Tag Archives: Food Ladders

FUSE Research Event: Food insecurity: Regional Research, National Impact

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I recently participated in a Fuse Research Event, giving the Keynote presentation on the importance of transitioning our food system and how the Food Ladders framework can support this. My talk starts at about 25 minutes into the recording.

FUSE half-day seminar

I discussed the current food insecurity situation, drawing on the Autumn 2022 Food and You 2 data. This data is published by the Food Standards Agency and is an official set of government statistics. I talked about how we have never had full food security and the reasons for this. I then introduced the Food Ladders framework and provided some comparisons between different approaches. I showed the statistics for food bank use versus pantry/food club/social supermarket use, as well as the details about national understanding. I concluded with some gaps in understanding that still need to be addressed. The final slide provides relevant links to other works I have produced on this topic.

In addition to my talk, others provided interesting research covering children, people with mental health issues, and what I would consider rung 2 interventions on the ladders. You can also see these presentations and download the slides from the links above.

Food for thought: FSA seminar about the food ladders.

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I was invited to give a talk about food security and the food ladders framework to the FSA recently. The seminar was recorded.

Everyday food security: Place-making through community organising in the UK

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Earlier this week (14 June 2022), I participated in a conference as a keynote speaker on urban landscapes in transformation, hosted by SLU Urban Futures in Sweden. Unfortunately, I had to attend virtually because of airline disruptions. It was a really interesting conference with excellent research focusing on how we might make more inclusive and sustainable foodscapes for all. This is the presentation I gave at the conference. Thank you for inviting me to participate.

title slide
Outline
Key points
Research methods
Pillars of food security–highlights the need for multiple types of resources
UK Context
What happens in place when the range of resources are undermined
And how this impacts bodies
How do we approach resilience in a food context
Food Ladders
What good looks like
What food activities do in communities with regard to changing our relationships with food
What food in communities do with regard to changing our relationships with each other
What food in communities does with regard to changing our relationships with ourselves
What it looks like if we get it right. More than food.
Further resources

Please get in touch if you would like to know more about this research.

GODAN seminar on Food Insecurity and Food Ladders as a way repair communities.

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In June I gave a webinar to an international audience who are part of the Global Open DAta Network (GODAN). GODAN’s mission is to harness data to eradicate hunger and malnutrition across the globe.

The talk is in three parts.

In the first segment I outline the four dimensions of food security as defined by the UN FAO include affordability, access, utilisation and consistency over time. The FAO argue that all four pillars must be in place for a household to be food secure.  While the lack of affordability is well recognised as a cause of food insecurity in wealthy countries, other dimensions are often overlooked.  Furthermore, some groups are more likely to experience greater vulnerability across these four pillars compared to others. 

In the second segment I look at the effects of food insecurity on individuals and households. These effects sediment into landscapes.  Moreover, these effects reinforce and amply the problems that give rise to food insecurity in the first place.

In the final segment I talk about my Food Ladders framework. Food Ladders is an evidence-based framework that helps to structure local responses to food insecurity and repair its effects through targeted interventions that catch those who need it most, build the capacity of those who are able, and facilitate transformation in ways that support all of four food security pillars.

You can watch the video here:

Megan Blake, GODAN Food Poverty webinar series

Mapping Food Ladders

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One of the questions that I frequently get from local food networks and local authorities is “how do we map what already exists in our community?”  Organisations also ask how what they do maps onto the food ladders approach.  These are questions that I have been exploring recently, as in theory it seems straight forward, but in practice it can be much more difficult.  To this end I have developed a workshop on how to map food activity in communities onto the Food Ladders framework. It takes a blended learning approach, starting with self-directed online learning, followed by a group activity that involves discussing and agreeing how activity maps onto the ladders within individual organisations. There is also a form tool that can be adapted for collecting the relevant data needed for this mapping. While the examples in this workshop are third sector organisations, any form of activity can be mapped onto the ladders.

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Making a national food service

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This summer I spoke at a webinar with Marsha Smith and Sharon Noonan-Gunning also presenting. The webinars were hosted by a group of people who are joining together to make a network of places and groups who are joining together to promote social eating in their communities. I spoke about my Food Ladders work. The whole series is available on this page https://www.nationalfoodservice.uk/lecture-videos but for ease, I have copied in the one where I am speaking below.