Action Briefing Apr 2003 - May 2003
	The Newsletter of Birmingham Friends of the Earth

Oxfam's 'Food For Thought' Conference

On March 14th Karen and I ventured out of Birmingham to Stoneleigh Park near Coventry, for the Food for Thought Conference organised by Oxfam, Sustain, the Royal Agricultural Society of England and the Midlands Co-op. The Conference aimed to bring together people and organisations from all walks of life who were concerned with “food issues” in the broadest sense of the term (to the extent that Nestle even had a rather low-key presence!).

Following a morning plenary (which did the expected roundup of development and environmental impacts of our existing food system, but also included a perspective on fair trade from the Midlands Co-op - a supermarket - and a really informative talk from a UK dairy farmer hit by subsidies) and a fantastic locally-sourced lunch, we split into workshops. Each of these was themed around a food item, including Coffee (Can a global free market work?), Chocolate (Fair Trade - can it work for farmers from Great Britain to Ghana?), Wheat (Is a global co-operative possible?) and Milk (The Impact of Dairy subsidies).

I went to a workshop on food poverty, interested in how we as campaigners could work to promote the issue of healthy eating and access to healthy food for all, and Karen went for the number-crunching dairy subsidies - something neither of us understand and we thought we probably should. My workshop featured an inspiring account of a local food initiative on an estate in Bristol, which made use of local allotment sites, tailored training in food preparation to different sections of the community, and through the establishment of a food co-op was successfully making close links between a disadvantaged urban neighbourhood and farmers in the surrounding countryside.

The high point of the day was the closing plenary - half an hour of environmentalists and development campaigners pulling apart a party political broadcast from Alun Michael MP, Minister for Rural Affairs. This session could have gone on for longer, (as neither Karen nor I am any the wiser about dairy subsidies) but otherwise a very worthwhile day was had. It was inspiring to see how many different people from very different directions are working to change our current system of food production and supply, to the benefit of all of us.

Jenny Thatcher