Community food initiatives aim to address health inequalities, food poverty, and food security. They achieve this through activities like cookery sessions, food buying cooperatives, and community gardens. Evaluation finds they provide benefits across different types of capital like social, human, and natural capital. Inspiring examples are EarthShare, a community supported agriculture program in Scotland, and Salop Drive Market Garden, which runs gardening and cooking programs. While community food initiatives deliver many benefits, they require long-term funding and policy support to achieve their full potential.

1. COMMUNITY FOOD INITIATIVES
Moya Kneafsey
Coventry University Photo credit: Salop Drive Market
m.kneafsey@coventry.ac.uk Garden, Sandwell, West Midlands, UK

2. Outline of Presentation
1. Context : health inequalities; food
poverty; food security
2. What are Community Food
Initiatives? What can they achieve?
3. Inspiring Stories 1: EarthShare
4. Inspiring Stories 2: Salop Drive
5. Conclusions

3. Context: Health Inequalities, Food Poverty and Food
Security

4. Context: Health Inequalities and Food
Poverty
 Large and growing literature on impact of
inequalities in income, and of social
deprivation, on food consumption and nutrition
(Dowler et al 2001)
 Food Poverty = “the inability to acquire or
consume an adequate or sufficient quantity of
food in socially acceptable ways, or the
uncertainty that one will be able to do so”
 Governments increasingly recognising food
poverty as a serious issue

5. What are the food impacts of living in
poverty?
Compared to richer people, those living on low income or in
deprived circumstances:
 Eat less nutrient dense and less diverse diet
 Often have to pay more for basic food items
 Have to spend a greater proportion of their income on
food – even more for healthy food
 Often have worse geographic access to food
 May go without food to pay other bills / debts
 Suffer more food related ill-health e.g. obesity, diabetes,
(some) cancers and coronary heart disease

6. Food intake follows income rather than
health needs….
 Families living in poverty prioritise immediate
satisfaction of hunger, rather than longer term health:
 “It is not that families in poverty are unaware of the
health benefits of eating certain types of foods; just
that these assume a lower priority than the immediate
concern of filling stomachs” (Lang et al 2009: 260)
 Food intake is also culturally and socially contingent –
food poverty includes lack of access to valued or
preferred foods.

7. Food Security
 Since WWII, a key policy concern
 Increased significance recently due to raised
awareness of climate change and recent food
price rises
 Defra: „food security is when all consumers
have access at all times to sufficient, safe and
nutritious food for an active and healthy life at
affordable prices‟
 Some argue for increased local self-sufficiency
as a response….

8. What are Community Food Initiatives ?

9. What are Community Food Initiatives?
 They are diverse! But  Activities include:
usually have these  Cookery sessions
common elements:  Slimming clubs
 Food  Food buying co-
 Local Involvement operatives
 State or Charitable  Transport schemes
Support, with some  City farms
moving towards Social  Gardening schemes;
Enterprise models community allotments
 School breakfast clubs
 Community Cafes

10. What can CFIs achieve?
 Evaluation can be difficult, as objectives of CFIs are
often wide-ranging
 Success means different things to different people
 Research shows that impact can be achieved when :
 CFIs are based on sound principles of community
involvement and needs assessment
 Have clear aims and objectives
 Have time to establish themselves

11. The 5 Capital Assets Framework
(Dowler and Caraher 2004)
 Financial Capital: the amount of money
circulating in a local economy
 Social Capital: human interaction around food;
social relationships, networks
 Human Capital: capacity building; skills;
personal development; improved health
 Natural Capital: the landscape and
biodiversity supported by local food systems
 Physical Capital: local infrastructure available
to or owned by local sector e.g. shops,
transport, processing facilities

12. Inspiring Stories 1: EarthShare

13. EarthShare CSA: Scotland
Community Supported
Agriculture
 Founded 1994
170 subscribers in
2008
 Organic food

14. Subscriber Motivations
 It‟s organic food
 It‟s community
building
 Sense that it is
grown with “love
and respect”
 Eating seasonally
and healthfully
 It tastes delicious

15. The many benefits of EarthShare:
“It‟s just great that we have EarthShare and
we haven‟t even talked about the
advantages of EarthShare being local,
seasonal food and I don‟t even think
anymore about what to cook, as I just look
in the box and whatever needs to be
cooked is cooked . But also the relationships
and involvement with the people growing
the food.” [Consumer workshop]

16. Reconnecting with food, and with
people
“if you think about where your food came from and
who‟s work has gone into getting that, the growing
of it, the planting of it and getting it to you, and
now when I‟m doing the vegetables I think well
somebody‟s been out in that field and you do feel
better having those kind of thoughts and its not just
an anonymous carrot (laughter). It has come from
that field and somebody had to plant it, somebody
had to pick it then box it, and you think well a lot of
people have gone to a lot of effort.”
(EarthShare subscriber)

17. Inspiring Stories 2: Salop Drive Market Garden

18. Activities at Salop Drive Market
Garden
 Therapeutic and active gardening sessions
(supervised by horticultural therapist)
 'Ready, Steady, Grow„ programme for schools run in
partnership with the Primary Care Trust, plus one
off school visits with curriculum support.
 'Bag Your Share„ vegetable delivery scheme
 After school parent child gardening group
 'Grow your own veg' short course
 Monthly Health Walks
 Work Experience placements from schools and
colleges
http://www.sandwellfoodnetwork.org/viewProject.php?id=1

19. New foods, new skills, healthier diets
“And there was another [vegetable we didn‟t
recognise]… now I think it was a salad
green, I don‟t know, I haven‟t got a clue
what it was when we opened the bag. So
the wife steamed it …and it was beautiful,
and apparently it‟s supposed to be like a
lettuce, a salad leaf, and … I don‟t know,
but I‟ve never steamed a lettuce, but this
was beautiful steamed.”
(Salop Drive Consumer)

20. Conclusions

21. CFIs can deliver many benefits…
CFIs are promoted as a way of addressing
food poverty and health inequalities, but
their contribution is wider than health:
Dowler and Caraher (2004): found benefits
in all 5 Capital Asset categories (in UK West
Midlands)
CFIs contributed ‘significantly’ to human
capital e.g. training, skills
CFIs were effective tools for community
regeneration
Some evidence of land reclamation

22. But they need support too…
 Secure long-term funding (currently project workers
spend much time and energy trying to secure
funding)
 Recognition of „soft outcomes‟ e.g. well-being, self-
worth
 Co-ordination of policies – health, environmental
sustainability, education etc.
 Longer term policies to remove structural barriers to
food equality e.g. Integration of planning, retail,
business, farming policies to promote health-giving
food systems

23. Small changes….great changes
„…if you can do a little thing in some little
way that does help either the environment
or your community then you know…you‟re
making a small contribution. It doesn‟t
mean you‟re going to change the world or
social policy, but your little bit and if a lot
of people adopted that attitude then social
policy and community welfare would
change.‟ (EarthShare subscriber)

24. Thank you for listening!
 Dowler, E. and Caraher, M (2004) The value
References and potential of local food initiatives in the
West Midlands region: Report to Advantage
West Midlands
 Dowler, E., Turner, S. and Dobson, B. (2001)
Poverty bites: food health and poor families,
London: Child Poverty Action Group.
 Kneafsey, M., Cox, R., Holloway, L., Dowler,
E., Venn, L., Tuomainen, H. (2008)
Reconnecting Consumers, Producers and Food:
Exploring Alternatives
 Lang, T., Barling, D., Caraher, M (2009) Food
Policy: Integrating Health, Environment and
Society