Engage has decided to continue with the theme of sustainability from last year’s seminar series and focus in 2025 on the vital subject of food sustainability. We want to influence the discussion in the city about where our food comes from and how we can make our region more reflective about food security and food sustainability. Ultimately we want to educate ourselves about the changes that we need to make in the context of global food insecurities and the impacts of climate change on the growing of food.
We have designed a series that starts with looking at the reality of the food system in the UK as a whole, and then begins to focus-in on the farming situation in the north west and in our City Region specifically, and concluding with a look at our own food habits and choices at home and when we eat out.
To open the series this year (Thursday 2nd October) we have been very fortunate to get probably the foremost broadcaster on food in the UK SHEILA DILLON, who is one of the presenters on BBC Radio 4 The Food Programme, and also a major figure in the prestigious BBC Food & Farming Awards. Sheila has generously agreed to come to Liverpool and commence an autumn reflection on food sustainability.
The second seminar (Thursday 16th October) will focus on farming in the region and the reality that most food grown here is sent straight to supermarkets and not made for sale locally. Our speakers are two remarkable young farmers who have started their own farm to challenge this model of growing food and their project is Kindling Farm near Prescot. We are so excited to welcome CHRIS WALSH & HELEN WOODCOCK to share their experience of why they crowdfunded the buying of land to start a different and more sustainable food growing culture.
Our third seminar (Thursday 30th October) will bring the debate right down to our own kitchen table and from where we source our food and the choices we are making and the consequences. Our guest speaker is the pioneering and well-known LUCY ANTAL who won the BBC Food & Farming Award Community Food Champion 2021 and is Feedback Global’s Senior Project Manager for Regional Food Economy and Lead for Food Justice.
We will be publishing different articles in the lead-up to the series helping us to get started with our reflections in this area -which some of us might never have really looked at before. If there are issues you would like raised then this is a good time to let us know whilst we are still in conversation with our speakers. Engage has concerns we have picked up from residents over a number of years one of which is the absence of a good food market in the city centre and a place where local food producers can sell their produce on a regular basis.
Make a note in your diaries and don’t miss out on one of these important seminars.
The title is: LIVERPOOL’S FOOD CULTURE – have we got one?
The themes are:
- THE UK’S FOOD SYSTEM – how good is it?
- FARM TO FORK – is our food journey sustainable?
- FOOD HOME AND AWAY – are we making the best decisions?