Report by Rob Squires on Manchester's new Food and Wellbeing Group

Creative Local Solutions have been commissioned by Manchester Food Futures to raise funds from the Big Lottery Local Food Fund, on behalf of the community and voluntary sector in Manchester. Following is a report on the consultation that was undertaken during the recent Food and Wellbeing Group's meeting, to assess participants' thoughts on how the Local Food Fund could best used to support local communities.
 

Allotments

There is (or probably soon will be) a large demand for more allotments, and more land for producing food in the city. (Kenneth Wilson is Manchester’s new allotments officer.)

There are opportunities to supply a growing demand from people who want to purchase more local food, but are not interested in growing it. (MCIN may be developing a web site in the future that could act as an online marketplace for local food.)
 

Training

Also people’s skills and knowledge of growing food, and maintaining allotments, needs to be increased. Geraldine Wall (Zest) is planning a training allotment plot in Crumpsall.

The group discussed the idea of a network of collaborative training plots. This idea was of particular interest to Zest and Rowena Pyott from the HELF project, both of these organisations are already working towards these goals. It was suggested that Liz Edwards from Groundwork’s Allotments For All project should also be included in these discussions, as should Andrew Steward and Helen Dodd who are involved in community allotment projects and training.

 

Refugees and Asylum Seekers

Rowena suggested inviting refugees and asylum seekers to future Food and Wellbeing meetings. She suggested obtaining money from the Local Food Fund, to train refugees and asylum seekers as trainers, so that they could gain employment passing on their skills in growing food, to local people. This seems like an excellent idea to me.

 

Sustainable Allotment Infrastructure

There is potentially a lot of scope for linking the idea of a network of training sites with the Sustainable Allotments Infrastructure group that emerged out of the Food Futures Collaborative Commissioning Programme (see earlier section for more information on the Collaborative Commissioning Programme). The training sites will require infrastructure: classrooms, compost toilets, renewable electricity, kitchens etc. Creative Local Solutions have been consulting with the Allotments Infrastructure group to ascertain how they can be linked into the Food Futures Local Food Fund bid, in order to expand their programme. A network of training sites would be an excellent opportunity to build upon this work, and expand the collaboration.

As part of the existing Allotments Infrastructure development, The Lost Plot, at Southern Allotment in Chorlton, are planning to build a mobile classroom (possibly a yurt?), which can be taken around different sites and provided on demand. 

Ben Thomas at START in Salford worked with mental health service users to construct a yurt. The yurt was hired out recently by the Birchfelds park Forest Garden group, and pictures of the yurt can be seen here on the Roblog. As well as a mobile classroom such a structure could also therefore provide an income stream for its owners. 

In addition to a mobile classroom, it would be possible to build and supply mobile compost toileting systems. I designed and prototyped such a structure for the Climate Camp in 2007. Designs and videos of the structure (nicknamed the ‘Camel’), under construction, and completed, can be viewed here on the Roblog.

In addition to a mobile classroom and toilet, it is feasible that a mobile kitchen could be incorporated, enabling cook and taste sessions to be conducted on site. The entire assembly could be hired out to events and festivals in order to raise funds for community groups.
 

Composting and bamboo bikes and bike trailers

Rowena from HELF mentioned the idea of a city-wide compost scheme, involving mental health service users from their network of day centres. The idea of building bikes and bike trailers from bamboo, to enable service users to transport the compost was briefly mentioned. There is another potential collaboration here between Ben Thomas at Salford’s START project, and the HELF project, since Ben is a first rate designer and wood worker, and both START and HELF specialise in working with mental health service users. Visit this page on the Roblog for links to web sites about making bamboo bikes and bike trailers.
 

Capacity Building

Geraldine Wall (Zest) informed that there is a lack of support for capacity building for new food projects and enterprises in the City.  It was acknowledged that the Scarman Trust provide capacity building, but only support existing projects, and do not support embryonic projects or groups.

It would be useful therefore if there were a structure that could assist build the capacity of new groups, like refugees and asylum seekers, who are starting from scratch to develop new food projects or enterprises. 

In addition it was noted that there is a need for more technical support in relation to land issues. For example there is a demand for support around land based issues, including:

• ascertaining whether community land is contaminated;
• developing affordable ways of decontaminating land and water (bioremediation, etc)
• developing low maintenance, high yielding land based systems, using permaculture design processes. 

Social Enterprise

Question: Where and how could social enterprise fit into all these ideas?