FARM TO FORK INITIATIVE
From farm to fork, WOVNET is working to ensure that food system is equitable and sustainable and make nutritious food available for everyone. The Farm to Fork Initiative is working to ensure that we have the resources we need to make sure that no one is hungry, the food we eat is safe and healthy, the people who harvest, stock and serve our food are treated fairly and the way we grow and distribute food respects our natural resources and the environment for generations to come. Through the Farm to Fork Initiative, WOVNET is working to make sustainable food a reality. Farm to Fork is a community of farmers, food producers, food consumers, food policy stakeholders reflecting the voice of the broad good food movement. We collaborate with many actors in the sustainable food system at the local and local government levels, with a steadfast commitment to building thriving local food systems. The Farm to Fork Initiative holds the common principles of equity, abundance, health, sustainability, and dignity. We work collectively on integrated food approaches rooted in these principles.
The Farm to Fork Initiative aims at achieving three broad objectives
1) To promote Sustainable Agriculture. The Farm to Fork Initiative
Seeks to sustain farmers, resources and communities by promoting
farming practices and methods that are profitable, environmentally
sound and good for communities.
2) To promote Sustainable Food Procurement. The Farm to Fork
Initiative supports sourcing of sustainable products for farming,
residential and retail dining operations, concessions, vending, and
catering. The choice of where to source quantities of agricultural
products creates an opportunity for greater impact in promoting
equitable incomes for food producers and food systems workers,
ecological sustainability, and other values
3) To promote Sustainable Food Consumption. The Farm to Fork
Initiative promote use of food products that respond to basic needs
and bring a better quality of life, while minimizing the use of natural
resources, toxic materials and emissions of waste and pollutants over
the life cycle, so as not to jeopardize the needs of future generations
The Farm to Fork Initiative has three components
The Farm to Fork Initiative aims at achieving three broad objectives
1) To promote Sustainable Agriculture. The Farm to Fork Initiative
Seeks to sustain farmers, resources and communities by promoting
farming practices and methods that are profitable, environmentally
sound and good for communities.
2) To promote Sustainable Food Procurement. The Farm to Fork
Initiative supports sourcing of sustainable products for farming,
residential and retail dining operations, concessions, vending, and
catering. The choice of where to source quantities of agricultural
products creates an opportunity for greater impact in promoting
equitable incomes for food producers and food systems workers,
ecological sustainability, and other values
3) To promote Sustainable Food Consumption. The Farm to Fork
Initiative promote use of food products that respond to basic needs
and bring a better quality of life, while minimizing the use of natural
resources, toxic materials and emissions of waste and pollutants over
the life cycle, so as not to jeopardize the needs of future generations
The Farm to Fork Initiative has three components
Component 1: Sustainable Food Agriculture
The Farm to Fork Initiative promotes Sustainable Agriculture so that it is:
Economically Viable: If it is not profitable, it is not sustainable.
Socially Supportive: The quality of life of farmers, farm families and
farm communities is important.
Ecologically Sound. We must preserve the resource base that
sustains us all.
The Farm to Fork Initiative promotes Sustainable Agriculture so that food
producers can produce local food without degrading the land, the
environment or the people. The Farm to Fork Initiative supports farmers,
food producers and consumers so that sustainable agriculture economically
viable, socially responsible and ecologically sound. The economic, social
and ecological impacts are interrelated, and all are essential to
sustainability. An agriculture that uses up or degrades its natural resource
base, or pollutes the natural environment, eventually will lose its ability to
produce. It’s not sustainable. An agriculture that isn’t profitable, at least
over time, will not allow its farmers to stay in business. It’s not sustainable.
An agriculture that fails to meet the needs of society, as producers and
citizens as well as consumers, will not be sustained by society. It’s not
sustainable. A sustainable agriculture must be all three – ecologically
sound, economically viable and socially responsible and the three must be
in harmony.
Component 2: Sustainable Food Procurement
Sustainable food procurement is the sourcing of sustainable products for
farming, residential and retail dining operations, concessions, vending, and
catering. This generally requires a well-defined set of standards and
definition for “sustainable food,” with variance across groups and
organizations. Food procurement by institutions is important in sustainable
agriculture and food systems because institutions can often purchase at a
larger scale than can small retailers or other businesses. The choice of
where to source quantities of agricultural products creates an opportunity
for greater impact in promoting equitable incomes for food producers and
food systems workers, ecological sustainability, and other values.
Institutions – such as schools, universities, colleges, hospitals, and other
organizations with significant purchasing power – have the opportunity to
support farmers and producers who operate with values of social,
economic, and environmental sustainability, often at a greater scale than
do smaller purchasers of farm products. To do so, institutional buyers often
connect sustainable food producers with existing food distributors. Because
small farms often can’t meet the demand of institutional-sized food service,
institutional buyers will ask their distributors to aggregate farm produce
from small farms to meet large-scale demand. Dining services also identify
opportunities on dining menus to use a smaller amount of product bought
directly from producers.
Benefits of establishing sustainable purchasing programs and relationships
may include improved transparency between producers and their
customers, leading to the ability to meet supply, quality, and cost
expectations; support of farmers who pursue long-term soil health and
other agro ecological improvements, and promotion of businesses that
provide equitable wages and safe working conditions.
The Farm to Fork Initiative supports institutions such as schools,
universities, colleges, hospitals, and other organizations in order to
demonstrate the intention and decision-making processes in procurement.
Policies can be used as a framework to drive purchasing decisions, create
an incentive for change, address conflicts and barriers to success, and
clarify the goals and expectations for suppliers, directors, and the general
public.
Component 3: Sustainable Food Consumption
The challenge of convincing people to change their eating habits toward
more environmentally sustainable food consumption patterns is becoming
increasingly pressing. Food preferences, choices and eating habits are
notoriously hard to change as they are a central aspect of people’s
lifestyles and their socio-cultural environment. Many people already hold
positive attitudes toward sustainable food, but the notable gap between
favorable attitudes and actual purchase and consumption of more
sustainable food products remains to be bridged.
Climate change endangers unique eco-systems, leads to more extreme
weather events, reduces biodiversity, and in many ways threatens our
current way of living. Household food consumption gives rise to more than
60% of Greenhouse Gas emissions and between 50 and 80% of total
resource use. Thus, making people’s eating patterns more environmentally
sustainable is becoming ever more important. In Uganda, transforming food
consumption is deemed an essential condition for reaching sustainability
goals. The Farm to Fork Initiative therefore focuses on different behavioral
strategies to promote environmentally sustainable food consumption in
Uganda. Major examples of ESFC include increasing consumption of plant-
based or insect-based foods while decreasing meat consumption and
opting for seasonal products. In some but not all instances, buying locally
produced and/or organically produced food promotes sustainable food
consumption.
A third of the food raised or prepared does not make it from farm to fork.
Producing uneaten food squanders a whole host of resources seeds,
water, energy, land, fertilizer, hours of labor, financial capital and generates
greenhouse gases at every stage including methane when organic matter
lands in the rubbish bin. The food we waste is responsible for roughly 8
percent of global emissions. Losing food to one waste heap or another is
an issue in Uganda. In places where income is low, wastage is generally
unintentional and occurs earlier in the supply chain—food rots on farms or
spoils during storage or distribution. In regions of higher income, willful food
waste dominates farther along the supply chain. Retailers and consumers
reject food based on bumps, bruises, and coloring, or simply order, buy,
and serve too much. There are numerous and varied ways to address key
waste points. Improving infrastructure for storage, processing, and
transportation is essential. In higher-income regions, major interventions
are needed at the retail and consumer levels. Food-waste targets and
policies can encourage widespread change. Beyond addressing emissions,
these efforts can also help to meet future food demand.
