Seminar Series Land and Food: Social justice and ecological responsibility

The People’s Land Policy is holding a series of four seminars in which we will hear from speakers and discuss what needs to be done in order to achieve a food and agricultural system which produces healthy food for all as well as facilitates environmental objectives such as reducing CO2 emissions and increasing biodiversity. With Brexit and the new Agricultural Act, it is crucial that we all understand the issues. Food is a basic necessity, with many people not having food security. And, agriculture takes up over 70% of land in the UK. For these reasons, how we organise agricultural production affects us all and is interlinked closely with environmental and social issues.

Brexit will involve the biggest shake-up to UK agriculture in decades. It is potentially an opportunity to address many of the weaknesses of the current system, such as facilitating environmentally responsible farming, supporting small agroecological producers and ensuring food security for all. But will this be the case?

Jyoti Fernandes (pringprize.org/judge/jyoti-fernandes/) of the Land Workers Alliance has been doing research on post-Brexit agriculture and she will be able to update us on what a post-Brexit agriculture is likely to mean. She herself is an agroecological smallholder in Dorset in addition to being the campaigns co-ordinator of Land Workers Alliance and involved in a number of initiatives to promote agroecological practices in farming.

Hannah Field (https://becomingincommon.com/about/) is based in the Lake District and is the Coordinator of the Cumbria Inquiry for the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission. She has lived, worked and researched in the Lake District over the last decade and is currently working on her Ph.D on the role of institutions and governance in local landscape and natural resource decision-making (bottom-up processes) to meet national legislative obligations (top-down rules and frameworks). She will focus on the impact of the changes for marginal, upland areas such as the Lake District.

The next 3 seminars are:

Food and Land in the UK (February 23rd)

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/land-and-farming-in-the-uk-second-seminar-in-land-and-food-series-tickets-136147166841

Urban food growing and peri-urban farming (March 9th) https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/food-in-the-city-urban-growing-and-peri-urban-farming-tickets-137411899691

The UK and the Global Food Justice Movement (March 23rd)

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-uks-role-in-the-global-food-justice-movement-tickets-137413741199