The Land and Food Forum was held as part of Food Connections week and organsied by the wonderful Matt Cracknell of Feed Bristol, alongside The Bristol Food Network. It brought together some amazing growers, organisations and people to discuss urban growing and land use within the local landscape and beyond. The weather was not on our side as there was a gale blowing but spirits were high as we talked about what is a passionate will to upscale food production within the urban landscape of Bristol.

These meetings are always amazing, and don’t happen often as us growers are usually more likely to be found elbow deep in compost at this point in the year, so it was fabulous to hear Tim Lawrence talk about Sims Hill, Matt talk about Feed Bristol and the Avon Wildlife Trust talk about the importance of looking after and respecting top grade soils looking forward into an era when climate change will be upon us for real.

The beginning of the results of a fascinating survey of food growing groups in Bristol were also discussed by Susan Rogers of Windmill Hill City Farm. This survey has looked at growing projects all over the city, from large scale business to small scale community gardens, and discussed with them, their workers and volunteers, how they have got to where they are today, what they grow and how they wish to move forward. This survey has been put together and fascilitated byThe Bristol Food Network.

There was also a Tiny Trowels session run, where we search soil to see what was to be found in it. There were worms aplenty but we also found wood lice, a spider and alot of baby spiders and millipedes and a grub or two, all showing how wonderful the soil at Feed Bristol truly is.

Feed Bristol is on Bristol’s Blue Finger, a finger shaped piece of land that straddles the M32 and is also home to Sims Hill and Stapleton Allotments. This land is at threat from development for a Metrobus scheme that will see the allotments and Feed Bristol cut through by a road that will only be used by buses, and see Grade A agricultural soil concreted over for ever. Only 3{2f2874fc6125dd5cf7bd0be296e4e150855e421b2444f8743791b81c4b31d296} of our UK soil is of this quality. Fo further info please see http://www.bluefingeralliance.org.uk

Polytunnel at Feed Bristol