Sustainable food cities at the Oxford Real Farming Conference

07 January 2013

On Thursday 03 January, Tom Andrews and Traci Lewis gave a joint presentation on sustainable food cities at the Oxford Real Farming Conference.

Throughout the UK, pioneering communities at every scale - from small towns to major urban centres - are recognising the key role food can play in dealing with some of today’s most pressing social, economic and environmental problems and are developing city-wide sustainable food programmes involving businesses, institutions and civil society.

Tom Andrews, Sustainable Food Cities Director at the Soil Association, provided an overview of the Sustainable Food Cities programme in the UK and its potential in fostering a more healthy, sustainable, prosperous and equitable food system.

View Tom's presentation [pdf, 872kb]

Traci Lewis, who has lead the development of one such pioneering Sustainable Food City initiative in Plymouth then presented a case study on Food Plymouth which, for the past three years, has been driving positive changes to food culture and systems in the city and beyond.

View Traci's presentation [pdf, 378kb]

There then followed an open discussion with participants, looking particularly at how the Sustainable Food Cities programme could best support the needs of farmers and growers in the years ahead.

More about the Sustainable Food Cities programme