A new initiative launched in the UK this week aims to find out how much of its own food a city can grow.

Harvest Brighton & Hove is undertaking a whole portfolio of projects that focus on growing, cooking and eating more local food. The initiative is being supported with £500,000 of funding over four years from the Big Lottery’s new Local Food Fund.

“Harvest Brighton & Hove is driven by the vision of a localised, sustainable food system where more food can be provided from within the city boundaries, and which is available and accessible equally to all local residents,” the organisation’s website states. “This includes growing food in those underused and unusual spaces such as public parks, areas of empty land around housing estates and container gardening on balconies. In addition we want to ensure that the infrastructure exists to support retail outlets and markets to sell local produce at affordable prices, and that all residents have the knowledge, skills and confidence to prepare fresh, nutritious food for themselves and their families.”

Among the projects that are getting under way:

• An effort to increase the number and productivity of allotments in the city for small-plot gardening. The project will feature seasonal training, as well as a mentoring programme;
• A study to determine how public spaces can be used to grow more food;
• A children’s growing competition;
• Demonstration-site gardens to attract new growers and educate existing ones;
• A programme to grow produce for a school and a community centre;
• A competition to overhaul gardens for improved productivity;
• A programme to match people with land who can’t garden with people who want to garden but have no land;
• Local produce festivals and other events;
• A matchmaking programme to connect local gardeners with lunch clubs or cookery groups that can use their surplus produce;
• Community “pick-and-cook” days;
• A “scrumping” project to collect unharvested produce that now goes to waste and process it as juice, pickles or other goods;
• A £10,000 a year small grants scheme to support new growing projects; and
• Training, mentoring and apprenticeship programmes.

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