resilience. 147 \ 00:25:44.150 --> 00:25:45.759 \ Daphne Du Cros: So, the… 148 \ 00:25:46.080 --> 00:26:03.490 \ Daphne Du Cros: I said the good news and the bad news. That was the bad news. The good news is we have food partnerships that are doing a heck of a lot of work on this, and we've got a lot of research that's shining a light on the situation. So our food partnerships are working, as I say, across the UK, filling that sort of middle space. 149 \ 00:26:03.490 --> 00:26:08.150 \ Daphne Du Cros: Government is not engaging with this in… a fast enough 150 \ 00:26:08.250 --> 00:26:12.420 \ Daphne Du Cros: timeline. They aren't connecting the dots quickly enough. 151 \ 00:26:12.710 --> 00:26:16.279 \ Daphne Du Cros: DEFRA is aware, but… 152 \ 00:26:16.800 --> 00:26:30.170 \ Daphne Du Cros: the government is a big juggernaut, and it has a very difficult time responding quickly, mobilizing quickly. The Ministry of Defense is interested about food resilience from the perspective of social disruption. 153 \ 00:26:30.400 --> 00:26:38.320 \ Daphne Du Cros: But we, as food… we as food partnerships have, essentially have… 154 \ 00:26:38.930 --> 00:26:51.139 \ Daphne Du Cros: just as it happens, because we work in food spaces, within, as I say, a place-based context, we know our spaces, our landscapes, our networks, our key players, we have, in a sense. 155 \ 00:26:51.530 --> 00:27:07.190 \ Daphne Du Cros: moved into the space that previously would have been the county agricultural offices in wartime. The only difference is, we aren't resourced by government, we aren't funded by government. Most of us are charities, CICs, some of us work within councils. 156 \ 00:27:07.190 --> 00:27:16.209 \ Daphne Du Cros: So, we are creating this sort of middle ground space where we're a conduit, as I said, going from that… those small levels and… and… 157 \ 00:27:16.210 --> 00:27:29.459 \ Daphne Du Cros: communicating between governments, academic institutions like our agricultural universities, which is another sort of middle ground player, and the bottom of the triangle, which is people. So… 158 \ 00:27:30.310 --> 00:27:32.409 \ Daphne Du Cros: What are we trying to communicate? 159 \ 00:27:32.600 --> 00:27:42.519 \ Daphne Du Cros: basically, things are a lot further along the road than we would like. We're on a knife edge, essentially, once it comes to our food system. 160 \ 00:27:42.700 --> 00:27:55.379 \ Daphne Du Cros: the situation is getting more complicated by the day, and that was really highlighted, with America's invasion of Iran, because of fuel and fertilizer. 161 \ 00:27:55.420 --> 00:28:12.030 \ Daphne Du Cros: A lot of people still don't understand, they will soon, but they don't yet understand the implications for the food system. Those are coming down the line. But that is only one example of a food system crisis. I talked about that ticking along, under the surface, chronic 162 \ 00:28:12.280 --> 00:28:16.180 \ Daphne Du Cros: social situation. And that's essentially our Tinderbox. 163 \ 00:28:16.450 --> 00:28:21.019 \ Daphne Du Cros: When people are disenfranchised, when they're vulnerable. 164 \ 00:28:21.410 --> 00:28:26.490 \ Daphne Du Cros: Those are the ones who are disproportionately impacted when a crisis hits. And we have seen… 165 \ 00:28:26.490 --> 00:28:49.770 \ Daphne Du Cros: different types of crises in the last few years. Obviously, we've all lived through the pandemic, but M\&S getting hacked, co-op getting hacked, more Russian intervention and foreign intervention in political situations, extreme weather events, like drought last year, which reduced our grain harvests by 24%, 166 \ 00:28:50.070 --> 00:28:52.570 \ Daphne Du Cros: These aren't just things that are happening elsewhere. 167 \ 00:28:52.890 --> 00:28:53.920 \ Daphne Du Cros: And… 168 \ 00:28:54.160 --> 00:29:10.939 \ Daphne Du Cros: International conflict being another one. So these acute events, which quite often don't happen in isolation, they're not solitary, they hit, they compound, or they ripple, that's when we get a bigger food system crisis. That's what we are moving into in real time now. 169 \ 00:29:11.280 --> 00:29:19.540 \ Daphne Du Cros: So, again, thank you for being here, because this is crunch time. This is a really important moment to start putting our food system glasses on. 170 \ 00:29:21.030 --> 00:29:23.249 \ Daphne Du Cros: A big reason for that is… 171 \ 00:29:23.430 --> 00:29:42.030 \ Daphne Du Cros: we have a job, we have a role in communication. As Tim Lang says, the approach from central government has always been, don't spook the horses, but if we communicate from whatever roles you have, whatever positions of influence you have, if we communicate clearly. 172 \ 00:29:42.250 --> 00:29:48.289 \ Daphne Du Cros: And we set up structures to build people's preparedness and confidence 173 \ 00:29:48.390 --> 00:30:00.029 \ Daphne Du Cros: We can help people get more comfortable with discomfort. By being proactive, we can build confidence, because what is not being said in a lot of these conversations is. 174 \ 00:30:00.360 --> 00:30:08.960 \ Daphne Du Cros: That a crisis situation makes people anxious, anxious people panic, and then we have social instability. And that's unpredictable. 175 \ 00:30:09.700 --> 00:30:28.830 \ Daphne Du Cros: what we want to do is buffer that as much as we can at the hyper-local level, in advance, so that when things do hit, we can be as buffered as possible. So, we need to be relying on our communities and building capacity within our communities. 176 \ 00:30:28.830 --> 00:30:36.130 \ Daphne Du Cros: So that when… because if we're proactive, we can be responsive in a crisis, rather than just reactive. 177 \ 00:30:36.190 --> 00:30:37.290 \ Daphne Du Cros: And panic. 178 \ 00:30:40.690 --> 00:30:49.050 \ Daphne Du Cros: So what we've been doing at the Shropshire Good Food Partnership is, as I've said, working with the broader Sustainable Food Places Network. 179 \ 00:30:49.060 --> 00:30:59.889 \ Daphne Du Cros: to bring together food partnerships that are in this headspace already. They are actively working on what does building food resilience 180 \ 00:30:59.890 --> 00:31:12.120 \ Daphne Du Cros: in our community, our region, look like. So they're taking active steps, they're finding things that work for them based on their context, and that cluster and report will be forthcoming on this soon. 181 \ 00:31:12.730 --> 00:31:24.380 \ Daphne Du Cros: But that cluster is able to communicate out to the broader network of 124 members. So, we are seeding those ideas so that we are creating a web across the UK. 182 \ 00:31:25.890 --> 00:31:41.389 \ Daphne Du Cros: In the marches, we are… we're working with our partners to figure out how we each have our superpowers, and we can learn from individual projects, and work to build resilience and capacity. So there's a lot of knowledge sharing, and a heck of a lot of expertise. Powess is… 183 \ 00:31:41.390 --> 00:31:49.190 \ Daphne Du Cros: truly a leader in this, the Difford-Powas area, and Wales, as Annie said, through the Future Generations Act. 184 \ 00:31:49.280 --> 00:31:56.759 \ Daphne Du Cros: Has taken the food resilience piece on board seriously, with funding going to their food partnerships. 185 \ 00:31:56.860 --> 00:32:03.450 \ Daphne Du Cros: Which, which we don't have in England. But it does mean that good 186 \ 00:32:03.600 --> 00:32:21.599 \ Daphne Du Cros: solid research is taking place on what that looks like. This is crucial. And that leadership and that research, recently at the Wales Food Security Summit, when it was, sort of revealed with the framework and report, again, forthcoming, 187 \ 00:32:21.600 --> 00:32:33.399 \ Daphne Du Cros: was inspiring, and a real, offers a real pathway to other food partnerships to utilize. So, keep an eye out for that, and I'll be happy to share it when it comes out. 188 \ 00:32:33.850 --> 00:32:49.480 \ Daphne Du Cros: In Shropshire, we've been doing a number of small pilot projects. Our context in Shropshire is that, essentially our county council is facing bankruptcy. They haven't had the capacity to engage in food systems work. 189 \ 00:32:49.660 --> 00:33:01.919 \ Daphne Du Cros: But what we have done as an opportunity, countering that, is we've started working with our Shropshire Association of Local Councils and our individual town and parish councils 190 \ 00:33:01.920 --> 00:33:20.469 \ Daphne Du Cros: to identify those that might be interested in working on this. We have one food strategy for Shropshire, and that's where I live, in Bishop's Castle, because it's a project that I've led on. But we can use that as a model and hold that up as an example or a template that other places can use. Likewise, throughout the food 191 \ 00:33:20.470 --> 00:33:29.640 \ Daphne Du Cros: the Sustainable Food Places Network, there are lots of examples of food strategies. So, that's a starting place for a lot of communities. 192 \ 00:33:30.360 --> 00:33:33.589 \ Daphne Du Cros: And some of the work that we have done has been 193 \ 00:33:33.710 --> 00:33:41.969 \ Daphne Du Cros: running scenarios with communities. So key stakeholders, counselors, people working in our… in the local food system. 194 \ 00:33:42.130 --> 00:33:43.550 \ Daphne Du Cros: To ask, what if. 195 \ 00:33:43.650 --> 00:33:55.630 \ Daphne Du Cros: So, what would happen if we experienced a hacking event that took out the local Tesco? What would that mean for your community members, their food access, food waste? 196 \ 00:33:55.710 --> 00:34:06.160 \ Daphne Du Cros: And another example is, what would happen if, if there was a foot and mouth disease outbreak? A different kind of pandemic that would affect the supply chain? 197 \ 00:34:06.210 --> 00:34:18.309 \ Daphne Du Cros: So, we run these scenarios, and we try to get people's understanding of how they would respond in their community, what the impacts would be, and that leads us into mapping assets and gaps. 198 \ 00:34:18.790 --> 00:34:26.319 \ Daphne Du Cros: So that can… that's taking a fearful situation and spinning it to be empowered through knowledge. 199 \ 00:34:27.760 --> 00:34:31.490 \ Daphne Du Cros: So, this is… I'm… I'm presenting this 200 \ 00:34:31.810 --> 00:34:37.099 \ Daphne Du Cros: because this is, part of what was presented at the Diffod Powess event. 201 \ 00:34:37.330 --> 00:34:54.040 \ Daphne Du Cros: And this is a very small part of the work that they showed, but it just gives the basic steps that they identified and timelines for how we would be able to approach civil food resilience. The first being, get people talking about it. We can't 202 \ 00:34:54.110 --> 00:35:10.959 \ Daphne Du Cros: fight an enemy that we don't see. People are very fearful, and we need to bring them into the headspace of, this is something that we need to work on. And we need to do that in a sensitive way, considering we're surrounded by the collapse narrative, but this can be mobilized to empower people. 203 \ 00:35:11.430 --> 00:35:17.329 \ Daphne Du Cros: We can talk about what local food needs are, and who needs support the most, who needs catching. 204 \ 00:35:17.680 --> 00:35:22.460 \ Daphne Du Cros: And then understanding our assets and gaps, what we've got going on locally, and what are our strengths. 205 \ 00:35:23.320 --> 00:35:27.799 \ Daphne Du Cros: Then, from that, we can talk about, well, what do we need to implement? What do we need to put in place? 206 \ 00:35:28.200 --> 00:35:39.179 \ Daphne Du Cros: And I'll come with… I'll come back to this shortly, about what… what can be implemented on the cheap, actually, and then we can build from there. And next is… 207 \ 00:35:39.230 --> 00:35:52.010 \ Daphne Du Cros: what would a plan be? What would a, you know, hitting the big red button, crisis, emergency, this is not a drill, what would that plan look like in your community when we have to outline 208 \ 00:35:52.120 --> 00:36:06.720 \ Daphne Du Cros: the what-ifs, whose job it is, specific roles, and what happens over certain timelines. Is this a one-day thing? A one-week thing? A month? A year? And what happens if there are compounding crises? 209 \ 00:36:08.300 --> 00:36:09.909 \ Daphne Du Cros: And, running along. 210 \ 00:36:10.090 --> 00:36:19.939 \ Daphne Du Cros: all the time under these are building skills and capacity for people. I'll give some examples of that, of that soon. 211 \ 00:36:20.360 --> 00:36:21.220 \ Daphne Du Cros: But… 212 \ 00:36:21.720 --> 00:36:33.810 \ Daphne Du Cros: Number 7 is we want to see more sustainable production. We are in a sort of triangle in Shropshire with Powice and Hereford, 213 \ 00:36:34.490 --> 00:36:39.099 \ Daphne Du Cros: Of intensive poultry units, and the pollution is incredible. 214 \ 00:36:39.230 --> 00:36:42.540 \ Daphne Du Cros: So we need to be thinking of how we… 215 \ 00:36:42.790 --> 00:36:50.800 \ Daphne Du Cros: work with our systems, consider our soil systems, our water systems, and how we support 216 \ 00:36:51.100 --> 00:36:57.789 \ Daphne Du Cros: Our food producers and growers through a transition that is more sustainable and more resilient in the long term. 217 \ 00:36:58.230 --> 00:37:04.360 \ Daphne Du Cros: And finally, bringing it back to people, we have a highly centralized, top-heavy food system. 218 \ 00:37:04.710 --> 00:37:20.059 \ Daphne Du Cros: And we have been disconnected as people. We have traded a lot over the last two generations for convenience, but what we have done is we've undercut ourselves because we are dependent on a system, and we are disempowered and unskilled. 219 \ 00:37:23.110 --> 00:37:24.060 \ Daphne Du Cros: So… 220 \ 00:37:24.600 --> 00:37:30.280 \ Daphne Du Cros: How's that? How's that so far? That's, drinking from a fire hose. There's a lot of material there. 221 \ 00:37:30.930 --> 00:37:35.899 \ Daphne Du Cros: Just… I can't really see too many people, but, 222 \ 00:37:36.190 --> 00:37:44.069 \ Daphne Du Cros: Are there… how many town and parish councillors do we have on the call, just sort of vaguely, by a show of hands? 223 \ 00:37:45.650 --> 00:37:53.489 \ Daphne Du Cros: We've got a few… So one thing I promised in delivering this, this presentation is 224 \ 00:37:54.230 --> 00:38:09.230 \ Daphne Du Cros: what's your role? What's your… what's your role in the revolution? What is your place in all of this, and how we can support one another? This is going to be part of the report that we put out with, Sustainable Food Places and Sustain coming up. 225 \ 00:38:09.790 --> 00:38:26.640 \ Daphne Du Cros: But we have an amazing opportunity as councils and food partnerships and the boots-on-the-ground community organizations to come together, because no one can do it in isolation. This has to be a whole-of-society approach. 226 \ 00:38:26.810 --> 00:38:30.830 \ Daphne Du Cros: We need to take the learning that we had from the pandemic. 227 \ 00:38:32.330 --> 00:38:56.230 \ Daphne Du Cros: reflect on that, because there were some absolutely amazing things that came out of that situation. Overall, it was not a great situation, but what we found in Shropshire was, all of a sudden, these networks started to develop, and it was not the council that initiated them. It was existing civil society groups. For example, the Shrewsbury Food Hub. 228 \ 00:38:56.230 --> 00:39:03.289 \ Daphne Du Cros: Of which Katie was one of the founding, founding members, or founding directors, rather. 229 \ 00:39:03.490 --> 00:39:10.529 \ Daphne Du Cros: the… food hub was already plumbed in, and therefore, when the Council approached them. 230 \ 00:39:10.570 --> 00:39:26.889 \ Daphne Du Cros: The Food Hub just said, no, no, you join our team. Come in, we're already doing it. And so those established networks were invaluable, and they were invaluable because they were based on not just the established pathways of getting things to and from, and who's doing what, but trust. 231 \ 00:39:27.420 --> 00:39:38.780 \ Daphne Du Cros: Because this is a profoundly human exercise. It's how we connect with and how we support one another. And change happens at the speed of trust, goes… goes the quote. 232 \ 00:39:39.030 --> 00:39:58.919 \ Daphne Du Cros: So, part of my research background was, what do councils bring to the table in this? What do food partnerships bring to the table in this? And we each have unique tools in our toolkit that we can use to move these things along. For example, councils have policy levers, legitimacy. 233 \ 00:39:59.150 --> 00:40:14.840 \ Daphne Du Cros: Hopefully, quite often, some funding, and the ability to communicate to a wide audience, to hold formal meetings, and to have people look up and pay attention, whereas food partnerships and community groups are networked. 234 \ 00:40:14.840 --> 00:40:25.110 \ Daphne Du Cros: They are people networks, they are boots on the ground, they know who's doing what. They know what works, because they've been doing it quite often for years. 235 \ 00:40:25.210 --> 00:40:33.400 \ Daphne Du Cros: And so they've got a lot of those things built in. By coming together, we can… we can work solutions, we can work the problem. 236 \ 00:40:34.170 --> 00:40:48.170 \ Daphne Du Cros: I talked about food systems thinking before, and one of the challenges that we face in councils is that they have their remit. This officer has their remit, that officer has their remit. It's very siloed. But food… 237 \ 00:40:48.170 --> 00:40:56.689 \ Daphne Du Cros: Just like climate, just like water systems, like energy systems. They connect… excuse me, they connect with so many different things. 238 \ 00:40:57.070 --> 00:41:06.590 \ Daphne Du Cros: We have to… even if it's just an academic exercise for the purpose of a food resilience plan, we need to break down those silos and think about where things connect. 239 \ 00:41:08.070 --> 00:41:11.000 \ Daphne Du Cros: So I've talked about some of the other bits, 240 \ 00:41:11.270 --> 00:41:14.150 \ Daphne Du Cros: Skilling up, I think, is essential. 241 \ 00:41:14.990 --> 00:41:16.020 \ Daphne Du Cros: And… 242 \ 00:41:16.220 --> 00:41:34.890 \ Daphne Du Cros: Well, I'll get to that, actually. Apologies. What I think is a really valuable exercise is knowing your community, knowing your landscape. We sort of go through our day-to-day lives without much of a thought to food, but what I would encourage you all to do is just to go for a walk. 243 \ 00:41:34.890 --> 00:41:41.400 \ Daphne Du Cros: In your community, in your space, and put your food systems glasses on, and have a think about 244 \ 00:41:41.490 --> 00:41:57.769 \ Daphne Du Cros: who lives in this space? How far is it away from the shop? Is it an affordable shop? If a crisis hit, and this block of houses didn't have power, where would be our food hub? What would be our community kitchen? What assets do we have? 245 \ 00:41:57.880 --> 00:42:08.170 \ Daphne Du Cros: And then, you can look at your local geography and your local networks and assets, and growing spaces in a completely different way. 246 \ 00:42:08.430 --> 00:42:14.819 \ Daphne Du Cros: Because those are… those are things that you can mobilize and support and connect together in advance. 247 \ 00:42:17.140 --> 00:42:20.940 \ Daphne Du Cros: As an example of what we've been doing in Shropshire. 248 \ 00:42:21.060 --> 00:42:35.149 \ Daphne Du Cros: Now, I've sort of gone over this, so I'm not going to dwell on it too much, but in a sense, we've distilled, for a pilot project, those 8 steps that were in the other document into a sort of 249 \ 00:42:35.730 --> 00:42:39.920 \ Daphne Du Cros: an easy-to-follow schematic, which just says, let's… 250 \ 00:42:39.920 --> 00:42:56.990 \ Daphne Du Cros: Understand that context, assess our gaps, bring people together who are key stakeholders, facilitate those conversations. We love a community assembly that brings people together, and food is something that so many people, well, everyone can relate to. Then, identify how we make an action plan. 251 \ 00:42:57.270 --> 00:43:11.850 \ Daphne Du Cros: And how we communicate food systems crises. And also, what underpins the practical, the practical actions. How do we support food activities that enfranchise people, that are accessible. 252 \ 00:43:12.140 --> 00:43:18.620 \ Daphne Du Cros: How do we build networks? Remember how remembering how to be people. We've been so… 253 \ 00:43:18.830 --> 00:43:30.870 \ Daphne Du Cros: so conditioned to think that we are individuals, and that we are stand-alone. And that has been isolating, but we have to remember that we're people. And also to build the links between 254 \ 00:43:30.870 --> 00:43:44.850 \ Daphne Du Cros: town and country, city and hinterland, because everyone I talked to, I was just at an event last night in Oswestri, and one of the big themes was, well, we want our farmers to feed us. 255 \ 00:43:44.940 --> 00:43:53.110 \ Daphne Du Cros: But we can't, and the farmers are going, well, we want to feed you, but there's a piece missing. So, it's our job to try to problem-solve those things. 256 \ 00:43:54.690 --> 00:44:00.249 \ Daphne Du Cros: So… Just for fun, I'm going to tell you about what we've been doing on my farm. 257 \ 00:44:02.690 --> 00:44:06.530 \ Daphne Du Cros: So, realizing that, of course, we are not food resilient. 258 \ 00:44:06.890 --> 00:44:17.250 \ Daphne Du Cros: And I have been working at the county level and trying to connect the dots on lots of different projects with, with our directors. 259 \ 00:44:17.460 --> 00:44:33.479 \ Daphne Du Cros: But also, I have an asset on my doorstep. We operated as a market garden, took a step back from commercial trading, but realized, just this year, it felt very much like that knife edge of the early pandemic, where I had to sit and think. 260 \ 00:44:33.660 --> 00:44:39.310 \ Daphne Du Cros: What, as a grower, what is my responsibility to my community in a time of crisis? 261 \ 00:44:39.900 --> 00:44:49.270 \ Daphne Du Cros: And… once again, I have come to the conclusion that it's our job to ramp up production again, so make the land productive. 262 \ 00:44:49.800 --> 00:44:55.600 \ Daphne Du Cros: But the food resilience piece means upskilling our community. So that… 263 \ 00:44:55.930 --> 00:45:05.370 \ Daphne Du Cros: has included developing some course materials, and some courses for free, because we need them to be accessible to the community, and those include seed saving. 264 \ 00:45:05.750 --> 00:45:08.310 \ Daphne Du Cros: How to grow, 265 \ 00:45:08.420 --> 00:45:20.840 \ Daphne Du Cros: bottling, canning, preserving the harvest in a number of different ways, composting, and generally it brings together an opportunity to, to have people connect. Sometimes food is a happy 266 \ 00:45:20.840 --> 00:45:35.119 \ Daphne Du Cros: happy outcome, and all of our food goes to the food bank. All the surplus that we provide goes to the food bank first, and then additional surplus to the community. And we're exploring ways to connect more with a community chef. 267 \ 00:45:35.120 --> 00:45:46.700 \ Daphne Du Cros: role, and potentially a Meals on Wheels delivery pilot, as well as a Compost Club pilot, because there are, just to be honest, there are enough horses around here that we could pull that one off easily enough. 268 \ 00:45:48.180 --> 00:46:06.749 \ Daphne Du Cros: So, this… and we also produce seed for our seed bank, and we're hoping to work more with the Heritage Seed Library to be essentially redundancy, to be an additional place to build up capacity and produce seed, because we need that 269 \ 00:46:06.750 --> 00:46:10.679 \ Daphne Du Cros: those distributed networks. Just one space isn't enough. 270 \ 00:46:10.880 --> 00:46:15.650 \ Daphne Du Cros: So this is an example of Of 4 acres. 271 \ 00:46:15.650 --> 00:46:35.760 \ Daphne Du Cros: that we are trying to have to use for a positive impact to build community food resilience. And it has offered us, an example to use in our food resilience strategy for Bishop's Castle. So, we can whack that in a document and bring it to our council and say, there's lots going on, you just need to sign off 272 \ 00:46:35.810 --> 00:46:37.480 \ Daphne Du Cros: and facilitate 273 \ 00:46:37.540 --> 00:46:44.640 \ Daphne Du Cros: Open doors for us. Help us work through the, this, you know, the logistics of this. Make it accessible to people. 274 \ 00:46:44.860 --> 00:46:48.609 \ Daphne Du Cros: So, that's… that's one example. 275 \ 00:46:49.070 --> 00:46:55.239 \ Daphne Du Cros: Shall I? So, I've got a number of examples, and I'm just looking at the time. 276 \ 00:46:55.530 --> 00:47:00.549 \ Daphne Du Cros: So, Graham and Andrew, would you like me to… 277 \ 00:47:00.990 --> 00:47:08.739 \ Daphne Du Cros: I can open it up for questions at this point. I've got some examples of specifics that people could do. 278 \ 00:47:09.130 --> 00:47:10.480 \ Daphne Du Cros: that, 279 \ 00:47:10.870 --> 00:47:19.379 \ Daphne Du Cros: that are the sort of cheap and easy wins, I suppose. You let me know how you would like me to proceed on that, just so that I'm not overwhelming. 280 \ 00:47:19.860 --> 00:47:20.500 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones-Great Collaboration, Bembridge: Hey. 281 \ 00:47:20.790 --> 00:47:33.299 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones-Great Collaboration, Bembridge: My own preference, Stephanie, would be for you to go ahead and give people examples, because I think they'll all be full of questions, and if there are some answers that you've already got, then they'd love to hear them. That would be my view. Wonderful. 282 \ 00:47:33.540 --> 00:47:35.179 \ Daphne Du Cros: Okay, wonderful, thank you. 283 \ 00:47:35.430 --> 00:47:47.550 \ Daphne Du Cros: So my suggestion for a good place to start is we… most… most communities have growing spaces, allotments, or… 284 \ 00:47:47.870 --> 00:47:57.079 \ Daphne Du Cros: disused publicly owned land, which is where we can enter with an initiative from, excuse me, Incredible Edible, called The Right to Grow. 285 \ 00:47:57.690 --> 00:48:07.749 \ Daphne Du Cros: This is something that has been made public nationally, and DEFRA has gotten behind it to say we should all have the right to grow, and that is simply, people can apply 286 \ 00:48:07.890 --> 00:48:24.939 \ Daphne Du Cros: to grow food on publicly owned, disused land. So that means working with the local council, or the county council if it's county council-owned land, to say, we see that nothing's happening here, let's double check that it's safe to grow on. 287 \ 00:48:24.940 --> 00:48:32.659 \ Daphne Du Cros: here's our plan, this is how we'll engage the community, and then, in theory, the council should go. 288 \ 00:48:32.860 --> 00:48:36.509 \ Daphne Du Cros: Wonderful. We'll step out of your way, and we'll just… 289 \ 00:48:36.640 --> 00:48:40.800 \ Daphne Du Cros: We'll sign an agreement and say, you can use this space. Well done. 290 \ 00:48:40.920 --> 00:48:42.010 \ Daphne Du Cros: And then… 291 \ 00:48:42.150 --> 00:48:47.349 \ Daphne Du Cros: You've got people who are more connected to their food system, and using space that was previously, 292 \ 00:48:47.530 --> 00:49:04.270 \ Daphne Du Cros: Yeah, unused. That's another avenue beyond allotments and community gardens. Although a lot of allotments have massive waitlists, we recommend a buddy system, where people can join up with somebody who's already got an allotment, 293 \ 00:49:04.490 --> 00:49:09.600 \ Daphne Du Cros: Who maybe needs a little extra support in working that space, and there's the potential for knowledge sharing. 294 \ 00:49:09.950 --> 00:49:14.859 \ Daphne Du Cros: We have the opportunity to work with different allotment societies, potentially. 295 \ 00:49:14.920 --> 00:49:20.000 \ Daphne Du Cros: Seed saving at allotments. A lot of people say it can't be done. It absolutely can. 296 \ 00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:34.929 \ Daphne Du Cros: There are lots of different ways to get surplus food and surplus seed into the community. We recommend Grow a Row. Grow a row for the seed bank, grow a row for the food bank, and through the Food Partnership, we provide training on a number of these things. 297 \ 00:49:35.740 --> 00:49:52.899 \ Daphne Du Cros: Upskilling, like I mentioned, that we do on our farm, there are core skills that we've just forgotten about, but we still have people in our communities and organizations across the UK that give training, online training, in-person sessions, and connecting people with land. 298 \ 00:49:53.070 --> 00:50:05.019 \ Daphne Du Cros: A great example is Land Match England, which is a new initiative that's been launched, working primarily with farmers and, people who have land and 299 \ 00:50:05.030 --> 00:50:19.699 \ Daphne Du Cros: are willing to share it, and people who are looking for land to get growing or to launch farming initiatives. So this is really one to look for, and there are coordinators that can support with land matching, depending on the region, or your local food partnership should be aware of this. 300 \ 00:50:19.790 --> 00:50:38.299 \ Daphne Du Cros: So, my view is that there is so much knowledge, there are so many resources, there is so much land, it's a matter of sharing and sort of rebuilding the idea of sharing in our communities, that we're all on the same team, and sharing generously, particularly when it comes to the things that we know and not gatekeeping that knowledge. 301 \ 00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:53.860 \ Daphne Du Cros: In Bishop's Castle, the pandemic prompted us to start a community seed bank, and this was largely because there was a run on seeds when there was a crisis. I suspect we're going to start seeing that again this time. 302 \ 00:50:54.510 --> 00:50:57.110 \ Daphne Du Cros: That was, 303 \ 00:50:57.180 --> 00:51:04.780 \ Daphne Du Cros: Because of that situation, our small-scale seed producers had to close their webshops, limit their hours for processing. 304 \ 00:51:04.780 --> 00:51:19.110 \ Daphne Du Cros: processing orders, and they had to prioritize market gardens, because we could grow more efficiently at scale. So as a market gardener, I was able to get larger packs of seeds and break them up so that we could share them within the community. 305 \ 00:51:19.240 --> 00:51:21.050 \ Daphne Du Cros: Thus the seed bank was born. 306 \ 00:51:21.720 --> 00:51:27.300 \ Daphne Du Cros: Now the seed bank has gone from being available at our local farmer's market once a month. 307 \ 00:51:27.300 --> 00:51:52.169 \ Daphne Du Cros: to having a place in a cantilever toolbox in our local library, and that makes it accessible anytime the library is open. Obviously, we know libraries are wonderful, welcoming, democratic spaces where people know that they can just go access things for free. So, it has been a huge success. We've already… we've also been piloting one of these in Telford, and just today I spoke with our portfolio holder for libraries in Shropshire. 308 \ 00:51:52.170 --> 00:51:56.680 \ Daphne Du Cros: who said, we even have a mobile library service, and we have 309 \ 00:51:56.680 --> 00:52:10.240 \ Daphne Du Cros: however many libraries, yes, let's find some funding and see if we can make this work across more spaces. This is an example of micro-infrastructure that just means 310 \ 00:52:10.530 --> 00:52:14.389 \ Daphne Du Cros: The means to grow food is accessible to everyone. 311 \ 00:52:14.600 --> 00:52:30.800 \ Daphne Du Cros: And that is so valuable. During the pandemic, communities in deprived areas might have space, or there were examples of, you know, we've got space, we've got the will to grow, but they couldn't access seed. So, again, seed is the foundation of our food system. 312 \ 00:52:30.860 --> 00:52:47.500 \ Daphne Du Cros: That also doubles with things like machinery rings, tool shares, repair cafes, library of things, I love the idea of a library of things, knowledge and skill shares, and then we get into sort of bigger infrastructure, like. 313 \ 00:52:47.600 --> 00:53:04.629 \ Daphne Du Cros: And it doesn't have to be expensive. Setting up a local farmer's market, it can rely on a few volunteers, maybe a part-time market manager. But having a local farmer's market means local food access and, you know, direct sales and routes to market. 314 \ 00:53:04.800 --> 00:53:09.760 \ Daphne Du Cros: Setting these things up doesn't have to cost the world, but they can have a profound impact. 315 \ 00:53:09.790 --> 00:53:26.369 \ Daphne Du Cros: gleaning networks. For those who don't know what gleaning means, it's a very old-fashioned word, it's a traditional process where the farmer would allow community members to come and sort of harvest the leftover bits of grain or produce that they couldn't 316 \ 00:53:26.370 --> 00:53:29.969 \ Daphne Du Cros: harvest during the main event. 317 \ 00:53:30.140 --> 00:53:36.660 \ Daphne Du Cros: So that might be oats or grains, but now, gleaning typically means 318 \ 00:53:36.870 --> 00:53:57.319 \ Daphne Du Cros: it might be using, leftover field-scale produce if they didn't fit specifications for, say, Sainsbury's or Tesco contracts, or it might be collecting apples, sort of scrumping, collecting apples and fruit in a really abundant season like last year, and then it gets shared out by the community or used. 319 \ 00:53:58.140 --> 00:54:10.580 \ Daphne Du Cros: And then we can think about things like, what are our transport connections to get food to and from? Do we have electric vehicles if fuel is impacted? Do we have space to store things? Do we have shops? 320 \ 00:54:10.580 --> 00:54:21.430 \ Daphne Du Cros: Where we can distribute things, or community centers, or ways of processing food. And this is a really interesting one that we keep bumping up against in the Food Partnership, because 321 \ 00:54:22.540 --> 00:54:35.740 \ Daphne Du Cros: and it's common across the UK, is our infrastructure for processing has been stripped from the local level. A common example is abattoirs, but that includes, 322 \ 00:54:36.340 --> 00:54:47.819 \ Daphne Du Cros: machinery for processing grains and pulses, mills. So there are a lot of different scales of infrastructure that we need to bring back to the community level. 323 \ 00:54:50.340 --> 00:54:52.270 \ Daphne Du Cros: A fun one, where… that… 324 \ 00:54:52.500 --> 00:55:00.119 \ Daphne Du Cros: This is an interesting narrative, and how do we position this, because we don't want people to panic buy. 325 \ 00:55:00.400 --> 00:55:10.949 \ Daphne Du Cros: But we do want them to gradually build up their home pantry, and it's not about being a prepper as an individual, it's about how do we 326 \ 00:55:11.630 --> 00:55:26.919 \ Daphne Du Cros: prepare for our communities? How do we prepare with our families, our neighbors, and our communities in mind? Some of that can happen at an individual level, but there are economic implications there for many people. 327 \ 00:55:27.230 --> 00:55:29.179 \ Daphne Du Cros: So how do we, with our… 328 \ 00:55:29.500 --> 00:55:44.690 \ Daphne Du Cros: churches and our faith-based institutions, our food banks, and our councils come together to have conversations about this, and what rotation and storage and responsibility would look like. In the UK, we no longer have 329 \ 00:55:45.260 --> 00:55:52.860 \ Daphne Du Cros: have a central food storage, but many European nations have been reimplementing that and bringing that back in. We should take that as a hint. 330 \ 00:55:54.130 --> 00:56:11.590 \ Daphne Du Cros: we have a number of interesting, examples of rescue and distribution initiatives across Shropshire, and I know that there are many nationally. One that our food hub does is called Supersonic, which, I think not only is it a great name, but it's a great initiative that uses 331 \ 00:56:11.850 --> 00:56:17.190 \ Daphne Du Cros: surplus food, I won't call it food waste, because it's not food waste, it's surplus food, 332 \ 00:56:17.190 --> 00:56:36.650 \ Daphne Du Cros: that they can make soups out of. The soups get frozen in containers, different sized servings, and those can either be shared out through a community freezer, or taken to schools, or even used for the catering for corporate events. So it's a really great way of using that food. 333 \ 00:56:36.730 --> 00:56:52.530 \ Daphne Du Cros: And we also need to be thinking about other systems in place. It's very easy, as I say, to talk about the silo of food, but food touches on our energy needs, we need to be thinking about water storage and what we take care of. 334 \ 00:56:52.660 --> 00:57:17.509 \ Daphne Du Cros: are how we store water, how we access clean water, prescriptions. Some of the things that people forget about, most often are baby formula, and those are the fastest things to disappear off the shelves, diabetes medication, and people very rarely think about pets. So, a few notable things that, and sort of any range of prescriptions, but people need to be thinking about that proactively, and not panicking. 335 \ 00:57:17.510 --> 00:57:20.070 \ Daphne Du Cros: That's part of our communication and our guidance. 336 \ 00:57:20.070 --> 00:57:21.739 \ Daphne Du Cros: I've talked about this. 337 \ 00:57:21.740 --> 00:57:34.529 \ Daphne Du Cros: This is important, though. We need to think about our local food system, build up that infrastructure, those routes to market, and having those conversations to build relationships with the people who are working in our food system. 338 \ 00:57:34.830 --> 00:57:43.769 \ Daphne Du Cros: And my advice, and what my motto is now for our farm is lots of diversity of the things that we produce. 339 \ 00:57:44.210 --> 00:57:46.020 \ Daphne Du Cros: Go massive overkill. 340 \ 00:57:46.130 --> 00:57:49.850 \ Daphne Du Cros: plant more potatoes, there is no downside. 341 \ 00:57:50.010 --> 00:58:01.609 \ Daphne Du Cros: Grow for abundance, grow lots, and then grow for storability, be really practical. Spuds, squash, courgettes, onions, things like that that will store. 342 \ 00:58:01.760 --> 00:58:08.120 \ Daphne Du Cros: Courgettes do store reasonably well, but how to store food and, and prepare food in those ways… 343 \ 00:58:09.280 --> 00:58:18.899 \ Daphne Du Cros: And finally, I think I've harped on this enough, to be proactive and responsive is better to be… than being unprepared and reactive. 344 \ 00:58:18.970 --> 00:58:33.290 \ Daphne Du Cros: this is a way that we can connect with our communities, get in their headspace, and I think we have an incredible opportunity right now, with the People's Emergency Briefing rolling out across, across everywhere. 345 \ 00:58:33.500 --> 00:58:45.000 \ Daphne Du Cros: people are going to want to have these conversations, or to understand, yikes, that's scary, what do we do next? And this is an opportunity to ride that wave and engage people. 346 \ 00:58:45.100 --> 00:58:56.670 \ Daphne Du Cros: We so often talk in an echo chamber about food and food systems in crisis. This is an opportunity where I think we might have more people from outside that echo chamber coming in. 347 \ 00:58:56.690 --> 00:59:07.669 \ Daphne Du Cros: So we need to figure out how to communicate with them, and not just communicate, but how to invite them in and say, we need you, we need the skills that you're bringing. People have different… 348 \ 00:59:07.880 --> 00:59:23.699 \ Daphne Du Cros: knowledge, experience, assets, it might be lend, it might be money, it might be tools, we will need all of these things. So figuring out who's got what and how we can pull together is very important. But also, scenarios, timelines. 349 \ 00:59:23.820 --> 00:59:27.049 \ Daphne Du Cros: Whose job is it, if, and when? 350 \ 00:59:27.130 --> 00:59:39.079 \ Daphne Du Cros: specific responsibilities, and I can't emphasize this enough, hard copies of things. We have become very reliant on digital systems, but if suddenly those are gone. 351 \ 00:59:39.080 --> 00:59:49.600 \ Daphne Du Cros: The Vulnerable Persons Register that you have been working to develop in your community and diligently getting people to sign up for, well, it's no good if you can't access an updated copy. 352 \ 00:59:49.600 --> 00:59:54.259 \ Daphne Du Cros: So, I would encourage people to think about what, phone numbers 353 \ 00:59:54.260 --> 01:00:02.450 \ Daphne Du Cros: what, what documents, what protocols, and, and resources you would need. 354 \ 01:00:02.610 --> 01:00:10.249 \ Daphne Du Cros: So I think… oh, and that's my resources page, so I'll be sharing that afterwards. But that sort of brings us… what time is this? 355 \ 01:00:10.770 --> 01:00:12.139 \ Daphne Du Cros: Let's see… oof! 356 \ 01:00:12.350 --> 01:00:24.359 \ Daphne Du Cros: Sorry, I talked a lot there. So, I will unshare, and we can do questions, and I'm happy to stay on for a bit longer, since I rattled on for quite a while. 357 \ 01:00:29.550 --> 01:00:31.239 \ Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboratiom: That was amazing. Wonderful. 358 \ 01:00:31.240 --> 01:00:32.809 \ Annie L , in Llanidloes, in Powys: Yeah, fantastic. 359 \ 01:00:33.090 --> 01:00:35.389 \ Daphne Du Cros: Is that too much? It's too much. There's so much there. 360 \ 01:00:35.390 --> 01:00:37.630 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones-Great Collaboration, Bembridge: No, definitely. 361 \ 01:00:37.630 --> 01:00:38.570 \ Daphne Du Cros: It's all happening, folks. 362 \ 01:00:38.570 --> 01:01:01.089 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones-Great Collaboration, Bembridge: It was a fantastic presentation, and I love the enthusiasm, and the fact that every fact that you made hit home, and as you say, having right on the heels of the emergency briefing, it's wonderful stuff. I had a whole bunch of questions to go through, but I suspect other people have, and Andrew is already ahead of the game, so let's go to you, Andrew, please. 363 \ 01:01:01.090 --> 01:01:17.660 \ Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboratiom: Well, just a quickie, obviously, thanks again, Daphne, for actually coming on for quite short notice to do this talk. It will be recorded and shared, but I've just made a note to myself, and we'll talk about it separately. It'd be good to have a questionnaire process that people can follow through at the local level to say. 364 \ 01:01:17.660 --> 01:01:24.520 \ Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboratiom: All the things that you've been saying, picking out the ones that they need to look at, because, just to make it easy for people. 365 \ 01:01:25.030 --> 01:01:32.850 \ Daphne Du Cros: Yeah, definitely, and there is, there are toolkits out there for community food assessment. Okay. But… 366 \ 01:01:34.980 --> 01:01:37.680 \ Daphne Du Cros: There aren't any that I know of… yet. 367 \ 01:01:38.250 --> 01:01:52.610 \ Daphne Du Cros: that specify… actually, no, well, that's not true. I suppose, some of Tim Lang's report looks at that as well. So do… do give a look at the just-in… from… just in time to just-in-case report. 368 \ 01:01:53.290 --> 01:02:03.479 \ Daphne Du Cros: Because, I mean, go for the executive summary version, and not the full honkin' thing, because it's 300 and some odd pages. But it does have… 369 \ 01:02:03.670 --> 01:02:05.170 \ Daphne Du Cros: tools for… 370 \ 01:02:05.790 --> 01:02:24.859 \ Daphne Du Cros: for a number of these things, and how we can look at that. Another really great document from Sarah Bridle and et al, from York University is Pathways to Food Resilience. So that was that sort of Tinderbox, report that I… that I showed. So… 371 \ 01:02:25.700 --> 01:02:35.260 \ Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboratiom: Good. I mean, going back to what you were… one of the things you were saying earlier about town and parish councils, most town and parish councils want to address this issue of food residence before now. 372 \ 01:02:35.260 --> 01:02:48.930 \ Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboratiom: Apart from those that already have, indirectly, that have allotments. So, my mission, Jim, is to find the right wording and the right approach to get those places engaged. Many, many thanks again, Craig. 373 \ 01:02:49.090 --> 01:03:00.610 \ Daphne Du Cros: Wonderful, yeah, that's something that I've read recently, is when the chips are down, the only currency is calories. And I think it's all well and good for town and parish councils to go. 374 \ 01:03:00.610 --> 01:03:09.619 \ Daphne Du Cros: Well, you know, it's just another thing to take on, and this is the… unfortunately, this was the view of… when I spoke to our South Shropshire MP recently, 375 \ 01:03:09.620 --> 01:03:16.469 \ Daphne Du Cros: He said, well, you know, most town and parish councils won't engage with this, because they'll think it's just another thing. And I said, well. 376 \ 01:03:16.540 --> 01:03:19.600 \ Daphne Du Cros: It's just another thing until it's THE thing. 377 \ 01:03:19.820 --> 01:03:20.710 \ Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboratiom: Right. 378 \ 01:03:20.710 --> 01:03:24.539 \ Daphne Du Cros: It's unavoidable, and you would have wished you'd done something about it, so yeah. 379 \ 01:03:27.870 --> 01:03:30.279 \ Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboratiom: Somebody else turned, yeah. 380 \ 01:03:31.290 --> 01:03:45.850 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones-Great Collaboration, Bembridge: Yeah. Are there any other questions that people would like to ask? By all means, use the, hand-raised facility within Zoom, which is the easiest way, and Frank, you beat everyone to it, just in front of Stuart. 381 \ 01:03:45.850 --> 01:03:52.469 \ frank deas Killearn: Thanks very much. This is just an observation that, from what I can see, one of the unintended consequences of COVID 382 \ 01:03:52.470 --> 01:04:15.819 \ frank deas Killearn: was that it created a whole generation of people who will now order online from Costco or Waitrose or Zainsbury, and because they're doing that, because they no longer have to go out to shops, it's much harder for market gardens or community veg growing projects to get off the ground, because people can just sit at their desk, press one button, and everything turns up for them. Is that something that you've experienced or other people have experienced? 383 \ 01:04:15.820 --> 01:04:17.940 \ frank deas Killearn: Or is that just something that we're going to Europe? 384 \ 01:04:17.940 --> 01:04:28.889 \ Daphne Du Cros: That is… it's such an interesting observation. It is something that we have been talking about a lot in… in Shropshire, because, we have… we have a lot of market towns. 385 \ 01:04:29.010 --> 01:04:36.109 \ Daphne Du Cros: And we have, through the Food Partnership, we engage with a lot of schools. And what we have found is that 386 \ 01:04:36.440 --> 01:04:50.619 \ Daphne Du Cros: there's an opportunity there. So we're part of an initiative that wants to get food farming and sustainability into the national curriculum. We've also worked with schools on decarbonization programs, and ways to get young people 387 \ 01:04:50.730 --> 01:04:56.960 \ Daphne Du Cros: you know, understanding food and across various things, that's a whole other conversation. But… 388 \ 01:04:57.250 --> 01:05:04.380 \ Daphne Du Cros: Getting young people who have a lot of social anxiety about transactions and shopping 389 \ 01:05:04.980 --> 01:05:12.289 \ Daphne Du Cros: That really worries a generation, an aging-out generation, of market stall holders. 390 \ 01:05:12.960 --> 01:05:23.039 \ Daphne Du Cros: And to think that our markets could decline because young people don't see it as a viable career option, because they're not shopping there, they don't engage with it. 391 \ 01:05:23.300 --> 01:05:31.860 \ Daphne Du Cros: What a cultural loss. So what we're doing is fielding some opportunities to get schools and young people 392 \ 01:05:32.080 --> 01:05:51.480 \ Daphne Du Cros: into markets, so that they… it's part of their food training, it's part of their curriculum. They can understand currency, real money, and they can understand what making a meal plan and a shopping list looks like, and going and talking to a person, and understanding what they're buying, and where it comes from. 393 \ 01:05:51.480 --> 01:06:02.869 \ Daphne Du Cros: So there are so many interesting opportunities to rebuild that from an education perspective and show people the true value of food, and that it's real people doing it. Yeah, thank you, that's a great question. 394 \ 01:06:04.110 --> 01:06:06.269 \ Daphne Du Cros: I think I've got Stuart next. 395 \ 01:06:09.400 --> 01:06:12.839 \ Cllr.Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: Hi, thanks. It's been a great talk so far. 396 \ 01:06:12.960 --> 01:06:16.059 \ Cllr.Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: I was just wondering what your view… 397 \ 01:06:16.060 --> 01:06:17.269 \ Daphne Du Cros: All downhill from here. 398 \ 01:06:17.270 --> 01:06:23.530 \ Cllr.Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: Regenerative agriculture is. They were saying, 399 \ 01:06:23.710 --> 01:06:29.650 \ Cllr.Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: A little while ago, there's only so many harvests left in the soil in this country. 400 \ 01:06:30.200 --> 01:06:42.830 \ Cllr.Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: My next-door neighbor is the local farmer. He farms all the land around here, and I've been trying to persuade him to, go in for regen agriculture. 401 \ 01:06:43.230 --> 01:06:55.720 \ Cllr.Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: But he says it's just too difficult at the moment. The farmers don't know whether they're coming or going financially. Yep. The cost of all these inputs has risen dramatically. 402 \ 01:06:56.050 --> 01:07:06.479 \ Cllr.Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: And it'd be even worse now with, the, Straits of Old Moose being blocked. The ELMS funding seems to come and go. 403 \ 01:07:06.730 --> 01:07:12.560 \ Cllr.Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: The Sustainable Agriculture Fund Hasn't yet been decided. 404 \ 01:07:12.820 --> 01:07:18.770 \ Cllr.Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: And the last thing on his mind is trying to change his agricultural techniques. 405 \ 01:07:19.160 --> 01:07:23.410 \ Daphne Du Cros: Yeah, Peer-to-peer exchange. 406 \ 01:07:23.830 --> 01:07:28.790 \ Daphne Du Cros: Is the strongest tool that we have for working with farmers. 407 \ 01:07:31.150 --> 01:07:51.060 \ Daphne Du Cros: It's been so embedded with a heck of a lot of money behind it over the last couple of generations, that if you're not farming in a conventional way, with this kit, and the bundle that your seeds and your chemicals come as with your farm manager getting a kickback from the big companies. 408 \ 01:07:51.060 --> 01:07:59.430 \ Daphne Du Cros: Then it's not real farming. If you're… go big or go home. No longer is it small as beautiful. And it's disconnected farmers from… 409 \ 01:07:59.470 --> 01:08:01.020 \ Daphne Du Cros: farming. 410 \ 01:08:01.050 --> 01:08:09.520 \ Daphne Du Cros: and the land and the systems that we're reliant on. And it's hard to walk that back. So, the way that I have 411 \ 01:08:09.550 --> 01:08:19.849 \ Daphne Du Cros: very… it's a gracious way of putting it, and I really value it, is everybody is at a different place on that regenerative journey, and 412 \ 01:08:19.850 --> 01:08:29.619 \ Daphne Du Cros: we know that the science is stacking up in favor of regenerative farming. And when I say regenerative, just to clarify for everyone, it's taking a systems lens of 413 \ 01:08:29.620 --> 01:08:44.569 \ Daphne Du Cros: how your land and your soil works, your plant systems work, your livestock works, your water system. All of these things are interconnected and can support one another. It's not 414 \ 01:08:44.569 --> 01:08:51.790 \ Daphne Du Cros: So, regenerative rather than, you know, degrading. We are not seeking to degrade our landscape further, we want to regenerate it. 415 \ 01:08:52.420 --> 01:08:58.020 \ Daphne Du Cros: And, like sustainability, as a term. 416 \ 01:08:58.260 --> 01:09:18.110 \ Daphne Du Cros: that really got watered down. True sustainability got watered down by economic interests, just like regenerative is now being co-opted by big companies, like the Cargills and the Monsanto, that go, yes, yes, we advocate for regenerative. That just means a little bit less glyphosate. 417 \ 01:09:18.330 --> 01:09:30.160 \ Daphne Du Cros: So, you know, it's… it's not, it's not methadone, like, it's not a general phase-out, in that sense. It's… it's greenwashing. So… 418 \ 01:09:30.439 --> 01:09:44.469 \ Daphne Du Cros: we know that regenerative farming and diverse farming and small-scale mixed farming is the direction that we need to go, not just to feed ourselves, but to take care of the soil and our life systems. 419 \ 01:09:45.000 --> 01:09:57.449 \ Daphne Du Cros: there will be no other option. It's just, it's really being held back by a hell of a lot of big money. And maybe that's a way to frame it to your farmer friend, you know? 420 \ 01:09:57.680 --> 01:10:07.159 \ Daphne Du Cros: you've gotten locked into a system, and it's… it's a really, you know, it's like… it's like getting hooked on… on AI and technology and all of these things, 421 \ 01:10:07.580 --> 01:10:14.249 \ Daphne Du Cros: it's a difficult one, and I'm sure that in time, he will be ready, but, getting people 422 \ 01:10:14.620 --> 01:10:21.249 \ Daphne Du Cros: to connect with other farmers who have been through it. I know this is a very long-winded answer, there's so much to say on it. 423 \ 01:10:21.920 --> 01:10:29.500 \ Daphne Du Cros: there are lots of resources, there are lots of training resources out there to get people thinking about regenerative farming. 424 \ 01:10:30.620 --> 01:10:38.210 \ Daphne Du Cros: And a great argument, particularly as costs are going up, is you save money by reducing your inputs. 425 \ 01:10:38.630 --> 01:10:42.820 \ Daphne Du Cros: And you can have… fewer animals. 426 \ 01:10:42.920 --> 01:10:54.919 \ Daphne Du Cros: use your grass better, and have higher quality animals, and keep them out all year round. So there are lots of, lots of positive ticks for moving to regen. 427 \ 01:10:56.010 --> 01:10:58.469 \ Cllr.Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: I'll keep plugging away, then. Yeah, definitely. 428 \ 01:10:58.480 --> 01:10:59.810 \ Daphne Du Cros: Sue? 429 \ 01:11:00.820 --> 01:11:08.650 \ Sue Burton Battle TC East Sussex: Hi, thank you. Couple of things. I had, in my local area, we had a food partnership. 430 \ 01:11:08.810 --> 01:11:23.830 \ Sue Burton Battle TC East Sussex: Which I linked in with, when I could, but the member of staff left, and they haven't been replaced. I'm… I haven't traced it, but I… 431 \ 01:11:23.940 --> 01:11:38.290 \ Sue Burton Battle TC East Sussex: will do to see what's happening, but they… I don't know who… I know where she was based, but I don't know where the money comes from for the food partnerships. What would pay her, just to ask you that? 432 \ 01:11:38.290 --> 01:11:41.819 \ Daphne Du Cros: Yeah, it depends. Food partnerships are… 433 \ 01:11:42.060 --> 01:11:55.009 \ Daphne Du Cros: often, community interest companies or charities. Sometimes, if they are so fortunate as to be part employed by the council, they might be embedded within the council. 434 \ 01:11:55.140 --> 01:12:04.879 \ Daphne Du Cros: But quite often, it's grant funding. As a food partnership, we survive off grant funding, and so that means it's… it's constantly doing this. 435 \ 01:12:04.880 --> 01:12:17.539 \ Daphne Du Cros: So, I might be able to make some inquiries, through this, or you can email the Sustainable Food Places Network, and they might be able to tell you what the status is for your area. 436 \ 01:12:17.540 --> 01:12:18.090 \ Daphne Du Cros: Because. 437 \ 01:12:18.090 --> 01:12:19.390 \ Sue Burton Battle TC East Sussex: sustainable. 438 \ 01:12:19.390 --> 01:12:23.260 \ Daphne Du Cros: Sustainable Food Places, and I will get the link. 439 \ 01:12:23.400 --> 01:12:24.440 \ Daphne Du Cros: for you. 440 \ 01:12:24.990 --> 01:12:33.099 \ Daphne Du Cros: SustainableFoodplaces.org, and that is sort of an umbrella That, convenes… 441 \ 01:12:33.970 --> 01:12:42.979 \ Daphne Du Cros: our… the… the sort of the food partnerships across the UK. So sometimes they get funding and they can channel it through to different ones, but, 442 \ 01:12:43.160 --> 01:12:46.360 \ Daphne Du Cros: Not… not often. Okay. 443 \ 01:12:46.520 --> 01:12:54.139 \ Sue Burton Battle TC East Sussex: Thank you. Then my second question is about, the Town Council and being, 444 \ 01:12:54.280 --> 01:12:58.669 \ Sue Burton Battle TC East Sussex: how, you know, that I'm gonna be greeted with 445 \ 01:12:59.320 --> 01:13:03.430 \ Sue Burton Battle TC East Sussex: We've got enough to do, we can't keep up. 446 \ 01:13:05.210 --> 01:13:20.889 \ Sue Burton Battle TC East Sussex: I, and I'm not feeling very clear about what I can do, yet. I did have, I've been looking at the, 447 \ 01:13:21.610 --> 01:13:41.249 \ Sue Burton Battle TC East Sussex: the allotment agreement, and try… changing… trying to change that, saying they could sell their produce before we had a rule that they couldn't. And so I've just initiated that, and that's as a result of learning and think about that. So you're incentivizing food production on allotments. 448 \ 01:13:41.250 --> 01:13:41.880 \ Daphne Du Cros: Definitely. 449 \ 01:13:41.880 --> 01:13:57.020 \ Sue Burton Battle TC East Sussex: I'm not sure what else… I just would love some other ideas, short of starting your own network and a big chunk of work. I would love some other ideas, really. 450 \ 01:13:57.020 --> 01:14:03.059 \ Daphne Du Cros: Yeah, absolutely. I think, an easy solution is… 451 \ 01:14:03.480 --> 01:14:11.490 \ Daphne Du Cros: A first step, rather, not an easy solution. A first step is… doesn't cost a thing. Just have a community 452 \ 01:14:11.820 --> 01:14:13.100 \ Daphne Du Cros: conversation. 453 \ 01:14:13.100 --> 01:14:13.480 \ Sue Burton Battle TC East Sussex: M. 454 \ 01:14:13.480 --> 01:14:19.279 \ Daphne Du Cros: Open up the doors, book an, you know, book a 2- or 3-hour slot, 455 \ 01:14:19.850 --> 01:14:27.979 \ Daphne Du Cros: And I went to a great one yesterday in Oswie, which just asked a really simple question, 5 or 6 different tables with people grouped around them. 456 \ 01:14:28.070 --> 01:14:42.610 \ Daphne Du Cros: what is the future of food for Oswehstry? And it was as simple as that, and it got people to… with some facilitation, not a whole lot, it wasn't very hands-on, but it did give the opportunity to. 457 \ 01:14:42.800 --> 01:14:54.499 \ Daphne Du Cros: Give people… they shared their vision, they shared their hopes, they shared their concerns, and what you can do is sort of gather that data and say, well, people are really worried about, you know, rising costs. 458 \ 01:14:54.520 --> 01:15:04.679 \ Daphne Du Cros: And will there be empty shelves? And, you know, will I be able to grow enough, or do I know how? And you can start those conversations, and from there. 459 \ 01:15:05.030 --> 01:15:07.980 \ Daphne Du Cros: You might be able to think about. 460 \ 01:15:08.110 --> 01:15:21.690 \ Daphne Du Cros: well, do we need to put a little bit of a plan in place? Like, what do we already have? What are our assets? What are our gaps? Do we have key people who are community food leaders and champions already in this space? And reach out to them, call them in. 461 \ 01:15:21.820 --> 01:15:33.670 \ Daphne Du Cros: Because I… I bet you, you've got boots on the ground that you don't even know about, and those are your allies. So, build a partnership. It's… there's a lot of opportunity. 462 \ 01:15:34.520 --> 01:15:42.249 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones-Great Collaboration, Bembridge: Sue, if I could just back in with one organisational thought, it's very possible for a parish council to create a work group. 463 \ 01:15:42.350 --> 01:15:53.699 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones-Great Collaboration, Bembridge: Which can be outside members of the organization, so they will report to you, so you know what's going on, but you're getting all the volunteers to do the work, because you don't have the capacity to do everything yourself. 464 \ 01:15:54.270 --> 01:15:57.450 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones-Great Collaboration, Bembridge: Bring in people into a work group and go for it. 465 \ 01:15:57.650 --> 01:15:59.199 \ Daphne Du Cros: We, I'm not… 466 \ 01:15:59.200 --> 01:16:05.000 \ Sue Burton Battle TC East Sussex: Somebody said about orchards. We have planted two orchards in our, in our parish. 467 \ 01:16:05.130 --> 01:16:09.420 \ Sue Burton Battle TC East Sussex: But for me, the question is, so… 468 \ 01:16:10.220 --> 01:16:13.419 \ Sue Burton Battle TC East Sussex: To get them to come, like, to… 469 \ 01:16:13.470 --> 01:16:32.880 \ Sue Burton Battle TC East Sussex: to have real benefit, that you get an apple that you take home and cook, which is what you want, and the community not understand… not having the knowledge base of leave it on the tree, and how many years, and all that. This is sort of lots of gaps, really. But workgroup is a good one as well. 470 \ 01:16:32.880 --> 01:16:34.710 \ Sue Burton Battle TC East Sussex: Thank you, Graham. 471 \ 01:16:34.710 --> 01:16:37.579 \ Daphne Du Cros: That builds up all of those conversations. 472 \ 01:16:37.580 --> 01:16:57.670 \ Daphne Du Cros: builds community ownership, which… it's great to have council leadership, but to have a community take ownership of something, it will become… it will take shape and become something that it needs to be through… through that. We don't have to hold everything ourselves. This is a… this is a situation, this is a moment in time where we have to… 473 \ 01:16:57.780 --> 01:16:58.870 \ Daphne Du Cros: open. 474 \ 01:16:59.360 --> 01:17:03.050 \ Daphne Du Cros: Oh, you know, release these sort of, 475 \ 01:17:03.220 --> 01:17:08.150 \ Daphne Du Cros: These ways of working, and look to see what new comes of it. 476 \ 01:17:08.890 --> 01:17:09.540 \ Sue Burton Battle TC East Sussex: Yeah. 477 \ 01:17:10.070 --> 01:17:11.029 \ Sue Burton Battle TC East Sussex: Thank you. 478 \ 01:17:11.030 --> 01:17:12.579 \ Daphne Du Cros: Of course, Caroline. 479 \ 01:17:14.890 --> 01:17:24.619 \ Caroline Wajsblum: Hi there, guys. Yeah, I just, interesting to kind of follow on from that. I've got something to offer first, which is that, 480 \ 01:17:24.620 --> 01:17:36.769 \ Caroline Wajsblum: I once did a TED talk on how to create positive visions of our local food systems, and it's got, like, a step-by-step how to create a wonderful event 481 \ 01:17:36.820 --> 01:17:45.559 \ Caroline Wajsblum: to glean all of that information. So, if you want to find that, it'll be on YouTube, HeadX, 482 \ 01:17:45.900 --> 01:17:49.480 \ Caroline Wajsblum: Creating positive visions of our local food systems. 483 \ 01:17:49.480 --> 01:17:51.700 \ Daphne Du Cros: Oh, that's bad. Could you drop a link in the chat afterwards? 484 \ 01:17:51.700 --> 01:18:10.829 \ Caroline Wajsblum: I can do… yes, I can do that. So, I'm Caroline Wiseble, I'm based in Froome, and, we have quite a flourishing, food network, and, we are actively working on, you know, how do we create a more resilient food system? 485 \ 01:18:11.300 --> 01:18:18.110 \ Caroline Wajsblum: However, I think my question also relates to the previous one, which was, 486 \ 01:18:18.620 --> 01:18:23.440 \ Caroline Wajsblum: We're struggling to get, the Town Council on board. 487 \ 01:18:23.540 --> 01:18:38.819 \ Caroline Wajsblum: It seems to be that for years, I've been going to the council saying, hey, what's your food policy? Oh, we haven't got any. What are you doing on food? And it's, you know, it's kind of slightly embedded in the climate strategy. 488 \ 01:18:39.240 --> 01:18:57.090 \ Caroline Wajsblum: But, I actually work for the council now, in the resilience team, but working on energy. And yeah, we were hoping that they would take on food this year as well, and they really… they just haven't. And again, it's just kind of a bit of a… 489 \ 01:18:57.170 --> 01:19:02.280 \ Caroline Wajsblum: Oh, no, there's other more important things to focus on, and what's more important than… 490 \ 01:19:02.480 --> 01:19:19.470 \ Caroline Wajsblum: food and water, I mean, it's just… I mean, obviously energy, yes, we get it, but, I think what I'm asking is, how do we persuade our councillors, that it needs to be… 491 \ 01:19:19.900 --> 01:19:25.390 \ Caroline Wajsblum: Taken on as, as, a proper adaptation and resilience. 492 \ 01:19:26.060 --> 01:19:30.429 \ Daphne Du Cros: Yeah, it's… oh, it's… that's really frustrating, I feel, for you. 493 \ 01:19:31.840 --> 01:19:43.999 \ Daphne Du Cros: Yes, it can be… because we have been so conditioned that we, you know, we take food for granted. It shows up. It shows up when we click a button, it shows up in the grocery store. 494 \ 01:19:44.230 --> 01:19:58.890 \ Daphne Du Cros: you will, in-room, no doubt, have vulnerable communities, people who are hard to reach, or disenfranchised, or very reliant on the food bank. You might be able to gather information on 495 \ 01:19:59.080 --> 01:20:02.839 \ Daphne Du Cros: How many more food bank users you've had since the pandemic? 496 \ 01:20:03.350 --> 01:20:11.550 \ Daphne Du Cros: Or how many school meals, preschool meals families you have, or people premium families you have. 497 \ 01:20:12.060 --> 01:20:21.560 \ Daphne Du Cros: Highlighting that there is a significant proportion of the population that's already vulnerable and subject to a bigger gap 498 \ 01:20:21.850 --> 01:20:24.979 \ Daphne Du Cros: If and when a crisis comes, is… 499 \ 01:20:25.220 --> 01:20:27.989 \ Daphne Du Cros: I have found a useful lever in saying. 500 \ 01:20:28.290 --> 01:20:34.120 \ Daphne Du Cros: These are the people that you are… that you need to look after the most, and that you have to be responsible for. 501 \ 01:20:34.380 --> 01:20:41.409 \ Daphne Du Cros: The obvious… and, and… I mean, it's frustrating, because 502 \ 01:20:42.880 --> 01:20:51.570 \ Daphne Du Cros: I have found that the knowledge in town and parish councils to be very low when it comes to understanding food, even basic health. So… 503 \ 01:20:51.790 --> 01:21:11.379 \ Daphne Du Cros: putting together a list of, this is… these are the different areas, you know, climate plan, check. Economic plan, check. Supporting our local food systems, vulnerable people, public health, supporting, you know, school meals, check, check, check. This is all the way that food can hit all of these spaces. 504 \ 01:21:11.380 --> 01:21:12.230 \ Daphne Du Cros: And… 505 \ 01:21:12.230 --> 01:21:20.159 \ Daphne Du Cros: it overlaps. You can basically spell out to them that this is a superpower, this is a magic tool, but 506 \ 01:21:20.970 --> 01:21:24.250 \ Daphne Du Cros: the National Emergency Briefing, or the People's… 507 \ 01:21:24.250 --> 01:21:25.480 \ Caroline Wajsblum: That'd be really useful. 508 \ 01:21:25.480 --> 01:21:41.169 \ Daphne Du Cros: I think it's a really useful one, and to say, you know, other places are doing this, and they're leading on this. We need to see the writing on the wall, and the fact that we've got a food system crisis unfolding in real time, where we might not be seeing it tomorrow, but 509 \ 01:21:41.290 --> 01:21:55.810 \ Daphne Du Cros: we've received the last of the oil that we're going to be getting from the Gulf. It's… so, we are going to start seeing impacts to our food system, and it's going to be a super El Nino year by the look of it, which is going to impact global food supply. 510 \ 01:21:56.250 --> 01:22:05.799 \ Daphne Du Cros: Yeah, some accounts are saying that we're heading for, essentially, like, a global food crisis and potential famine situation. So, 511 \ 01:22:06.450 --> 01:22:09.919 \ Daphne Du Cros: Yeah, it's… it's sort of teeing it up to say. 512 \ 01:22:10.390 --> 01:22:16.529 \ Daphne Du Cros: team, this is serious. Like, we're not messing around. You have a responsibility to take care of people. 513 \ 01:22:16.530 --> 01:22:32.529 \ Daphne Du Cros: So I've included some resources at the end of my presentation, which I'll share, and you can forward these to them and say, you know, this is Tim Lang's report, this is the sort of leading document, this is the next one, this is the next one. They're all stacking up to say the same thing, we need to do more locally. 514 \ 01:22:32.600 --> 01:22:37.879 \ Daphne Du Cros: But yeah, if you… I mean, I've always wanted to come to Froome, so, you know… 515 \ 01:22:37.880 --> 01:22:38.980 \ Caroline Wajsblum: Oh, come visit. 516 \ 01:22:38.980 --> 01:22:41.660 \ Daphne Du Cros: Well, let me know, and I can shout at your council for you. 517 \ 01:22:41.660 --> 01:22:42.430 \ Caroline Wajsblum: Yes, please. 518 \ 01:22:42.430 --> 01:22:43.220 \ Daphne Du Cros: I can't speak with you. 519 \ 01:22:43.220 --> 01:22:45.360 \ Caroline Wajsblum: Thanks very much. 520 \ 01:22:45.360 --> 01:22:46.960 \ Daphne Du Cros: Lynn. 521 \ 01:22:47.580 --> 01:22:56.679 \ Lynn Parker: Hi, Daphne. I'm just down the road from you in Clun. Oh, hi. Hi! I'm the Local Nature Recovery Strategy Coordinator. 522 \ 01:22:56.680 --> 01:22:57.210 \ Daphne Du Cros: Yay! 523 \ 01:22:57.210 --> 01:23:01.980 \ Lynn Parker: So, I've spoken to Jenny previously, but really keen to make. 524 \ 01:23:01.980 --> 01:23:02.680 \ Annie L , in Llanidloes, in Powys: regularly. 525 \ 01:23:02.680 --> 01:23:05.680 \ Lynn Parker: links, yeah. 526 \ 01:23:05.970 --> 01:23:29.730 \ Lynn Parker: yeah, so the LNRS is published today, and, we've been kind of working with… I'm sure you'll know Janet well, Janet Corve, in terms of, working with SLALK, and we've got a workbook, which hopefully you might be aware of, in terms of making LNRS, relevant for parish councils, which is great. At the moment, it doesn't really focus on food stuff, and, it'd be really good to, 527 \ 01:23:30.140 --> 01:23:44.849 \ Lynn Parker: to talk to you more about that, about whether we adapt that, or whether we produce something a bit separate, but I'm also thinking from a health point of view, it doesn't really address some of those issues in that workbook, but really to kind of make 528 \ 01:23:44.850 --> 01:23:52.639 \ Lynn Parker: Town and parish councils, as you're saying, you know, kind of really aware of… of how they can help and make it as easy as possible. 529 \ 01:23:52.810 --> 01:23:53.350 \ Lynn Parker: Yep. 530 \ 01:23:53.350 --> 01:24:01.190 \ Daphne Du Cros: Absolutely. Yes, we have been… oh, it is a great frustration of mine that 531 \ 01:24:01.270 --> 01:24:16.860 \ Daphne Du Cros: local nature recovery strategies are a statutory responsibility, but having a food strategy for communities isn't. And they do dovetail hugely, and they're so… so complementary and important. So yes, 532 \ 01:24:16.860 --> 01:24:29.360 \ Daphne Du Cros: I love, love the workbook, and I have talked to Janet about it would be great to get a food workbook, essentially, put together. It's something that we are working on for the food partnership. 533 \ 01:24:29.610 --> 01:24:43.529 \ Daphne Du Cros: So it's going to more or less be a digital magazine for the time being, just because funding. But it gives us the opportunity to create a toolkit, like a food resilience toolkit, framed as a good news magazine. 534 \ 01:24:43.530 --> 01:24:55.039 \ Daphne Du Cros: Here are some great examples of things that are going on. This is how, you know, these are the stories of our farmers and the people who are managing our landscapes in regenerative ways. 535 \ 01:24:55.560 --> 01:25:01.000 \ Daphne Du Cros: different… tools to feed in for practical skills. So… 536 \ 01:25:01.000 --> 01:25:24.819 \ Daphne Du Cros: Yeah, definitely, it's a further conversation to have. I was just… sorry, everyone, as we sort of talk local shop, I was just at the Shropshire Hills National Landscape Advisory Group meeting, and it was, you know, talking about how we fit these people, these pieces together, and we're all really good at working in our lane, but what we need to do is all come together and figure out how the edges of the edges 537 \ 01:25:24.820 --> 01:25:26.169 \ Daphne Du Cros: Fit together with 538 \ 01:25:26.170 --> 01:25:36.879 \ Daphne Du Cros: with water systems, with food and farming systems, with climate systems and landscape systems. So, yes, shoot me an email, and… or you can crash my upcoming lunch with Janet. 539 \ 01:25:37.170 --> 01:25:41.699 \ Lynn Parker: Oh, okay. I mean, yeah, amazing. That would be great. Thank you. 540 \ 01:25:41.700 --> 01:25:43.220 \ Daphne Du Cros: Cool, Michael… 541 \ 01:25:46.900 --> 01:25:50.440 \ Michael Holton - Brunslow Shropshire: Hey, sorry. Firstly, thank you. 542 \ 01:25:50.540 --> 01:26:00.770 \ Michael Holton - Brunslow Shropshire: It's really interesting so far. I am sort of coming at this from a completely different angle, in the sense that I've been working with a couple of my clients who are food businesses. 543 \ 01:26:01.210 --> 01:26:16.219 \ Michael Holton - Brunslow Shropshire: And one of the things that I did was I shared some resource that the RHS produced last year, Space to Grow report, which is really interesting, really quite diverse, about how people can take 544 \ 01:26:16.340 --> 01:26:33.680 \ Michael Holton - Brunslow Shropshire: a proportionate part of their garden or spaces to grow vegetables, you know, so… and it was kind of, sort of balancing around, sort of, food sovereignty. But what they've decided to do is run a couple of initiatives, both of the clients, where we're looking at, creating spaces to grow. 545 \ 01:26:34.210 --> 01:26:50.239 \ Michael Holton - Brunslow Shropshire: One of the clients has a cookery school with quite a lot of acreage, and they're, planning to turn over part of that to work with a local parish community. Great. And so for me, it's what, you know, sort of, I've tried to work with local parish. 546 \ 01:26:50.240 --> 01:26:56.099 \ Michael Holton - Brunslow Shropshire: councils before, and councillors before, and obviously we've discussed the frustrations 547 \ 01:26:56.100 --> 01:26:58.270 \ Michael Holton - Brunslow Shropshire: That, you know, they don't really see 548 \ 01:26:58.300 --> 01:27:12.939 \ Michael Holton - Brunslow Shropshire: food sovereignty as a priority over other things because of the political agenda at large. So for me, it's always been, you know, sort of about people and communities actually empowering themselves. 549 \ 01:27:12.940 --> 01:27:22.930 \ Michael Holton - Brunslow Shropshire: to have, you know, sort of tenure in it. So I think, from my perspective, because this is relatively new, and, I'm looking at it from… 550 \ 01:27:23.130 --> 01:27:27.460 \ Michael Holton - Brunslow Shropshire: Perhaps flipping it from, you know, sort of. 551 \ 01:27:27.600 --> 01:27:36.860 \ Michael Holton - Brunslow Shropshire: Governing bodies, or, you know, sort of those kind of institutions, to actual commercial interests being involved 552 \ 01:27:36.860 --> 01:27:53.430 \ Michael Holton - Brunslow Shropshire: in actually creating grassroots and getting behind grassroots. So, you mentioned greenwashing, you know, a lot of people just use it as marketing speak, you know, for PR, or to add value to something that predominantly they're not doing. 553 \ 01:27:53.560 --> 01:28:10.390 \ Michael Holton - Brunslow Shropshire: And, you know, so I think for me, it's very much, you know, there are lots of people out there doing some amazing things in hospitality, in, you know, sort of running, you know, sort of lovely little bakeries, you know, like, artisanal. 554 \ 01:28:10.390 --> 01:28:26.999 \ Michael Holton - Brunslow Shropshire: You know, sort of elements that is, you know, not using, you know, regenerative as a, you know, as a buzzword, as a practice, but actually really understanding the practice of what we used to do being important. 555 \ 01:28:27.000 --> 01:28:34.160 \ Michael Holton - Brunslow Shropshire: You know, and not this homogenized sort of system that we sort of all have fallen into the trap of. 556 \ 01:28:34.410 --> 01:28:53.820 \ Michael Holton - Brunslow Shropshire: I'm waffling now, sorry, once I get the microphone, I'm off. So I think from my perspective, because I, you know, I have lots of grand ideas, I sort of come from a strategy perspective, so I sort of… I'm always big picture. When working locally and looking at local 557 \ 01:28:53.860 --> 01:29:03.210 \ Michael Holton - Brunslow Shropshire: parishes. This particular one is in Berkshire. I live around the corner from you, Daphne, I'm in Brunslow. And, so… 558 \ 01:29:03.740 --> 01:29:19.979 \ Michael Holton - Brunslow Shropshire: Is there something really… I mean, you mentioned, you know, sort of reaching out through parish magazines, gauging the interest of people, seeing who the boots on the ground are, who our champions are, maybe, in the local community that can drive this. Is there anything else that we can be doing? 559 \ 01:29:21.620 --> 01:29:26.450 \ Daphne Du Cros: Oh, yeah. I mean, I gave… I gave a few wee examples, 560 \ 01:29:26.450 --> 01:29:44.560 \ Daphne Du Cros: I'll… if it's all right with you, I'll take Michael's question, and and then… and Graham, then can I let you wrap up? I've got a… I've got a 1.30 call. But, yes, oh my goodness, there's so much to do. So, corporate lens. Let's talk corporate lens, that's a really interesting one. A lot of organizations have a social value budget. 561 \ 01:29:45.220 --> 01:29:45.830 \ Michael Holton - Brunslow Shropshire: Exactly. 562 \ 01:29:45.830 --> 01:29:50.660 \ Daphne Du Cros: So, through the food partnership, recognizing that a lot of people don't, 563 \ 01:29:51.580 --> 01:29:53.979 \ Daphne Du Cros: Don't understand food and the food system. 564 \ 01:29:54.120 --> 01:30:06.469 \ Daphne Du Cros: In a broader sense. You know, they might be a food business and focus on one area, or they might not engage with food very much, but they want to support their local community. 565 \ 01:30:06.670 --> 01:30:10.680 \ Daphne Du Cros: Through the Food Partnership, we offer 566 \ 01:30:10.990 --> 01:30:24.879 \ Daphne Du Cros: corporate training, what does food system… what does your local food system look like, what does food… what do food systems look like, what's food resilience? And how you can contribute to it, how that impacts your business, what we can look at there. 567 \ 01:30:24.880 --> 01:30:34.549 \ Daphne Du Cros: And people love to have corporate volunteering days where they go and, you know, they paint the fence on their kid's football club, but where's the lasting impact in that? So what we can do is 568 \ 01:30:35.020 --> 01:30:37.299 \ Daphne Du Cros: We can go and… 569 \ 01:30:37.300 --> 01:31:00.299 \ Daphne Du Cros: talk food, talk food systems, talk food resilience to these organizations, and then bring them into their local community, and have, you know, a half, you know, a work day where they help build a community garden up, and start an initiative like that, or support something as they're getting going, or to maintain something on a regular basis. So there are ways to do that. I'm a huge fan of 570 \ 01:31:00.300 --> 01:31:02.190 \ Daphne Du Cros: Of an initiative. 571 \ 01:31:02.190 --> 01:31:07.840 \ Daphne Du Cros: called Food Not Lawns. And Food Not Lawns was started in the States 572 \ 01:31:08.180 --> 01:31:18.239 \ Daphne Du Cros: Because, essentially, lawns are a pointless monoculture that aren't natural, they're not diverse, they're a green desert. And now, with the current climate, in summer, they just cook. 573 \ 01:31:18.620 --> 01:31:35.700 \ Daphne Du Cros: But, I think there's an interesting cultural narrative that we can sort of get on, that, what about the traditional cottage garden? It was species-rich, it was providing food, it was providing habitat, it was a showcase in your front yard. 574 \ 01:31:35.730 --> 01:31:42.079 \ Daphne Du Cros: And I think it would be wonderful to have examples of how we can 575 \ 01:31:42.190 --> 01:31:47.890 \ Daphne Du Cros: dig up lawns and convert them back to traditional cottage gardens. 576 \ 01:31:47.910 --> 01:31:50.530 \ Daphne Du Cros: And, and ways to enjoy that. 577 \ 01:31:50.530 --> 01:32:08.160 \ Daphne Du Cros: We do our Shropshire Good Food Trail, so which is our way of showcasing our local food system and the people who are doing great things in it. If you have organizations that want to put their money where their mouth is once it comes to supporting a local food system, we have a crowdfunder, so you can… 578 \ 01:32:08.160 --> 01:32:17.879 \ Daphne Du Cros: nudge that towards your clients. And if people want to be engaged in their… in showcasing their local food system, they can be on our… 579 \ 01:32:17.930 --> 01:32:25.189 \ Daphne Du Cros: be on our magazine, be on our map, and be a part of that as well. I don't know if that fully answered your question, but… 580 \ 01:32:25.190 --> 01:32:42.060 \ Michael Holton - Brunslow Shropshire: He does, but I'd love to… I mean, obviously not now, but I'd love to pick this up with you separately, simply because there's something I want to do locally. I'm now a resident of Shockshire, so there's something I want to do locally as well, and I just think that, 581 \ 01:32:42.620 --> 01:32:50.670 \ Michael Holton - Brunslow Shropshire: I also, like, I might be able to help the organization a little bit coming from my consultancy background, so that would be amazing. 582 \ 01:32:51.100 --> 01:32:54.980 \ Daphne Du Cros: Wonderful. We want all foods on the ground, all gifts are welcome, thank you. 583 \ 01:32:55.480 --> 01:32:56.959 \ Daphne Du Cros: Graham… 584 \ 01:32:57.370 --> 01:33:09.009 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones-Great Collaboration, Bembridge: One last comment, the perennial request from everywhere is fundraising. Where do we get the money from to do all this? And we're finding more and more that community energy sources produce money. 585 \ 01:33:09.010 --> 01:33:24.630 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones-Great Collaboration, Bembridge: Any windmill or wind turbine will generate cash for the community, and we're talking in terms of tens of thousands of pounds per year that can go to the local council for funding these sorts of events, and so much 586 \ 01:33:24.840 --> 01:33:33.409 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones-Great Collaboration, Bembridge: can be done with so little that I just recommend to everyone that they look into that. We're going to be doing a session in the middle of June, June the 10th, I hope. 587 \ 01:33:33.450 --> 01:33:46.800 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones-Great Collaboration, Bembridge: on how you can set up your local energy organization so that you do indeed generate cash in the local community. So I just mentioned that to people in passing. And then let me move on, Daphne, because you've got about 30 seconds left. 588 \ 01:33:46.800 --> 01:34:01.579 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones-Great Collaboration, Bembridge: to say thank you so much for a brilliant day. Everyone's loved it. The comments are still pouring in on the chat, so thank you very much. One question for you is, are you happy for me to put your email address on the… 589 \ 01:34:01.580 --> 01:34:02.640 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones-Great Collaboration, Bembridge: Vent a page. 590 \ 01:34:02.860 --> 01:34:10.919 \ Daphne Du Cros: Yeah, absolutely, I've just put my email in the chat for anybody who's still there, and I will share my, 591 \ 01:34:11.020 --> 01:34:19.350 \ Daphne Du Cros: I'll share my presentation with you, Graham, coming up, and I'll probably knock a few more resources into it, just that I've mentioned in passing. 592 \ 01:34:19.750 --> 01:34:22.430 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones-Great Collaboration, Bembridge: Fantastic. Where do you find the time? Well done. 593 \ 01:34:22.430 --> 01:34:24.099 \ Daphne Du Cros: Yeah, lots of coffee, lots of coffee. 594 \ 01:34:24.230 --> 01:34:37.960 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones-Great Collaboration, Bembridge: Well, it's really been a pleasure to see you again, thank you so much, and thank you everybody for coming, and I'm sure we'll have something to talk about next week. Oh, yes, it's going to be the People's Emergency Briefing again. Wonderful. Thank you very much. Take care all. Bye-bye. 595 \ 01:34:38.100 --> 01:34:39.300 \ Daphne Du Cros: Thanks, everyone! 596 \ 01:34:39.300 --> 01:34:39.760 \ Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboratiom: Thanks.
--- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://wiki.greatcollaboration.uk/knowledgebase/events/banter-sessions-inc-table-of-all-sessions/banter-116-22apr26-food-resilience-with-daphne-du-cros.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.