The wider implications of Iceland's volcanic eruption

The volcanic eruption in Iceland has caused travel chaos over the past week. The unprecedented disruption to flights has left many thousands of Welsh holiday makers stranded abroad, unable to return to their homes and jobs. Now, amid recrimination and blame, the restrictions on flights have been lifted. Lessons need to be learned, but its worth thinking about the wider implications of the flight ban.

The Guardian reported this week that farmers in Kenya had to throw away 50 to 60 tonnes of broccoli, sugar snap peas, runner beans and other fruit and vegetables because of the flights that would normally transport them to the UK were grounded. That huge amount of food was ditched by last Friday alone, at the beginning of the six-day period of disruption. Imagine the many hundreds of tonnes of food that will have been lost in Kenya by the time flights are running as normal.

As regular readers of this blog will know, I have raised concerns about future food security before. We do not grow enough of our own food and therefore rely on too many imports. It is wrong, from an environmental perspective, for Scotland to export potato seeds to Egypt, so that farmers can grow them there and then import the finished, grown product back to Scotland. Similarly, why do we buy large amounts of New Zealand lamb when we have fantastic, world-renowned lamb on our doorstep here in Wales?

The UK's reliance on food imports leaves these islands vulnerable and susceptible to a food crisis sometime in the future, which has been predicted by many with terrifying consequences. The notion and implications of peak oil have to be taken seriously.

Food prices are closely linked to fuel prices. The number of air and road miles most of our food has undertaken before it has reached the supermarket shelves means the price largely reflects fuel costs. With petrol prices looking likely to only increase in the coming years, it is crucial that food price-hikes and shortages are planned and prepared for.

People will need food growing skills we have lost from past generations. There are plenty of people keen and willing to learn and try food growing, and the growth in demand for allotments in recent years shows this. But provision does not meet this demand, as the Assembly's Environment and Sustainability Committee heard yesterday. Government at all levels must do all that can be done to provide greater access to allotments, as well as think about other ways in which we can plan to avoid a worse case peak-oil scenario.

Food security

The Westminster government has today announced it's twenty year food strategy. Finally, there is recognition that we will not be able to take food for granted in the future. Since government adviser Professor John Beddington predicted a climate change-induced "perfect storm" of food shortages, water scarcity and insufficient energy resources, people have been waiting to hear how the government plans to respond.

One of the best ways to prepare ourselves for rocketing food and oil prices, which many scientists believe we will see in the near future as a result of peak oil, is to enable as many people as possible to grow their own food. There are long waiting lists for allotments in all areas of Wales. Whatever demand is there should be encouraged.

I welcome any moves to increase the land available for food production, and I know that Plaid's Rural Affairs Minister in Wales, Elin Jones is looking at ways to increase the availability of land for allotments and community gardens. I also welcome today's indications from Westminster that the government also wants less food waste, more food bought in season and for people to buy sustainably-farmed food. It would be useful to have tight timescales and targets for these aspirations, but we also need to go much further and faster in terms of reducing food imports and tackling a wasteful food/supermarket culture. This strategy is a good start, but food price problems could hit us quickly and without warning, as some countries saw in 2008 with horrendous consequences. Surely it makes sense for governments to help and enable communities on as small a scale as possible to build up their own resiliance to cope with a potential food or fuel crisis.

A Welsh Food Revolution?

There are many good reasons to change the way we source our food. The price of food is on the increase, we don't fully understand the effects of additives in processed food, climate change is turning parts of the world into desert and biofuels have replaced food crops resulting in food shortages. It is estimated that world food supplies would have to double in the next 40 years to feed a population of nine billion, while at the same time, farmers must cope with climate change, oil price rises and new plant and animal diseases.

A report from MPs out last week said "Only 10% of the fruit consumed in the UK by value is grown here. Apple orchards have reduced by nearly 33% in just 10 years and less than a third of the apples eaten here are grown here", while in 2005 Britain imported 1,500 tonnes of potatoes and exported exactly the same amount.

According to Sustain

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has calculated that, globally, agriculture generates 30% of total man-made emissions of greenhouse gases, including half of methane emissions and more than half of the emissions of nitrous oxide.
In the EU, over 30% of the greenhouse gases from consumer purchases come from the food and drink sector.
Latest conservative estimates from the Food Climate Research Network in the UK suggest that almost one-fifth of the UK’s total greenhouse gas emissions are associated with our food and drink.

We have to change the way we source our food and the single greatest contribution we can all make in reducing our individual carbon emissions is to eat as much of our own-grown food as possible.

Growing-your-own provides good exercise and has obvious other health and financial benefits. It can also help to bring people together. On my allotment, young and older people work together sharing plants and tips in a spirit of communalism. We all rely on each other - a plant disease on one plot can affect us all.

Demand for allotments is growing. At the beginning of the year I did some research which showed that there are 2,500 people on waiting lists for an allotment in Wales and that some people will have to wait up to nine years! The 1908 Small Holdings and Allotment Act says the council has a duty to provide land if they are satisfied there is demand and if six electors petition that council, their representations have to be taken into consideration. Since then I have found plenty of examples of groups of people who have petitioned their council only to be told that the council has considered their request, but there is no land available.

I've visited community owned urban food production gardens in Cuba and I'm keen to see if we can do something similar here in Wales. Tomorrow, I am hosting a "summit" of all the contacts I have made while working on allotments and I am hoping that the meeting will generate ideas for making more land available for those who want to grow their own.

'Growing' Concern for Allotments

GARDENERS wanting to grow their own food face a wait of up to NINE years for a plot on a council allotment site in Wales. I have carried out a national survey of local authorities in Wales to find out how they are responding to the growing demand for allotments.

A total of 2,750 people are on the waiting list at the fourteen local authorities that supplied complete data. Some councils are looking to provide more land, but other local authorities have said that they have no plans to release more land for food growing.

Even more troubling is the revelation that many people face waits of several years to get one. The longest waits are in Monmouthshire, where there are just two local authority sites and 86 people queuing for a plot, with a waiting time of between three and nine years.

I’ve spoken to allotment holders and people on waiting lists all over Wales. Councils are supposed to provide enough allotment land, yet these figures show that most are not. Local food growing has so many benefits - people get good exercise, good quality cheap food and it enables us to stay in close contact with nature, which has proven benefits in terms of mental health. The climate crisis adds further impetus to expand local food growing projects. Plaid has campaigned for more growing land for our communities for some time, and these figures show the need to continue that campaign.

I am calling for the Welsh Government to put together and fund a national strategy for local food. A good start would be a dedicated member of staff in each local authority who could co-ordinate local food growing and organise community gardening projects. We could then promote allotment gardening and expand the opportunities to teach young people how to produce food and work with the land.

Sourcing our food locally

As Plaid's Sustainability Spokesperson, I have tried raise awareness of the role that local food and projects like allotments, local growing and community gardens can make towards improving peoples' lives in Wales. Allotment gardening is becoming more popular in Wales and the UK. Growing our food locally makes more economic sense as supermarket food prices rise.

There is an urgent need for an expansion of local food production across Wales. I have spoken many times in the Senedd and elsewhere I have supported campaigns in my region such as the fight to save the Haigside allotments in Treherbert, and the campaign fpr a community garden in Ely in Cardiff. On Monday I went to see the Riverside Community Garden, a project which provides growing space for people in Cardiff and emphasises reaching out to disadvantaged groups. In Riverside the older generation pass on food growing skills to younger people which helps to build relationships and mutual respect. There is a huge amount of good work going on, but it could do with being more joined-up.

Yesterday in the Senedd I spoke in a debate on Sustainable Procurement. My main points were that the Assembly Government and public bodies under its control could and should boost local economies by sourcing as much of their food as locally as possible. Locally procured food cuts down on carbon emissions and food miles as well as ticking alot of the health boxes. If we put local procurement rules in place when contracts are issued by the public sector, then we can give small shops, co-operatives and local growers an extra leg-up to compete against the supermarkets.

The Cuban Food Revolution Comes to Wales

It's not often that I can say I am truly inspired in our National Assembly, but I was yesterday. Roberto Perez called in to Cardiff (at very short notice) for a meeting with myself and Nerys Evans AM. He was on his way through to Bristol from Machynlleth - he's in the middle of a speaking tour advancing the permaculture revolution which could soon spread to Wales.

I went to see this community-owned allotment project (organiponico)in Alamar in May, when Nerys and I were part of a Plaid Cymru study trip to Cuba. I met a representative from the Cuban Agriculture Ministry with Elin Jones AM, Plaid's Rural Affairs Minister and we were given a tour around Organiponico de Alamar, which is on the outskirts of Havana.

Cuba lost two thirds of its oil when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989. The whole food system had to be reorganised. People no longer had access to fertilisers, machinery or the means to distribute food. The organiponico movement started with people squatting pieces of waste land in urban areas. The government allowed them to use the land as long as they continued to produce food. Collective co-ops were developed and markets for selling the food were established.

Roberto Perez is one of the founders of the urban permaculture movement in Cuba and he is in Bristol tonight. He agrees that we have a lot of potential in Wales to localise our food systems and develop ways of producing food that work with, rather than against, nature.

We don't have to start from scratch. Last week I visited a number of projects in Pembrokeshire and met with some representatives of the transition towns movement. People there - and in plenty of other places throughout the country - are getting together to produce their own food and energy. As Roberto said, wherever you go in the world there are plenty of people who want to get involved in permaculture and small scale renewable energy production. It's up to governments at all levels, especially councils, to make it easy. According to Roberto, access to land is key. In Cuba there are gardens on former car parks and polluted industrial sites. They are very cheap to set up, and have the potential to employ and educate people and contribute to healthier lifestyles. With the price of food rocketing, they would be a great way of ensuring access to cheap, good food. What are we waiting for?

Allotments plea

I visited Haigside allotments in Treherbert again last week with other Plaid Cymru colleagues, where the allotment holders are under threat of eviction. I would like to pay tribute to the allotment society campaigners, especially John Evans and Graham Warren, for all their hard work in trying to defend their allotments from development. It was during the school holidays, so I had a good chance to see the adjoining riding school being used by local children. The hanging threat of eviction is a constant worry for all the pigeon fanciers, children who use the riding schools and the allotment holders. They and I have called for the council to intervene - to seek to lease or buy the land and to remove the land from the local developmet plan as a candidate site for housing development. Not only have they failed to do that, but they have also cancelled a council meeting where Plaid Cymru had forced the matter onto the agenda.

I have a short debate in the Assembly this week, about the future of allotments in Wales. More public land should be made available for allotments across the nation and the county borough, not less.

Local food growing can play an important role in the social, environmental, educational and cultural realms of our communities. It can be used for local food production and as a result can contribute to the regeneration of a local area. Lessons can be learned from successful projects such as the GreenThumb Community Gardens initiative in New York which involves hundreds of New Yorkers in food growing across the city. Local Authorities should look at ways of integrating local growing with compost programmes and grey water recycling schemes and work with and support community gardening groups and organisations.

Local growing can provide significant economic benefits and can also increase knowledge and understanding of issues relating to food and nutrition. Developing community gardens and allotments from vacated or unused public land could help create not only greener communities but also healthier communities by providing friendly spaces to gather, take part in physical activity and socialise. It can be magic for children to grow food from seed then learn to cook with the ingredients and in some circumstances local growing projects can also enhance both the local economy by boosting local procurement. Allotments have so many benefits, we should do all we can to protect these small, precious spaces.

I know it is a very worrying time for the Haigside campaigners, and I will continue to help them in any way I can.