Cyflwynwyd yr ymateb hwn i’r ymgynghoriad ar y Bil Bwyd (Cymru) Drafft

This response was submitted to the consultation on the Draft Food (Wales) Bill

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Ymateb gan: | Response from:  Bwyd y Fro | Food Vale

This consultation response is on behalf of the Vale of Glamorgan’s Sustainable Food Partnership ‘Food Vale’.

Food Vale is a partnership of dedicated individuals, community groups, organisations and businesses working together to build a thriving, healthy and sustainable food system in the Vale. The Food Vale Steering Group includes representatives from the following organisations: Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, Glamorgan Voluntary Services, Vale of Glamorgan Council, FareShare, Natural Resources Wales, Glamorgan Smallholders, Big Fresh Catering Company, Cywain, Creative Communities and Newydd Housing Association. Food Vale is part of the Sustainable Food Places programme, and earlier this year we achieved the Bronze award. Food Vale is hosted within the Local Public Health team.

Overall, we agree with the proposal for a Food (Wales) Bill, which will bring together different Government Departments, with a focus on a local and sustainable food system. There is a need for legislation in this remit to ensure governance and accountability. We are pleased to see the use of the term local food plan, as we feel this will help National policies to reflect all local areas. We are keen for action in the Vale of Glamorgan to be tailored to the unique opportunities and challenges we face as a county.

We agree with the need to align the local Food plans with other plans such as the PSB Wellbeing Plans and the local Health Board’s Move More, Eat Well Plan obesity strategy. We also agree on the need for an independent Food Commission to oversee and guide our progress. We will be interested to observe how the Committee is established to oversee this work, and who will be involved in this. 

Food Vale agrees with the key themes, and particularly appreciates that the primary food goal contains the words affordable, healthy, economic and environmentally sustainable. These are key issues facing all sectors. We are pleased to see that the primary and secondary food goals recognise the systemic nature of the food system. The use of set targets is useful as these can be adapted to suit the situation. We would look forward to the further outline of the targets to be set by Welsh Ministers in order to measure the success or otherwise of the legislation. As suggested in 5 (1)(b), we would encourage Welsh Ministers to consult with public body representatives during the target setting process to ensure the target data gathering and monitoring is achievable and manageable at a local level.

If the draft Food (Wales) Bill does become legislation, further funding may need to be made available for the local Food Partnership in order to ensure we can work across sectors to meet our duties under the new Bill and be able to support the development and implementation of the local food plan in the Vale of Glamorgan. To encourage sustainable, coordinated and strategic action, we encourage that this funding be made available on a longer cycle than the single-financial-year funding rounds that we often see elsewhere.