All RISE!

A meeting of South West Grain Network members. Copyright: Robyn Minogue

Published: Monday 23 February 2026

The RISE (Resilient Infrastructure for a Successful Emergence in the UK’s Grain Economy) project has launched a new community of practice (CoP). It brings together people involved in the UK's regional, non-commodity grain networks. A main aim of the networks, and RISE, is to address key challenges in a collective transition to an agroecological grain system.

The RISE CoP will provide a national focal point for an extensive process of organisational co-design, drawing upon consultation and implementation at local and regional levels. The group will hold meetings, convergences and workshops to share learning relating to prescient topics, including organisational structures; mobilisation of knowledge; and improving equity diversity and inclusion in work and networks.

RISE is coordinated by the Gaia Foundation’s Seed Sovereignty Programme, UK Grain Lab and Coventry University Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience and funded by Farming the Future. The founding CoP includes members of the South West Grain Network, Yorkshire Grain Alliance, Common Grains, Llafur Ni, South East Grain Alliance, East Anglia Grain Alliance, West Midlands Grain Alliance, Nottingham Mill Coop and the Real Bread Campaign. Its membership is not fixed and may evolve over time.

You can find more information on the RISE website, and sign up for the project's free enewsletter.

Chris Young has coordinated the Real Bread Campaign since March 2009. In addition to lobbying for an Honest Crust Act of better loaf composition, labelling and marketing laws in the UK; he created and runs initiatives including: Sourdough September; Real Bread Week; Real Bread For All; Together We Rise, promoting therapeutic/social benefits of bread making; No Loaf Lost surplus reduction guidance; and Lessons in Loaf for schools. He’s the author of the Knead to Know…more microbakery handbook, Slow Dough: Real Bread recipe book and Bake Your Lawn grow-a-loaf guidebook; and edits True Loaf magazine.

From 2014-18, Chris also coordinated Sustain's London Food Link network, which included editing The Jellied Eel magazine and helping to launch and run the Urban Food Awards with the Mayor of London’s office. Chris has pulled on his judge’s wig for BOOM Awards, The Cateys, The Great Taste Awards, The Scottish Bread Championship and The World Bread Awards. In 2017, The School of Artisan Food honoured Chris with its first Fellowship, and in 2025 he was named joint Person of The Year by Slow Food in The UK.

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