SPAN Sustainable Production In Active Neighbourhoods

Full discussion document is available at http://www.organiclea.org.uk/news.html

Background summary
Enter into the edges of the allotment world and you’ll hear the 1922 Allotments Act mentioned as forbidding allotment sales.

As an allotment-based project involved in small amounts of surplus distribution (1), we decided to look into this Act and explain, in as simple terms as possible, when allotment produce can be sold legally, when it can’t, and why.

More important to us are conclusions that go beyond the law and ask ‘should those that want to produce more food in cities and have the skills and time, be denied this opportunity?’ Especially when there are urban consumers with a keen interest in buying this locally-grown produce. We argue that ‘some of the misgivings about commercial use of urban allotments may be, on examination, more to do with the lack of access to land.’

We hope this will strike a chord with:

• allotment holders involved in a project who when selling surplus are told ‘this is against the law’.
• community food workers supporting families to access quality food.
• policy makers and local influencers creating new ways to stimulate local economies.
• food activists who think more food should be produced in cities to feed local inhabitants.

I. Allotments and the law – in a nutshell

Our discussion document finds that legally allotment gardeners can trade a surplus off-site (trade on-site is open to legal interpretation). Councils or associations can let vacant allotments as market gardens for commercial activity.

II. Moving beyond the law - what should we be asking?

Refering to the law can also distort the debate. It limits the role that urban producers could and do play in our society. It also loses sight of how improving urban food production could address critical environmental and social problems in our cities.

III. Is it desirable?

Allotment sites are viewed by many as an oasis from the world of commerce, where favours and spare produce are given freely. To encouarge people to grow for a market risks upsetting this ‘gift economy’. In a worst case, pure economically minded motivations could not only disrespect this cooperative culture, but abuse it.

Going beyond the legal question, we suggest that answers to a more pertinent question, i.e. ‘is it desirable?’, lie with practice ensuring that:

• allotment surpluses are sold through cooperative/collective structures;
• production for market meets high standards of sustainabilty;
• more vacant allotments sites are made available to those wishing to engage primarily in commercial production.

IV. Real starting point: How can we encourage people to grow more food?

If people want to grow more food we need to create conditions by which they can. If financial returns encourage or enable people to spend more time on their allotment and food growing plots engaged in honest work producing sustainable nourishment for the community, can this really be a bad thing?

Recommendations

1) We welcome and support increasing interest in locally and naturally grown food because it is beneficial for a range of well documented social, environmental and health reasons.

2) Local and national bodies should be developing policies that support more urban and local food production. This could include:

• The creation of more food growing land within towns and cities (for example, sections of parks, including glasshouses, domestic gardens and so-called ‘wasteland’).
• Making peri-urban and rural land available to those who have a desire to garden it.
• Boroughs and local authorities using s106 agreements to compel developers of high density housing to allocate a portion of land for use as food growing space, in order to meet demand for local food production.

3) Allotments remain critical sites for production in urban areas and must be maintained. Where there is demand, local authorities have a statutory duty to provide a sufficient quanity of plots and lease them to people living in its area:

• Waiting lists do not satisfactorily comply with this statutory duty. (2)
• The exemption for inner London boroughs, where provision of allotments on demand is discretionary not mandatory needs to be reconsidered.
• There is a need to reverse the current trend which is a steady decline in plots across England. (3)
• Allotment gardeners should not be prevented from distributing their surplus through local channels.

4) Alternative modes of use should be considered where there are allotment vacancies:

• National and local policy should be geared towards investing resources, both in terms of training and financial incentives, to encourage food production on vacant plots. For example, supporting the establishment of urban market garden cooperatives.

July 2007, Organiclea Community Growers. www.organiclea.org.uk

Notes:

(1) This discussion paper was produced by Organiclea community growers. Organclea is an allotment-based food growing initiative whose members believe that more food should be grown locally and transported sustainably. We are based in Waltham Forest, East London in the Lea Valley.

(2) A 1997 study found that the number of people waiting for an allotment site has more than doubled since 1970. ‘English Allotments Survey: Report of the Joint Survey of Allotments in England’, National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners and Anglia Polytechnic University, November 1997.

(3) A 1997 study (quoted above) found plots to be disappearing at a rate of 9,400 per year.