Local Food programme
Local Food is a £50 million programme that will distribute
grants to a variety of food-related projects to help make locally grown food
accessible and affordable to local communities.
The Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens has been instrumental in developing the programme, working with a large number of other organisations over several years before plans came to fruition.
The funding programme is managed by the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts (RSWT) and the 15 consortium members, on behalf of the BIG Lottery Fund.
Latest News
Due to an exceptional high level of demand, the groundbreaking Local Food programme is to suspend acceptance of new first stage applications, with effect from Friday 21 August 2009.
Mark Wheddon, Local Food Programme Manager said: "It is obvious that there is a huge interest and need for this type of funding. The public appear to be increasingly in tune with the environmental consequences of the choices they make, including their knowledge and understanding of food and where it comes from."
"It is important that we act quickly so that we can make potential applicants, and those working up project ideas, fully aware of the current level of demand. We do not want to have a situation where people invest a great deal of time and effort into applying, unaware of the exceptional levels of demand we are experiencing, only to be disappointed if we cannot fund their project."
In just 14 months the Local Food programme has received enough applications to potentially fully utilise the £50 million grant funding available and its Grants Officers are currently in the process of assessing these applications. Potential applicants have three months to submit new first stage applications before the programme suspends acceptance of new applications on 21 August 2009.
For the latest information on Local Food please visit: www.localfoodgrants.org
Benefits
Communities will benefit from improved health and well-being through exercise and better nutrition; strengthened local economies through the creation of social enterprises; and more sustainability through the better use of resources such as food redistribution and composting.
Local Food has five themes:
- Enable communities to manage land sustainably for growing food locally
- Enable communities to build knowledge and understanding and to celebrate the cultural diversity of food
- Stimulate local economic activity and the development of community enterprises concerned with growing, processing and marketing local food
- Create opportunities for learning and the development of skills through voluntary training and job creation
- Promote awareness and understanding of the links between food and healthy lifestyles.
Not for profit community groups including FCFCG members can now apply for grants.
