PING stands for the Policy Influencers Network Group. The UAC aims to support the development and upscaling of regenerative urban and peri-urban agroecology through supporting participants to connect, explore, learn and progress in the space where policy meets practice. How can policy work better for practitioners in the field and help to accelerate rather than slow down change?
See recordings of past PINGS on our YouTube channel here.
Upcoming Events:
September 2023 – tbc
Past PINGs
PING #7 – Wednesday 24th May 10am – 12pm. The Right to Grow and tools for managing shared care of public land for food growing.
PING #6 – Thurs 17th November 10.30am – 12.30pm. Mapping Land for Food Growing.
FREE. Sign up here: https://ww.eventbrite.co.uk/e/mapping-land-for-food-growing-with-uac-mappers-network-tickets-440280529917
Find out more on our mapping page here.
The food land mappers group was started by the Urban Agriculture Consortium in 2021. They are committed to open source data mapping to increase food security and food sovereignty in urban and peri-urban areas of the UK. In the group they share projects, approaches and expertise and support each other as a community of practice.
In this session, some mappers from the group will share what well designed maps can do to unlock land and increase food production, and we’ll hear from local authority officers and communities developing maps to unlock food growing land.
Local authorities wanting to map food growing land can find out how to start on the right track, make it useable and fit for purpose, and align it with their vision.
PING #5 – 21st September 2022 – Food Hubs – essential infrastructure for the new food economy.
In September we collaborated with the Open Food Network to spread the word about the transformative potential of food hubs to our ever widening policy influencers network.
Nick Wier took participants on a tour of diverse Food Hubs and what makes them work. People brought their questions, shared contexts and challenges. Please connect with OFN if you would like their follow up support in creating or progressing a food hub in your area.
www.openfoodnetwork.org.uk
Watch:
How to Grow a Food Hub (Melbourne, Australia, April 2022) https://youtu.be/g-GjivaOmaU
Local Food Networks, Making them Real (Oxford Real Farming Conference 2022) https://youtu.be/zLO5J0Oq7bM
- WING # 2: Our 2nd annual Wider Interest Network Group – 8th June 2022
A call to action for food partnerships and LAs to adopt policies in support of Urban Agroecology. We called upon our networks and collaborators to share with each other how they are progressing and what is still needed.
PING #4 – 27 April 2022 – Land Use Planning & Urban Food Security –
Integrating different types and scales of agroecology into urban landscapes can dramatically reduce health inequalities, sequester significant amounts of carbon, boost biodiversity, provide jobs and training, bolster physical, mental and social health and, crucially, build resilience to weather existing and future climate, economic and ecological changes. What do planners need, and what can they do, to be able to bring healthy food production into the centre of placemaking, and what is in the way of them doing so?
PING #3 – 2nd March 2022 – Healthy Soils, Healthy population
We examined changing priorities & narratives around the connections between soil health and how food is grown, and nutrition, health and well-being.
These sessions are for council officers at regional and local levels and others working with these themes interested in writing and influencing policy writing and delivery – we convene online to create an inclusive informal space to learn, connect and be inspired.
We’re really pleased to be sharing presentations from Anna Cura, Food, Farming and Countryside Commission, Dr Elizabeth Westaway from Growing Real Food for Nutrition, www.grffn.org, and from Nottinghamshire County & Leicestershire County Councils.
PING Northern Ireland – Mapping and managing land for Community led food growing in Northern Ireland. 17th Jan 2022 https://www.farmgarden.org.uk/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=821
PING #2 – Understanding food & climate post-COP26: 30 November 2021.
You can catch up with PING #2 here https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbDM9o0-0docitsUfpgZWgNvAjvcFv0ee
We believe, in order to shift policy development, positive and willing collaboration between local authorities and food partnerships are essential. Without local and city/region policy level support, access to land, procurement, and training and enterprise development continue to face barriers.
We want to see local authorities accelerate the development, adoption, implementation, resourcing and enforcement of policies to support all aspects of urban food production in response to the multiple crises we are experiencing – climate breakdown, food and nutritional inequity, biodiversity collapse – to seek the opportunities for reimagining food systems that these meta-shifts provide, and to promote local health and wellbeing through opportunities in sustainable food and land-based livelihoods.
The UAC is a small part of a much bigger constellation of partners and stakeholders pushing in the same direction, and we want to ensure anything we do adds value to policy influencing work already underway.
We are planning a series of innovative PINGs: policy influencing network groups to run in 2022, based on feedback received from partners across the UK, these will be neutral, open, online meeting spaces for food partnerships, local authority officers and politicians, and other stakeholders and experts, to share knowledge, peer learning and ideas in a no-question-is-wrong environment where solidarity can be nurtured. PINGs can be in a variety of shapes and sizes- local, regional, national, cross-national. We are already seeing UK-wide, and country specific PINGs emerging.
PINGs will help share, create, promote and disseminate good practice and successful policy initiatives between Local Authorities, food partnerships and our consortium partners.
There is no “one size fits all” for getting to effective policy and LAs will all have different pathways, be it through a One City Plan (as in Bristol), A Wellbeing Strategy (as in Nottingham’s Design Guide) or a Climate Emergency Local Plan review (as in Lancaster).
We are consulting with existing partners who are engaged in policy influencing – our own core partners, FFCC, LWA, Nourish, Shared Assets, Sustain, SFP, and others to work out how we fit with their work, how we might add value and provide a useful service.
The 1st PING was held on 7 September 2021
| Agreed on 7 September: The PING concept is a very welcome addition to the ecosystem, and offers exciting possibilities for collaboration, amplification and accelerating changeWe all need to be radical and bold in helping re-frame the narrative to assign responsibility for policy and action to (all levels of) governmentThere is a real sense of momentum developing in this communityThe meeting welcomed & endorsed a “mandate” for UAC to further develop the PING concept. |
| Actions: The Shape of PINGs to ComeDevelop this collaboration and PING concept with SFP, LGA, Sustain, Shared Assets, Nourish and invite FFCC and others to join.Explore country & region specific PINGs with UAC and a core group holding the “mothership” concept Ask participants to link with LA officers and councillors and invite a random group to a further exploratory session (Nov 2021)Develop PING session at Northern Real Farming Conference – and plan programme for 2022, resources permitting, with invites to contributions re COP26Work with SFP and all partners to develop mini-toolkit for LA policy influence around urban and peri-urban agroecologyWork with SFG to contribute to a broader format for work with LGA, COSLA, NILGA & WLGA |
Please get in touch if you would like to be involved.