Our food system has many problems, it is highly dependent on fossil fuels and you can see some of the issues here

Here are some ways in which we can change things:

Grow your own

Growing your own food can be very rewarding! Obviously it reduces the food miles down to food metres significantly reducing it’s carbon footprint, there is no packaging and you can choose to grow food without the use of imported chemicals.

There are lots of organisations around that help and encourage you to grow your own and if you are new to growing food it helps to be part of a network of people who can advise on what to grow and on problems you might have. Here are some useful organisations:

  • Feed Leeds – “a network of individuals and organisations working in partnership to support local food growing (at home, in allotments, at schools, in community projects or commercially) for its social, economic, environmental and health benefits, and to promote healthy, sustainable and affordable food in Leeds.”
  • Chapel Allerton Allotments and Gardens Association (CAAGA) – they aim “to promote an interest in gardening and horticulture, through encouraging our members to share advice and practical help, and providing opportunities for spreading a wider understanding of the social and health benefits of gardening.”

Shop local

There are several aspects to shopping locally:

  • buy locally produced food
  • use locally owned shops rather than supermarkets and big chain shops
  • buy direct from the farm

If you buy locally produced food – food grown within say 25 miles then you are significantly reducing the food miles involved. Farmers markets often advertise that their stall holders come from within a particular radius.

Using locally owned shops rather than supermarkets helps in a number of ways. First, any money you spend is more likely to be re-spent locally boosting the local economy (see elsewhere on this website). Second, you can build personal relationships with the owners of local shops who are usually much more responsive to your wants and needs than supermarkets are – they are more likely to try and tell you what you want!

It is also possible to buy your food at farm shops or having a farm deliver a food box to your door. There are many farm shops on the outskirts of Leeds and further afield. There are also several farms that take online orders and deliver to your door. Purchasing directly from a farm cuts out the “middle man” and means that you have a direct relationship with a farm that grows or sources your food – many farm shops resell other produce from local growers or small businesses eg biscuits, cheese, cider, etc. Some of these businesses also supply food from abroad when it is out of season or not available here.

Community Supported Agriculture

Community supported agriculture (CSA) is a partnership between farmers and consumers in which the responsibilities, risks and rewards of farming are shared. CSA can work in many different ways and you can find out more from the Community Supported Agriculture website. CSAs are a great way to help get small food growing projects started and then supported into maturity. A relationship is built between the investors and the farmers though this can take many different forms and levels.

Eat Seasonal Produce

Eating food that is in season means that it is more likely to be locally grown, not transported from where it is in season or grown in a specially heated environment such as glasshouses.

Eating seasonal foods can also helps to put you back in touch with nature.

Reduce your waste food

After all the effort and the energy used in producing our food it is crazy that we throw over 30% of our food away. The process of disposing of the waste food also uses more energy and can lead to further environmental problems.

Advertising and marketing schemes such as “two for the price of one” encourage us to buy food that we don’t really need. Planning our food shopping, and sticking to our plan, is one way to resist the temptation to purchase too much – but then we might miss out a good deal! Taking time to think through what the advert is saying and how it is tempting us can help us to make wiser decisions.

Bulk cooking – cooking enough in one go for several meals – and then freezing separate portions for later can help you to use up food that might otherwise go off and can also save you money and time.

Donate your waste food

If you are a local business that has surplus food or you run an event and have loads of food left over then why not give it away instead of throwing it away? Junk Food projects such as the Rainbow Junktion Cafe use “wasted” food to make meals to feed people on a Pay As You Feel basis reducing food waste and building community.

Compost your waste food

Rather than putting your food waste in the bin for it to be transported away for disposal why not compost your waste and then use the compost in your garden? And if you don’t have a garden or the space to compost you may be able to find local people willing to take your food waste for their compost bin through organisations such as ShareWaste or your local allotment organisation. If you want to know more about composting then visit the Leeds Rotters website.

Resilience

To make our food system more resilient we need to increase the number of inputs into the system so that if one fails others are available. We also need to make sure that these inputs aren’t all dependent on the same things – much of our agriculture is based on fossil fuels, industrial fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides.

Some of the food sources mentioned above (grow your own, CSA, etc) are ways of increasing the range of sources of our food. If everyone who had a plot of land was able to grow a small amount of fruit or veg then that would decrease our reliance on the existing food “industry”. Likewise, supporting small, local CSA and organic farm shops. It wouldn’t be enough to feed us all but it would contribute to the resilience of the system and the more we support the small food organisations the more we spread the risk.