Bwyd Powys: Food for the Planet
Food for the Planet: Tackling Climate and Nature Emergencies through Sustainable Food and Farming
Launched in March 2022, Bwyd Powys aims to provide Good Food for Powys, supporting local, sustainable, and healthy food for communities and the environment. The
partnership has four main goals and also encourages everyone to join its Food Charter, which promotes sustainable food practices across the county. The food partnership’s work reaches from the town of Brecon in the south to Newtown in the north, impacting communities throughout this vast rural region.
Tackling the Climate Emergency through Sustainable Food Systems
Bwyd Powys is deeply committed to tackling climate and nature crises by focusing on sustainable food production and consumption. Richard Edwards, Chair of Bwyd Powys, explains that working with many partners allows them to connect different projects under themes like Food for the Planet, helping to address the climate crisis with food-related solutions.
“Working with a range of partners means that Bwyd Powys has a strategic overview and can tie many different projects together and look at them thematically, like we do with Food for the Planet,” Richard Edwards, chair of Bwyd Powys.
Key Projects Making a Difference
Future Farms
One of the biggest initiatives that Bwyd Powys is involved with is Future Farms, which is helping new growers get started. The project has seen a county farm of 36 acres being divided into three 8-acre units and offered to local growers, providing them with land and infrastructure to grow food. These new growers will supply the Welsh Veg in Schools project and will be able make the most of other local procurement opportunities to supply into the public sector.
As Lydia, one of the growers, explains, “We grow so little of the fruit and veg that’s consumed in Wales and that means it’s coming in from further afield…right across the globe and at the same time, a lot of the food we produce in Wales is being shipped off to other places, so in a time of climate crisis and us needing to think about where our food is coming from and where it’s going….trying to grow food here that’s going to feed the people who live here.”
The partnership has also helped fund key infrastructure, like polytunnels, to help the growers with their initial set up costs.
Tilly, another grower, values the local focus, saying, “We’ve got some really great land for growing…..and having shorter supply chains is really important and we’re hoping to feed local people directly. It’s also really important to keep local knowledge and skills involved with growing food.”
Sustainable Transport for Local Food
To help transport food sustainably, Bwyd Powys worked with Newtown Dial a Ride to secure funding for an electric minibus. This will enable the transport of both people and food, reducing the carbon footprint of local food distribution as well as enabling people to connect with local communities.
“If we’ve got all this new veg that’s being moved around, some of it hopefully going into public procurement, also some going into the local economy, into shops, hospitality, veg boxes, then for that we need transport as well,” Richard Edwards.
Local Food Trails
Bwyd Powys is in the process of reviving local food trails so that producers can showcase their produce and local residents and visitors can find out more about the local food that they can enjoy, helping to keep money in the local economy and benefiting the environment too.
Ifor Humphreys is one of the producers who’s hoping to get involved as a way of sharing his story of the nature-friendly way that he farms and the local grass-fed wagyu beef that he produces in the north of the county:
“We make enough silage in the summer to last us for the winter, and that’s the majority of what they eat. We also supplement the young stock and the finishing cattle with barley and wheat which comes from my neighbouring farm just over that hill up there – using local produce and cutting down the food miles. Most of the Wagyu sold in the UK comes from Australia or South America and so we’re trying to do something special by producing locally here.”
Time Traveller Project
Bwyd Powys is currently partnering with Bannau Brycheiniog National Park on the Time Traveller Project, which uses food to engage young people with climate change. The project takes young people back in time to explore past food production methods and compare them with today’s practices.
Eleanor Greenwood, a facilitator of the project, explains, “Food is a really useful topic to use to talk about climate change and food impact because it covers everything. When we’re looking at producing food within Bannau Brycheiniog, we’re also looking at creating sustainable jobs for the future, for the next generation who can stay and contribute to this community and to this special landscape. It’s also a way of focusing on the challenges the national park faces; so that’s climate, nature, rivers, people and place.”
Collaboration for a Stronger Future
By working together, Bwyd Powys can bring together ideas from across the public, private, and third sectors to enhance existing projects and make the most of new opportunities.
As Richard Edwards says: “For me, the best thing about being part of a food partnership is the ideas….hearing about other organisations and discovering we’re all on this journey together. In the past, there were ideas and there were people developing them but they weren’t together in one place. You can do so much more together than you can apart.”
Watch the video that accompanies this case study below.