Green Infrastructure Plan 2019 - 2032

3.4 Economic Prosperity
3.4.3 Food Economy
Creating space for food production through allotments and community gardens
and orchards, increases access to healthy food, provides educational opportunities,
contributes to food security, leads to more active healthy lifestyles and reconnects
communities with their local environment.
Through urban food production and community gardens, this can assist in educating
school children and engage the interest of young people to address the disconnect
between the production and consumption of food. Local food production helps to
support the local economy, can reduce food miles and the use of plastic packaging.
Derry City and Strabane District Council’s Food and Drink Strategy (2019), outlines
that from late 2015-2017, 20 new food and drink businesses were launched within
the district. It has ambitious targets for growth of the sector, to link local food
production to the food industry and the artisan food offering within the District, to
contribute £33 million to the tourism economy by 2025. Also, it outlines local food
programmes at the Walled Garden and Acorn Farm development at
St Columbs Park.
Sustainable food production is a vital component of creating a circular food
economy, which helps the district to become more resilient to future food insecurity
(Figure 3.8). Green infrastructure includes land in productive use in the countryside.
Managing this land provides employment opportunities and investment to reinstate
degraded land, which can restore ecosystems and reduce land management costs.
Investment can provide new opportunities for agricultural diversification for food and
non-food crops, as well as providing the resource to generate renewable sources
of energy, including growth of biomass and biofuels. Diversification of agricultural
production can also be encouraged to meet local market demand, and produce
added value, regionally distinctive food and drink.
Figure 3.8 (Source Bristol's City Council, 2013) Good Food Plan)
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DERRY CITY AND STRABANE DISTRICT COUNCIL