Mapping food production in Birmingham?
After the first New Optimists Forum on 2nd November, Digital Birmingham’s Simon Whitehouse and I talked about mapping food production in Birmingham, something I mentioned in a blogpost at the time.
We’ve been thinking about this a tad more. What might a mapping project look like? Who’d be involved? And how would it make a difference to Birmingham and its citizens, i.e. thee and me?
Here are ten reasons I’ve come up with over the weekend — please comment, challenge, add to the list:
- Fresh nutritious food is vital to the health of citizens
So knowing where it isn’t easily available is useful information for planners, not just in the City Council, also in the NHS. - The growing of food, and the sharing of food, are social, live-enhancing activities
Finding out what food is produced locally and setting this data against other info about sociability and health factors would be interesting, to say the least. - Food security
The last time city leaders thought long and hard about food supplies was during the Second World War; Dig for Victory was more than a slogan. A 2009 WMRO report suggested, only slightly tongue in cheek, that we should think again . . . Allotments, market gardens, small holdings; such secondary food sources are likely to be of growing importance with the recession hitting us so hard, let alone our responses to the huge global challenges of climate change, resource depletion and population pressures. But how significant are hyperlocal food supplies, or could they be? The New Optimists scientists can tell us about the population’s dietary requirements.Combine that with what planners need to know; i.e. the actual and potential supplies — my uninformed view is 1% or less of the city’s requirements. How wildly out is that figure? - Relationship with the shire counties
Brum, a comparatively new city, one born after the railways, has never had to rely on its immediate hinterlands for its food supplies — one of the reasons for the uneasy relationship between us and the shires, and between us and the older towns and cities in the region who have grown alongside their relationships with close-by agricultural environs. Understanding our future food security issues will radically change our relationships with our neighbours. - Birmingham would be seen as a caring, fun, green place to be
A crowd-sourced food-mapping data project would be a statement to the outside world as well as to Brummies themselves that this is a green city, literally so. “Leafy Edgbaston” is but a small part of our green city, once a heathland plateau running into the ancient Arden Forest. A project such as this would give a public voice to lots of ventures, from solo heroic effort to larger scale social initiatives . . . - It’d put the productivity and social conviviality of our 115 sites and 7K allotments — and other places — slap bang into everyone’s awareness
It’s not just our thriving allotment communities that are growing food and having fun while they do so. For example, did you know about Annie’s Soho Urban Roots in the grounds of City Hospital? No, nor did I. Were you aware, too, that there’s the Edible Eastside venture slapbang in a seeming industrial wasteland in Digbeth? I wasn’t until the Forum. There are two urban farms I know of, Sandwell and Woodgate — where else? There are lots of other surprising things going on, some in obvious places like schools and housing estates, and some in the most unlikely of places. - We’d find out what foraging potential there is in the city
Disused railtracks, the scrubbier end of parks and hedgerows are home to brambles, nuts, plums, apples, wild herbs like garlic and sage, plus lots of other produce. And we’d need to know what lands had been contaminated during our heavy industry past. - Farmers Market survey
We could add data about food supplies from our hinterlands by discovering where the food that supplies the Farmers’ Markets actually comes from. - Mappa Mercia
Mappa Mercia is a great Open Mapping project. This could be part of it . . . and more! - New Optimists Forum scenarios
And, of course, the information such a project would uncover would be a really useful basis for the scenarios we’re generating for food futures for Birmingham 2050.
What do you think of this list? What’s missing?
(Photo above is of the Hazelwell Allotments shindig, reproduced here with kind permission of Sarah-Jane Watkinson.)
This is such a great idea but mapping needs to be comprehensive. There is so much foodie-wise going on that you have to dig deep to make the exercise worthwhile, otherwise you end up with just those with a high profile. Currently around 70% of our food is sourced from small, local suppliers, first because we believe in the power of collaboration and the local economy, second because they tend to go beyond and offer superb reliability. Anyone running a place like ours will know how rubbish the ‘trade’ alternatives often are. Happy to contribute our supplier list if you want it.
When you say ‘local’ in terms of your suppliers, what does that mean? How big a catchment area do you use?
Birmingham area, but up to Lichfield in North. ‘Local’ enough to deliver.
Hi
I’ve already produced a map of all the allotments in the West Mids that are listed on loacal authority web sites plus a few more private ones( not published yet – but happy to send a screenshot)from the data held in OpenStreetMap. Adding other food producers/outlets would require organisation but producing a map would be trivial now I’ve done the hard work
Yes, I’m aware of this great Mappa Mercia work. I didn’t realise it was down to you, though! It’s really useful brilliant stuff and, as you say, there are opportunities for people to build more info on to it.
Hi all
Have a look at our digital mapping in Somerset at http://www.foodmapper.org.uk with our partners Geofutures of Bath
Be great to collaborate with you as I am a Brummie abroad in the shires!
best wishes
Linda
We’ll be in touch . . .!