Cork Food Policy Council is developing a sustainable and healthy food policy for Cork to help to create a resilient and local food system, which is inclusive for all. The initiative was launched during Cork on a Fork Festival yesterday evening at a stunning event at Good Day Deli in Nano Nagle Place.
The ambition is to influence local food policy to follow best practices, to support new initiatives that promote knowledge, skills and experience around food, and to advocate for innovative community food initiatives to improve the food system and access to quality food. Their final plan will outline what Cork can do to support a fairer, healthier, more secure and sustainable food system. The consultation phase which is now open, invites input from anyone curious to know what a ‘A Resilient and Local Food System for Cork’ might look like. The public can share their voice to the conversation on consult.corkcity.ie.
Cork Food Policy Council, established in 2014, is a partnership between representatives of the local community, food retail, farmers, restaurants and the catering sector, education, environmental and health sectors and Cork City Council.
This policy work comes at a time when global and local food systems are facing extreme challenges ranging from climate change to obesity, malnourishment and food insecurity. Cities host over half the world’s population with Cork city’s population projected to increase to 330,000 by 2040. In the context of rapid growth, the COVID crisis, instability due to conflict and over reliance on food importation and climate impacts, the global food systems challenges have become serious issues for cities, including Cork City.
Further to this, Ireland has a responsibility and commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020 and more locally in Cork City there is a commitment to a 30% reduction by 2030. The work of the Cork Food Policy is informed by and will aim to work in tangent with these goals.
Speaking on behalf of Cork Food Policy Council, Committee Chair Dr Janas Harrington said “Cork City Council’s commitment to carbon neutrality by 2030 reveals a commitment paired with an urgency for local action to address the current unsustainable food practices driven by national policy in Ireland with local action to help to improve the situation’. She continued ‘Attaining a population-based diet consistent with a sustainable diet requires major and rapid population-level changes given that unsustainable food systems producing unhealthy diets are the global norm and inflict the double burden of being bad for human health and bad for the environment.’
Cork City recently joined the Horizon Europe FEAST project on sustainable local food systems development and will serve as a living lab alongside 11 other European cities including Gent, Lodz, Oxfordshire, Tuscany and Leuven. This project will support the delivery of the food policy for Cork and help to develop a Sustainable Food hub for the city to provide new entrant organic farmers with access to land, infrastructure, facilities and educational resources
Denise Cahill, Coordinator of Cork Healthy Cities, said, ‘Changing diets and access to affordable healthy food have huge public health and environmental implications. Food production is also a major contributor to biodiversity loss, freshwater use, change in land use and deforestation. Meanwhile, many urban residents still struggle to access healthy food. We will be reaching out to stakeholders and communities across the city in the coming months to inform our plans’.
Photo: Joleen Cronin
