In cities, regions and countries across the UK and around the world, people and organisations are already showing the way. Resilience is already being built.
Action is needed now at three levels: national, regional/city and community. Leadership at regional and city level is key, with national government providing the laws, policies and devolved powers that local agencies need to act decisively.
The good news is that the changes we need to build a reliable food supply and more resilient communities are the same as we need to:
“Recent experience has shown that the UK’s volunteer spirit is alive and well: take volunteering during the COVID pandemic as one example.”
Lucas R, It's Time to Take Societal Resilience Seriously, RAND (public policy research & analysis), 2023
The UK has much to learn from other countries. Some are a long way ahead with building food resilience strategies.
The Emergency Management Framework for Agriculture is currently being upgraded to include the entire food system.
The Food Policy for Canada aims to ensure all Canadians have access to a sufficient amount of safe, nutritious and culturally diverse food. One priority outcome is improving communities’ capacity to deal with food-related challenges.
Canada also has established a Get Prepared website, with measures to keep safe for 72 hours. It includes one food measure in its list of emergency kit items: “Food that won’t spoil, such as canned food, energy bars and dried foods (replace food and water once a year)”.
The 2014 law on the Future of Agriculture, Food and Forestry has legitimised and energised hundreds of local/regional projects that are building closer urban-rural ties.
Following Covid – where it was observed that areas with local food projects fared better than those without – a recovery programme, France Relance, included help to build local supply chains. This has energised many more local and regional projects.
The National Strategy for Food, Nutrition and Climate was set in law in 2021. This addresses climate, human health and nutrition, biodiversity, resilient farming and local food systems and guaranteeing food sovereignty.
A national prepare-for-disasters website and brochure (also provided in English) offer detailed and science-based advice on how to build a 10-day stockpile.
This advice to citizens is matched by government measures to ensure short-term food supply in times of crisis. There is a state food reserve for emergencies, storing rice, pulses, condensed milk and grains. The reserve is designed to last between a few days and a few weeks.
A new national Food and Nutrition Strategy was launched in 2024, supporting regional supply chains and circular economies, as well as efficient and sustainable use of resources.
In response to the immediate threat from Russia, Latvia has a comprehensive total defence system involving the whole of society.
A ‘72 hours’ public information campaign sets out what Latvian people need to be able to survive for the first 72 hours of a major crisis.
A website sets out what citizens should do, including food and drink measures.
Latvia also has a programme of public education for schools and a 70-minute video.
The Latvian government continually assesses the state of their food system, including existing stockpiling.
The government provides a diverse public education campaign on planning ahead for emergencies, including guidelines on food preparedness.
It sets out advice for the first 72 hours in the case of evacuation and two weeks if confined to home.
It advises stockpiling favourite items, gathering the necessary equipment (e.g. can openers) and storing 12 litres of water per person for three days, preferably in small bottles.
Lithuania also has a national food stockpile.
The government provides advice for emergencies, including food and drink, and advises putting together an emergency kit to survive the first 48 hours after a disaster.
Sweden has had a total defence plan since World War II, with collective responsibility across the whole of society – national government, municipalities and counties, and citizens. This includes national food guidelines.
The Government of Sweden commissioned a thorough analysis of food security, resulting in the report, Food Preparedness for a New Era (2024). (Google translation here.)
A brochure, ‘If Crisis or War Comes’, provides information on food preparedness, including what food to store, how to store it and how to cook it.
In a crisis, Sweden aims to ensure access to safe food for its population for about three months.
The Swedish Food Agency maps and analyses the food system regularly.
Self-reliance and stockpiling has a long history in Switzerland. It is landlocked and dependent on imports for nearly half its food.
Stockpiles are compulsory by law to last between two and four months, with a current plan to expand this to 12 months.
Switzerland provides advice – which includes having a stockpile of food and drink to last a week – to its citizens. Supermarkets, Coop and Migros, have also produced guidelines.
The government assesses risks to the food supply on an annual basis.
The Department of Homeland Security provides advice to citizens on how to prepare for an emergency and guidance on putting together an emergency toolkit, including food, water and other supplies, for several days.
This is produced in 12 languages and is accompanied by various educational materials.
Cities and regions play a vital role in building national food resilience. These bodies can support community resilience building. They need their roles and responsibilities clearly defined by national government.
Below are some ways we can take action on a regional/city level.
These should be co-terminous with local resilience forums (England and Wales), Regional Resilience Partnerships (Scotland) and the Belfast Emergency Preparedness Group (Northern Ireland).
The committees’ activities should include:
The members would include:
Lead the expansion of local food growing, including peri-urban and urban growing, and local/regional supply chains, including, in particular, new supply routes into cities from their rural hinterlands.
Commercial farms, community organisations and homeowners with gardens can all grow more food for local and regional consumption.
Local government should:
Develop education in schools so that all children learn how to prepare food and have the opportunity to learn how to grow food.
Expand careers advice relating to food and farming.
Expand training in food growing.
Include food supply failure in risk registers.
Publish information for the public about preparing for and managing during emergencies.
Develop regional plans for shocks: stockpiling, mass catering and eliminating food waste.
Connect with, learn from and encourage other devolved authorities (nations, regions, cities) – for example, national food resilience events.
Join international alliances, such as ICLEI, MUFFP and C-40.
Learn from existing experience, such as in Birmingham, Bristol, London and Yorkshire, and in Liège in Belgium.
Together with other local authorities, inform government of the need for national policy and legislative change.
Good news: we already have a foundation for building civil food resilience, with examples from Europe, Australia and those closer to home.
The Foodprint Lab mapped Melbourne’s food system, investigating all the key risks, such as bush fires. From this, they developed a roadmap to make the city’s food system more resilient.
This Belgian city demonstrates how bottom-up initiative can meet top-down engagement. A citizen group, Liège en Transition, created a ‘food belt’ around the city in 2013, the Ceinture Aliment-Terre Liègeoise. Its purpose is to foster local food production and distribution in the region.
By 2018, there were 14 food cooperatives with multiple outlets, and by 2025 there were 25, each with tens or hundreds of members.
An annual 10-day food festival attracts thousands of citizens and visitors. Community cooking produces 11,000 meals a day for schools, hospitals, crèches and nursing homes.
A 3,000m2 building is currently under construction to house workshops for processing locally grown food. The programme is strongly supported by the mayor and local government.
In 2022, Birmingham City Council launched the Birmingham Food System Strategy (2022 to 2030). Even though the city’s finances are extremely precarious, the programme is still in place.
It is working to:
As part of the Fair Food Futures UK project, researchers asked residents of Bradford and Tower Hamlets to assess their community food assets.
It asked people what they think of food parcels for people in need, community meals, community cafés, food banks, support services, food pantries, social/community shops, community gardens and allotments.
Ultimately, we depend on the communities around us. Creating local partnerships, expanding growing spaces and putting stockpiling and communal catering plans in place are just some of the ways we can take action on a community level. A key benefit of working together in this way is that it creates the relationships that are needed for quick action in a crisis.
These would be created in partnership with local businesses and community projects:
These include:
Develop community stockpiling plans so that no-one is left without in a crisis. Local services, such as food banks, could provide valuable experience and space.
Teach households and schools about vegetable growing, food emergency-coping skills and household stockpiling.
Community cafés, such as REfUSE on Chester-le-Street in County Durham, demonstrate how communal food provision can become a focus for community action, as well as provide a range of food services, from full-price flat whites to pay-as-you-feel (PAYF) food.
REfUSE also organises:
The Scottish civil society food organisation Nourish Scotland has been building support for public diners, which are ‘state-supported restaurants which offer nutritious price-capped menus’.
During World War II, the UK Government ran a scheme of ‘British Restaurants’ providing communal food. At their peak, these self-financing, municipal enterprises provided half a million meals a day.
