Join Feed Leeds to share, eat and celebrate local food growing.
Feed Leeds AGM Celebration is on Monday, 24 February, from 5.30-8.30pm at the beautiful Meanwood Valley Urban Farm
Why Attend?
Enjoy a shared meal with fellow food enthusiasts (included in your ticket!)
Celebrate and connect with the amazing community of local food growers
Learn about exciting projects and initiatives happening in our area
Grab Your Tickets Today!
Tickets are just £9.38, and they’re selling fast!
Secure your spot by clicking here: [Buy Tickets](https://shorturl.at/BtJep) or simply scan the QR code in the image.
Let’s celebrate the people and projects that are local growing #goodfoodstories and make a vital contribution to our communities across Leeds. We can’t wait to see you there!
As part of our #GoodNewsStories, we wanted to share that Feed Leeds is launching #GetGrowingLeeds for 2024. Feed Leeds, is a sustainable food growing network dedicated to promoting sustainable food practices and has been hosting the #SowARowXtra campaign annually since 2021.
The campaign aims to inspire individuals with food growing skills to cultivate extra seedlings to share with others. These seedlings can be distributed among friends, neighbours, or through a network of Little Veg Libraries ( LVL), dropped off at Meanwood Valley Urban Farm or at Oakwood Market Garden.
Previously, in collaboration with Season Well, Feed Leeds organised workshops to assist those new to gardening or lacking access to growing spaces and resources. These workshops were well-received, with participants expressing enthusiasm and eagerness to begin their own growing projects. The initiative has not only fostered a sense of community and has helped individuals develop valuable skills in sustainable food production.
This year we wanted to grow the campaign by providing edible seedlings to more groups. We are doing this by linking up with existing community food growing events to provide seedlings, raise awareness of the importance of food growing and to celebrate the amazing community food growing projects across the city.
Growing your own food has so many benefits. Firstly, it benefits your health. Growing your own vegetables not only provides you with fresh, organic produce, it also gives you more control over the growing process, ensuring that no harmful chemicals or pesticides are used. This results in healthier and more nutritious vegetables that are free from harmful residues. Additionally, gardening can be a great form of physical activity, helping you stay active and reduce stress levels. The act of tending to your garden can also improve mental well-being and provide a sense of accomplishment. Furthermore, consuming freshly picked vegetables can lead to a higher intake of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants, which are essential for overall health. Overall, growing your own vegetables can contribute to a healthier lifestyle and improve your overall well-being.
It helps create a sense of connection with the natural world around us. It offers opportunities for people to share skills and knowledge and to meet new people whilst becoming part of new growing communities. It helps us connect with the origins of food and increases access to affordable, healthy produce. Additionally, engaging in practical climate action through growing food can help us appreciate the value of food and reduce waste. By creating compost from food scraps, we can also contribute to good soil health.
Join the movement, reap the benefits, share your skills and expertise and ‘Lets #GetGrowingLeeds!’
You can share this image and this article with your friends and communities who may be interested in getting involved. Get out for latest updates for this and other projects by subscribing to our newsletter or this website.
Good News story about new models for emergency provision. This article shared via Sustainable Food Places was written by Andrea Gibbons, and shared as part of our #GoodFoodStories series.
Seventy people from within and outside our network of existing Sustainable Food Places members recently joined us for a pop-up webinar entitled From Co-Ops to Bulk Purchasing: Models for Emergency Food Provision. It was inspired by the wealth of thoughts and responses to a simple question posed to the network email forum by their coordinator, and our very own Sonja Woodcock of FoodWise Leeds. Her question:
“I’m keen to know what areas have food buying co-ops in place to support food purchasing for food aid provision? I’m surprised at how much food is currently being bought in Leeds and am interested in how a food buying co-op might work. Any insights would be welcome. I’m particularly keen to know how small food aid providers could be included.”
A similar and parallel discussion was simultaneously being had within one of the Soil Association’s My Food Community programme cohorts, led by Hull Food Partnership coordinator Darren Squires. They therefore teamed up to create a joint panel discussion on this topic.
Our session opened with thoughts on how and why coops and bulk purchasing are of value in supporting access to food through; consistency, quality, autonomy, control, empowerment, and cost control. The ensuing discussion touched upon, not only, food coops and the mechanisms of bulk-buying, but we also discussed; mobile food vans, the potential of social supermarkets, issues surrounding combining purchased and surplus foods, and how to tackle supply chain issues in urban and rural settings.
Our speakers were:
Kelly Fritzsche – Co-op Food Project Manager for Plymouth on their experience, including the model and mechanics of Food Co-ops and the roles within them, and their many benefits.
Ian Smith – Food Plymouth Core Enabling Team and CIC on their journey as a food partnership working on food access and insecurity towards food co-ops and social supermarkets, and the multiple cooperative connections and partnerships emerging from this work
Anna Route, development officer for Hull Food Partnership talked about their work with the council to optimise the spending of the Household Support Fund by accessing the council’s dynamic procurement bulk purchasing account with Turner Price to buy food for distribution among their network of foodbanks and pantries
Robert Garland, Bassetlaw Food Bank on their mobile van community shop, which provides access to rural communities to affordable food cupboard staples, fresh produce, and a range of toiletries and cleaning products.
The audience also brought a large amount of expertise to enrich the discussion, they included insights from:
John Westwood of Baobab Bach; with their network of food pantries and mobile van in the Southern Welsh valleys
Mary Vickers, community food coordinator for North East Lincolnshire, on their transition from foodbank to food pantry.
In this webinar : three different models for sourcing food 1) Co-operatives, 2) group purchasing and 3) small-scale bulk purchasing. Find out what is involved when you move from receiving donations to making purchases. Chaired by Sonja Woodcock from FoodWise Leeds and Darren Squires from Hull Food Partnership, the panel will include: • Ian Smith: Food Plymouth • Kelly Fritzsche: Food Co-ops Plymouth • Robert Garland: Bassetlaw Food Bank • Anna Route: Hull Food Partnership
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