Brexit, Covid-19 and most recently the Suez Canal debacle have all highlighted the fragility of long, convoluted supply chains with numerous middlemen. Environmentalists add concerns about the greenhouse gas emissions currently generated by air and sea transport.

A Farms not Factories newsletter drew attention to an article published at the end of May, in which Anna Turns asked if regionalisation could be the answer to future-proofing our farming system and empowering citizens by ensuring known provenance, while also creating more resilient food networks that can weather the coming storms.

She points out that micro food networks can be susceptible to bad weather, sudden changes in demand or simply lack of footfall and hyperlocal supply chains can potentially limit the diversity of available produce, while tight geographical boundaries can translate to fewer customers.

There are a number of positive initiatives already in place

The Ecological Land Co-operative (ELC) offers affordable, low impact, smallholdings for ecological agriculture. There are distributors like Regather (below), a cooperative supplying organic fruit and veg boxes to 800 homes in Sheffield and projects like community supported in agriculture in Stroud which both produces and distributes fruit, vegetables, meat, eggs and so on. Are these replicable?

It was interesting to read that more than 50% of fruit and veg are grown on farms smaller than 20 hectares (Food and Agriculture Organisation) and a recent study by the University of British Columbia in Canada published in the journal Nature, concluded that small farms tend to have higher crop yields than large farms, and host more biodiversity.

Anna writes that tapping into this network of smaller farms could be key to the transition to agroecology.

Sharing knowledge will be key to making this model work, both in terms of what a specific microclimate is best suited to, and also what people most want to eat in that area.

Hyperlocal supply chains “oriented around a well defined, community scale area with a primary focus being directed towards the concerns of its residents” with a built-in regional buffer would lead to enhanced food sovereignty and food security, not increased vulnerability, with:

• simpler distribution,
• lower transport costs,
• less food waste
• and no need for plastic packaging.

In the newsletter Tracy Worcester draws attention to Sustain’s local food campaign: “‘These problems can’t be solved with a quick sticking plaster but require people locally coming together for a shared understanding of the problems and identifying the best solutions. The headlines may be national but many of the solutions lie at the local level.”

Sustain urges us all to take action to create food partnerships in every local area with agro-ecological farming systems that give meaningful and productive work while sustainably producing healthy food.

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