COP 27 – Feeding the Future

In his second talk on the Climate Crisis, Alan Simpson focused on how to ensure sufficient, sustainable production of food for the future. The global food production system, based on ‘free’ trade and tightly controlled by a few large transnational corporations, results in one-third of what we produce being wasted. At the same time, offloading our surpluses in developing countries destroys the local food production there. In short, the problem is not growing enough food, the problem is how to ensure that food is produced sustainably and locally reaching everybody.

 

The UK food market is beset by a whole range of problems. Britain only produces 50 per cent of the food it consumes, while the rest is imported. At the same time, ending the production of biofuel would free up land to feed 3.5 million people locally. Eight large companies control 90 per cent of UK food supplies.

 

And yet, there are positive examples elsewhere, which demonstrate how food production and consumption could be organized differently. Alan Simpson pointed to the food-land belt in Liège/Belgium, which has the goal of producing 50 per cent of regional food supplies within five years. In Amance, France, 5500 solar panels are placed across the farm above the grain production. Renewable energy and local food production go hand-in-hand. Floating gardens safe crops from flooding in Bangladesh (BBC 11 September 2020), while initiatives such as Regather in Sheffield, the Brighton Food Partnership, urban agriculture in Barcelona/Spain or rooftop greenhouse farms in Montreal/Canada emphasize the production of food directly in cities. The latter is able to fill 20000 food trolleys per week. Other alternatives include the slow food movement or sharing of food cultures as in Italy.

In short, the way forward is to share knowledge about how we can adapt food production to climate change while reclaiming it from large corporations.

 

In subsequent discussions, the focus was on what could be done about growing food locally. Participants pointed to the largely unused green space of the University of Nottingham. Provided we can move away from this idyllic notion of British parkland spaces, there is a lot of local food production possible. Students may not be on campus all year round in large numbers, but cooperation with local allotment holders and food growing initiatives could ensure that enough people are at hand during the main growing season over the summer. Such cooperation does not only provide food production but can actually strengthen the integration of students including many international students into local communities. Considering that there are currently long waiting lists for allotments in Nottinghamshire, there will be plenty volunteers to step in, when students are away.

The role of education too was identified as crucial for an alternative future. Too many people do not know where our food is actually coming from. This can include new information systems about what is produced where locally, allowing for a better redistribution of food in times of harvest surpluses.  

 

The University of Nottingham has a lot of opportunities for co-creating space between students and the wider public. To put it into practice requires the necessary political will by its administration!

Andreas Bieler

Professor of Political Economy

University of Nottingham/UK

Andreas.Bieler@nottingham.ac.uk

22 November 2022