At our May meeting Anna Francis talked at length about all the many projects she and the Town Council are involved in as part of the efforts to make Frome more sustainable, resilient and low carbon. Find out more HERE.

We were all amazed at how much is going on behind the scenes and we felt that more people should know about it all. To fit in with this months food theme here are notes on the food related section of Anna’s talk.

   Food security and resilience: Field to Fork are working with Frome Town Council to link with local producers and find out what their needs are, how much they are producing, explore opportunities to link more with the local community and businesses and opportunities for increasing sustainability of food production. This will also include a food map and a calculation around how much local food is currently being consumed locally and how much land would be needed to feed Frome. 
   Growing and training centre: Field to Fork will also be setting up a growing training centre in the next few months which will be an excellent resource for Frome. 
   School meals: Anna is working with Always Cooking who are setting up a new business to provide local sustainable meals to local schools, hopefully starting in September. 
   Food waste: polls show that people are thinking more about where their food comes from and are wasting less. We could also promote ways to reduce waste e.g. https://www.regenwaste.com/10-easy-ways-to-reduce-food-waste-during-lockdown
   Promoting and enabling local growing: Frome Town Council is currently setting up seed sharing stations, these should be available soon. There are some great local food examples such as the Mount Community Garden – it would be great to promote these more and explore using green space around the town more for food growing. 
   Research – FTC are limited in what they have influence over but can work proactively with Mendip, Somerset and others. Elise Wach, one of the Field to Fork members has drafted new guidance on growing in the South West in the face of climate change. This will be explored at the 4th June meeting.