The Aims of the Community Food Initiative

Economic

• To strengthen the local food economy
• To work with and support existing producers
• To generate capital through community/ consumer shareholder model
• To create a not for profit food co-op that generates enough income to employ and expand while maintaining food price at a minimum for maximum affordability to all income groups
• To create resilience to economic downturn, energy scarcity especially fossil fuels and reduce dependency on imported foods
• To promote local micro food enterprises and generate employment
• To apply for funding and /or to generate shareholder capital for the development of a community owned kitchen, food processing facility that will allow micro enterprises to maintain food safety standards

Health

• To improve access to and availability of affordable nutritious food and in particular fresh local produce to all income groups
• To run courses on preparing and preserving food
• To train food and health community kitchen facilitators

Food security
• To promote production, processing and consumption of food locally where possible, regionally, nationally and where imported foods are concerned to ensure that they are sourced from Fair Trade Cooperatives
• To promote production of a wider range and diversity of food products grown in the region
• To promote seed saving

Community
• To create welcoming, safe, fun atmosphere for communities to meet, socialise and work around food
• To provide opportunity for individuals and community groups to actively participate in preparing and cooking fresh and nutritious foods together
• To support the development of seasonal food based celebrations
• To source all food from fair and equitable sources any food imported should be sourced from fair trade communities

Environment

• To promotion of environmentally sensitive and sustainable food production methods
• To improve soil fertility and land regeneration
• To support small scale organic farming that nurtures wildlife and hedgerow regeneration
• To reduce of food miles
• To reduce use of and dependency on fossil fuel and derivatives in food production
• To reduce waste by composting
• Improvement of water quality by reducing effluent run off produced by industrial agriculture
• Exploration of different farming models e.g. permacultural food forests that can increase productivity of a given piece of land but are dependent on community harvesting while greening the landscape and capturing CO2 emissions
• Promoting urban food production – greening urban environments
• Raising awareness of human connection to the land and solutions to the degeneration of natural resources