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Bolton “growing food skills” to beat food poverty

Bolton “growing food skills” to beat food poverty

Getting more people in Bolton to “connect” with food could help stop the flow of people into food poverty, according to experts at a public debate on the subject.

The ‘Who Cares About Our Food?’ event saw representatives from the housing, voluntary, business and healthcare sectors join members of the public to garner views about food supply in the town and help people on low incomes eat well.

Other issues discussed at the event at Bolton Market Lifestyle Hall were what can be done to educate people better about food and its impact on health, how to reduce food waste, and how to reduce the cost of food.

Dave Bagley, Chief Executive of the charity Urban Outreach, which operates a food bank in Bolton, said: “Food poverty is not just a lack of food, it's also the inability to plan a menu for your food and the ability we have to buy good food in a way that makes our money go further.

“The fact that the last government removed home economics from the curriculum means we’ve consigned a whole generation, and another generation after them, to having no knowledge whatsoever on how to get out of a certain set of circumstances.”

Steve Jones of Bolton Urban Growers, which runs community food hubs that teach people how to grow their own food, said: “Food banks are like the emergency services for dealing with our food crisis, but they're not a long term answer. If you look at a lot of the social housing in Bolton, many have large back gardens and it is not rocket science to use those gardens to grow our own food.

“We've grown our own food in our garden for 12 years and every year we produce vast amounts of produce to make the kind of gourmet food you’d find in a high end supermarket."

“Growing your own is a cheap and long-lasting solution. You can buy a thousand cabbage seeds for a quid – that’s a thousand cabbages, yet a quid will only buy you a single cabbage in a supermarket. I know it will sound over-simplistic but the message is get out there, get growing, and then all the skills that people have lost through three decades of service and consumerism, the ability to cook and make things, we can relearn those skills.”

Other participants at the event included Rachel West, pictured, of the recently launched Bolton Real Junk Food Project, which aims to create quality meals from food that would otherwise be thrown away, as well as helping people to improve their cooking skills. She said it was “vital” that supermarkets and agencies in Bolton all worked together to reduce waste.

The debate, which can be viewed online herewas organised by the Who Cares Network in collaboration with Bolton at Home, Bolton FM, Johnson Fold FM, Bolton Market and Edwin Pink TV.

The event was the latest instalment of the Who Cares Network’s public conversations and followed the success of February’s ‘Who Cares About The General Election?’ event, which saw more than 40 people, including local MPs gather at the market to put forward their views surrounding the UK’s political system.

The Who Cares Network is a project that aims to bridge the gap between the community and the media by bringing people together through discussion. The project focuses on face-to-face conversation that takes place in a communal space in order to allow people to voice their thoughts and get their questions answered.

The network wanted to highlight the amazing work being done in Bolton around food and will continue to promote this through its community media campaign.