A GUIDE FOR HOSTS
midandeastantrim.gov.uk/MEAction
Making our food system work for people and planet
Setting up a Kitchen Table Talk 1. Invite friends, colleagues, neighbours, family members, maybe your local councillors or MLA’s too? 2. Think about some tasty food or snacks, maybe your guests could bring some too. 3. Print off the template from the website, or simply gather some blank paper and pens.
Doing a Kitchen Table Talk 1. Ice breaker! What’s your earliest food memory? What is your most favourite meal? What was your worst meal out in a restaurant? What meal to you cook the best? Go around in a circle, or split up in pairs, with each person sharing an early food memory. 2. What does a Sustainable Food Place look like? Get those creative juices flowing and imagine your vision for a Sustainable food place. How will we know when MEA is a sustainable food place? How/what do people eat? How is food produced? If you’re stuck for ideas, check out the SFP framework, which splits food into 6 key elements. (You can find this on page 2 of the Background Briefing.) 3. Is there anything within MEA that is working well? What would make MEA a good food place for you?
1
4. Top 3s! What are your top 3 actions that we can work on to help make the food system work better for you? 5. Top 3s! What are your top 3 concerns? As a group, come up with the three things you are most concerned about food. We’ll be collating this information for all the groups and sharing this far and wide, including with decision-makers, and it will support us to respond to what most matters to you. 6. Any other thoughts? Space for any other ideas or further discussion. Maybe you want to talk about what action(s) your group would like to take forward from this conversation.
2
Why sustainable food matters Current food system; Food is at the heart of many environmental issues the rise of our Western diet - high in meat, dairy and ultra-processed food - is inefficient and resource intensive. Our food system relies entirely on nature, yet works against it;
• It’s a significant contributor to climate change and is responsible for almost 60% of global biodiversity loss. • 30% GHG from food system (27% from agriculture alone in NI) • 1/3 to half of all food produced wasted. • Agriculture has caused 73% of all deforestation and land conversion. • 35% of global fish stocks have been overfished to unsustainable levels. • Inequality - 821 million people go hungry every day, nearly two billion are overweight or obese, and poor diets are the leading cause of noncommunicable diseases such as diabetes, stroke and cardiovascular disease.
3
midandeastantrim.gov.uk/MEAction
Why is it so damaging? • Factory Farming / Animal Welfare / Hormones / Antibiotics / Chemicals / Packaging Wrappers, straws, boxes and bags fast food packaging counts for an estimated 40 percent of all litter (including drinks, chips, candy, and other snacks) with Styrofoam being the most common food waste - which takes 900 years to breakdown in landfill! • Greenhouse Gases Major sources of emissions from food production are artificial fertilisers; methane from livestock; methane from rice in paddy fields; and livestock manure.
• Water Contamination and Usage Livestock sector is also estimated to use 10% of annual global water flows. Pathogens, hormones, drugs, and fertilizers that are used to produce fast food, seep into our water supplies, water quality has suffered dramatically. • Deforestation Amazon fires are no accident. Close to 2.5 million hectares of land – an area larger than Wales – was burned in the Brazilian Amazon during last August. Fires were deliberately started by farmers and land grabbers.
• Transportation Distributing trucks add to pollution, emissions, and congestion, all of which contribute to climate change. 4
The pictures below might useful for the discussion
Ask people what each image makes them think about
5
midandeastantrim.gov.uk/MEAction
6
KITCHEN TABLE TALKS: SURVEY
Please fill out and send to: alison.diver@mid andeastantrim.gov.uk
Host name and contact: Location: Group: Please Identify 3 aspects of what a fair, good food system would look like for you: • • • How can we make the food system work better for us all? • • • What’s stopping us from getting there? • • • What can we, society, council, local government do? • • • midandeastantrim.gov.uk/MEAction