What does a resilient and local food system for Cork look like? Where should Cork’s food come from? How should we dispose of it? What should we be eating?

These are just some of the questions that an inter-agency group are asking of the people of Cork – including the staff of UCC.

Chaired by UCC’s Dr Janas Harrington, Senior Lecturer in the School of Public Health and the Environmental Research Institute, this Cork-based inter-agency group has unveiled plans to develop a fairer, healthier, and sustainable food system for the people of Cork.

The Cork Food Policy Council (CFPC) is a voluntary body founded in 2014 comprising representatives from the local community, food retail, farmers, restaurants and the catering sector, education, environmental and health sectors and Cork City Council, and other interested stakeholders from the wider food world.

The ambition of CFPC is to create a comprehensive and inclusive food strategy for Cork City, built around a sustainable and healthy food policy to ensure every single person in the city, from all social classes, will benefit equally when it comes to accessing the best of local, seasonal and, ideally, organic produce.

This food strategy would provide a blueprint for a local food policy, incorporating current best practices and supporting new initiatives and innovation that promote knowledge, skills, and experience around food.

A key aspect of the strategy is to advocate for innovative community led food initiatives to improve the food system and access to quality food in a way that is inclusive, specifically in more deprived areas of the city, ensuring every single person in Cork can reap the benefits of a fairer, healthier, more secure and sustainable food system.

This proposed food policy for the city of Cork is driven by the urgent need to respond to the extreme climate related challenges facing food systems and food production around the world. The policy will also address problems such as obesity, malnourishment and food insecurity caused by the failings of the current food system.

The consultation phase is now open, inviting input from anyone curious to know what 'A Resilient and Local Food System for Cork’ might look like. UCC staff can add their voice to the conversation on the Cork City Council website.

The reason for an urban/city-based initiative is that global cities host over half the world’s population, with Cork City’s population projected to increase to 330,000 by 2040. In the context of rapid growth, the COVID crisis, instability due to conflict and over reliance on food importation and climate impacts, the global food systems challenges have become serious issues for cities, including Cork City.

Further to this, in Cork City there is a commitment to a 30 % reduction by 2030. The work of the Cork Food Policy Council is informed by and will aim to work in tangent with these goals.

Dr Janas Harrington, chair of CFPC since 2019, said: "Cork City Council’s commitment to carbon neutrality by 2030 reveals a commitment paired with an urgency for local action to address the current unsustainable food practices driven by national policy in Ireland with local action to help to improve the situation. Attaining a population-based diet consistent with a sustainable diet requires major and rapid population-level changes given that unsustainable food systems producing unhealthy diets are the global norm and inflict the double burden of being bad for human health and bad for the environment."

Lord Mayor of Cork City, Cllr. Dan Boyle said of the project: "As we seek to transform to net-zero carbon emissions, Cork City is at an important point in its journey and I think this is the perfect time to have a conversation about food, how we consume it, where it comes from and how we dispose of, or indeed reuse, the waste materials. I encourage everyone to get involved in this consultation to create a Food Strategy for Cork because this is our food system and we as citizens are the ones who will drive the change to a more sustainable food system."

Cork City recently joined the Horizon Europe FEAST project on sustainable local food systems development and will serve as a living lab alongside 11 other European cities including Gent, Lodz, Oxfordshire, Tuscany, and Leuven. This project will support the delivery of the food policy for Cork and help to develop a sustainable food hub for the city to provide new entrant organic farmers with access to land, infrastructure, facilities, and educational resources.

Denise Cahill, Coordinator of Cork Healthy Cities, said: "Changing diets and access to affordable healthy food have huge public health and environmental implications. Food production is also a major contributor to biodiversity loss, freshwater use, change in land use and deforestation. Meanwhile, many urban residents still struggle to access healthy food. We will be reaching out to stakeholders and communities across the city in the coming months to inform our plans."

Photo (L-R): Joe McNamee. Denise Cahill, Niamh O'Leary, Maria Young. Seated: Janas Harrington, Stephen Murphy. Image credit: Joleen Cronin.