Four city partners in 2021 for new UK fringe farming research, action and policy

This year we will be building on Fringe Farming in London at a wider scale working with Shared Assets and partners Bristol Food Producers (Bristol), Glasgow Community Food Network (Glasgow) and ShefFood (Sheffield) to research access to land for peri-urban farming with a briefing and event produced in each city. In London, Capital Growth will be taking forward the actions from the 2020 report particularly highlighting case studies of borough councils supporting agroecological farming at the edge of the city in line with their social, ecological and economic targets.

In tandem with regional efforts, the Landworkers' Alliance will be setting up a peri-urban pracititioners' forum to build supportive networks, identify issues and share knowledge within the sector.

This exciting series of collaborative endeavours will culminate in:

• Local action plans in the four cities using existing data, plugging gaps and where possible detailing explicit local opportunities for accessing land
• An overall analysis/policy briefing on land availability and specific issues with a clear socio-economic case for increasing peri-urban farming as part of a green economic recovery
• A model of progressing land for peri-urban farming that can be replicated in other cities. Our vision is that the resources we create can be used by any local authority, and any local group wishing to access peri urban land locally
• A series of local policy recommendations describing what good-practice looks like for a council for increasing and supporting peri-urban farming - as developed with councils involved in the project and connecting with their existing commitments such as with climate change
• National policy proposals to unlock land in the urban fringe for food production connected to local communities e.g. as part of Defra’s ongoing consultation on the role of peri-urban land in delivering Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMS) outcomes.