Food Strategy

In 2021 FoodFutures facilitated a process to co-create a positive 2030 food vision for North Lancashire and a strategy for getting there. More than 250 people of all ages and backgrounds fed into the process.

This work was undertaken to support joined-up working across North Lancashire’s food system at a time where this was not being done. It came out of necessity.

It seeks to address the many systemic issues our food system currently faces: from rising food poverty levels, declining biodiversity, water pollution incidents, climate change, farms struggling to cover their costs and public health costs of nutrient poor diets.

It recognises that these problems are systemic by nature. They are to do with the way the food system works and can only be tackled if we approach them in a joined-up way, thinking about the whole and how the different parts relate to and affect each other.

The ‘Our Food Futures’ document sets out our community’s 10-year route map for creating a thriving food system for our region that is healthy, resilient and fair.

Its strength and significance stems from the collective vision it offers. In contrast to many strategy documents which are the work of a single entity, this was co-created through close collaboration and consultation with over 250 people and linked organisations from across North Lancashire. This included people with lived experience of food poverty, farmers working in the North Lancashire and Cumbria areas, school teachers and youth workers, food bank and food club volunteers, community food growers, hospital staff, academics, public health workers, city councillors, businesses, conservationists and members of the Lancaster District People’s Jury on Climate Change.

This strategy and FoodFutures work is part of a much wider global movement calling for food system transformation and food sovereignty. The strategy therefore aligns itself to the six core pillars of food sovereignty.

It is also aligned with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) which is a proposed blueprint “to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all”.

FoodFutures working groups will take forward elements of a North Lancashire food strategy, but if we are going to make this vision of healthy and sustainable food a reality, we will need plenty of help. Over the next 10 years we hope for this community food strategy to be shaped and reviewed by many more people from across North Lancashire – including you!

We’d love for the strategy to be taken, adapted and elements of it be embedded in local policy, in the strategy documents of local organisations and the CSR reports of local businesses.

Learn more about the process we went through to create Our Food Futures in collaboration with over 250 individuals, organisations and businesses over the course of 2020 and 2021.