UK Grow your own food revolution plans to seed unused land

The government plans a landbank to pinpoint unused plots where communities can grow their own food. Photograph: David Levene

Ministers consider temporary allotments scheme?Fruit and veg plots part of strategy to cut reliance on imports

By James Meikle
guardian.co.uk,
4 January 2010

The government plans to launch a “grow your own” revolution by encouraging people to set up temporary allotments or community gardens on land awaiting development or other permanent use.

It aims to develop a “meanwhile” lease to formalise such arrangements between landowners and voluntary groups and is considering establishing a “land bank” to broker better links and ensure plots are not left idle.

Ministers believe the move could foster community spirit and skills as well as improve physical and mental health.

Hilary Benn, the environment and food secretary, will announce the plans tomorrow as a part of a long-awaited and much-trailed package to ensure Britain grows more food, wastes less, reduces its dependence on imports, and leads the way in reforming the EU’s common agricultural and fishing policies.

See video here - Keeping urban chickens
From: TheGuardian – January 05, 2010
Green living expert Lucy Siegle is shown how to keep chickens in a city garden to collect up to 12 organic, free-range eggs a week

About one in three people in the UK grows fruit and vegetables, according to a survey commissioned by Benn’s department. Ministers hope the voluntary sector can help build on examples such as that set by the National Trust, which hopes to have established 1,000 allotment plots on restored kitchen gardens, agricultural land and vacant spaces, in its varied property portfolio by 2012.

The cross-departmental policy report, Food 2030, will also support further farmers’ and community markets to boost consumption of local produce.

But, compared with the government’s own sustainable development commission, the report appears more cautious about changing agriculture, by, for instance, encouraging less reliance on intensive meat and dairy production.

See video here. Winter work on the allotment. As the government reveals its plans to launch a ‘grow your own’ revolution, allotment tenant and Gardeners’ World presenter Alys Fowler explains how to use the best of the winter weather to compost common weeds and plant next year’s garlic crop.

The Food 2030 report will acknowledge that livestock production is a big contributor to greenhouse gas emissions but say that the evidence that would allow consumers to decide whether or not to cut the environmental footprint of their diet, is still unclear. “Not all types of meat have the same impacts, neither do all systems of production,” it will state, while adding that livestock farming could be the only economically productive activity possible in some hilly areas.

See the complete article here.

See Food 2030 Report here.