Edible Edinburgh: Working together to end food poverty

Councillor George Gordon, Chair of the Edible Edinburgh Partnership, writes about work to reduce food poverty and promote local growing:

Writing in my role as the Chair of Edible Edinburgh Partnership, I wanted to highlight the superb food hamper distribution programme recently launched by UNICEF in association with the Partnership and Edinburgh Community Foods. 

As you would hope and expect, UNICEF recognises the devastating effect the pandemic is having on individuals and families in the lower income bracket who are now experiencing food poverty and insecurity. 

This is the first time the charity has directly invested in the UK as they, like we do, recognise that this has created a situation that will take a considerable length of time to fix* (see below – Ed.). Yes, we can see light at the end of the tunnel as we roll out a UK-wide vaccination programme, but this will take time to achieve. 

Edible Edinburgh is working closely with the City of Edinburgh Council and other partners to try and tackle poverty right here in Scotland’s capital city – a very real and unacceptable situation. 

Thanks to the work of the Edinburgh Poverty Commission, published earlier this year, there can be no doubt that this support is desperately needed – and I’m delighted that the Council has committed to ending poverty in our city by 2030.

This specific programme will supply 450 individual families with the necessary food they require to survive through this Christmas period. I hasten to point out these are all newly identified families who have not been part of any previous existing programmes put in place by the Scottish Government or the Council. The vast majority are delivered through the third sector, who are predominantly charitable organisations. 

I could fill this whole column with praise for the organisations involved and with the statistics and individual testimonies from those hardest hit – the many people I’ve spoken to in my various positions as a Councillor about the real hardship many of our fellow citizens are faced with. 

I also want to take this opportunity to highlight another key piece of work that Edible Edinburgh are doing in association with the Council – that is the provision of areas of land for food growing as part of the Community Empowerment Act. 

A consultation on the draft Edinburgh Food Growing Strategy, Growing Locally, which sets out a plan to grow more locally, consume more locally and to increase awareness and engagement, went live on 1 December. 

Our aim is to identify areas of food growing through allotments, community growing space and at least four areas for market gardens which will be run and maintained by community groups and organisations. A fine example of this is what is being currently built at Lauriston Farm and I look forward to seeing progress over the next couple of years. 

My request to you is simple: get involved! Please take the time to give your views (before the closing date on 18 January) and remember there are no stupid ideas. This is hugely relevant and important as we move toward providing more locally produced sustainable food sources for our city and our country. 

By doing so we can live better while helping to reduce food insecurity, carbon emissions – and, of course, poverty.

In response to comments made in the House of Commons about Unicef UK’s funding of UK food programmes last week, Anna Kettley, Unicef UK’s Director of Programmes and Advocacy, said:

“Unicef UK is responding to this unprecedented crisis and building on our 25 years’ experience of working on children’s rights in the UK with a one-off domestic response, launched in August, to provide support to vulnerable children and families around the country during this crisis period.

“In partnership with Sustain, the food and farming alliance, over £700k of Unicef UK funds is being granted to community groups around the country to support their vital work helping children and families at risk of food insecurity during the coronavirus pandemic.

“Unicef will continue to spend our international funding helping the world’s poorest children. We believe that every child is important and deserves to survive and thrive no matter where they are born.”