Cohesion is about bringing people together across divides and with a common purpose.
But there is no need to bring people together for its own sake – there are many ways in which different aims can be combined in order to create better stronger, more sustainable communities that foster growth. We know that the present Government is desperate for growth, but this tends to be seen as top down rather than bottom-up.
The creation of local Food Hubs could achieve more sustainable food production and consumption, build social capital and cohesion and also result in economic growth.
Food Hubs would be voluntary partnerships, with charitable status, bringing together local producers and consumers. They would each cover areas around city or county areas, linking together the producers (farmers, food processors, wholesalers and retailers) with large consumers (NHS Trust, schools, restaurants, social care and others) with a view to gearing supply and demand to the localised market. Food hubs will be very small teams, using localised data bases, offering real and virtual introductions.
They would also create the opportunity to gear production to higher standards tat were owned by the local community – food production that reduces carbon emissions and pollution, protects wildlife and habitats and reduces soil erosion. By giving local communities a stake in their own environment they are much more likely to support higher standards. These standards are already beginning to emerge through such commercial organisations as Wildfarmed that see regenerative farming as having social as well as environmental impacts.
One of the principal aims would be to develop all forms of social capital – bonding, bridging and linking – by encouraging both direct and indirect engagement. For example schools could begin to abandon their use of central buying agencies, that supply standardised food packages to all schools in the area, sourced from across the country and from other countries. The emphasis could switch to local suppliers, contracted longer term with seasonal produce. The same could be true for hospitals, care homes, leisure centres and businesses.
Food miles would be reduced, but so too would the gulf between producers and consumers, who currently have no relationship at all – their respective needs are mediated by remote wholesalers who buy on a national basis and distribute on the same basis. So bread baked in one part of the country, or potatoes grown in another will currently be driven hundreds of miles to a central warehouse and then distributed round the country to retailers, including to those retailers literally next door to where the bread was baked or the potatoes grown!
Many farmers are beginning to realise that the best way of making a living in the future is via direct-to-consumer sales, hence the growth in farm shops. But this is still in its infancy and there is now a chance for a complete re-gearing on a much more localised basis, reflecting local needs and building interdependence.