Forest of Dean of Food and Farming

Overview

In February 2025, NICRE delivered a food and farming Climathon in collaboration with Forest of Dean District Council. The solutions developed during the event highlighted several positive routes forward for Forest of Dean district, in alignment with the Council’s and local communities’ priorities for food and farming.

The Climathon provided an opportunity to enhance networks across the food system in the Forest of Dean, including strengthening existing partnerships, identifying new areas for collaboration, and considering funding opportunities for some solutions.

Most of the solutions included an element of leveraging connections to ensure that food produced in the Forest of Dean had a local market, which would reduce waste and contribute to food resilience. This was a key theme throughout discussions during the Climathon.

Part 1 - the webinar

The webinar was designed to set the scene for the Climathon. It presented an opportunity for participants to learn more about the current food and farming context in the Forest of Dean, and begin to share ideas for solutions. During the webinar, participants heard the following presentations:

Simon Richards and Katie Clubb – Forest of Dean District Council

Simon and Katie provided details of the current emissions picture in the district, the role of the council, and funding opportunities in these sectors. The council are taking a co-benefits approach to tackling climate change, so attendees were encouraged to consider solutions which had multiple benefits.

Jill Matthew – Gloucestershire County Council

Jill provided an overview of the changes she has seen in farming during her time as Rural Estate Manager, notably the innovations and policy changes. She also introduced a digital story which was created with a Gloucestershire County Council tenant farmer.

Tim Rickard and Jackie Dale – Forest Food Forum

Tim and Jackie introduced a short film of the Forest Food Forum, an event on which the Climathon would build. Key themes included use of existing land for growing communities, food hubs, procurement processes, the real value of food, sustainable food production in schools, connecting producers with businesses and consumers, funding and finance, education for everyone.

Lizzie Dyer – Forging Equitable Solutions

Lizzie provided an introduction to the global context of food, the UK’s self-sufficiency and an overview of her work in the Forest of Dean and Gloucestershire, including the Gloucestershire Gleaning project. She highlighted the opportunities for the Forest of Dean, with the potential for work to be supported by a dynamic network of stakeholders across the district.

The breakout group session generated a range of ideas, which were grouped by the CCRI team following the webinar into themes and arranged to represent the circular potential of the ideas:

Part 2 - In-person event

In-person event

Participants were invited to Hartpury University and College for the in-person workshop. This began with a farm walk, led by Professor Matt Bell, Director of Agriculture. The walk was designed to provide participants with an overview of the challenges that farms are currently facing in relation to waste and a circular economy, as well as identifying areas for further developing solutions that already exist.

Following the walk, participants co-created ground rules for the day, before voting on the ideas they thought should be taken forward for development as solutions. Everyone was invited to vote on these initial ideas in the afternoon session, by ranking them.

This ranking was discussed collectively, before the topics were refined into themes for development on each of the six tables. It was decided that the role of the council was a cross-cutting theme, and that this should be considered across all tables, rather than being developed as a standalone solution. Therefore, participants joined one of five teams to begin work on their solution.

The afternoon session focused on solution development. Teams worked for an hour, before engaging in an Ask and Offer session. This provided participants with an opportunity to ask others in the room whether they had any advice for their solution.

Participants were also invited to share their expertise relevant to the solutions on post-it notes, for teams to refer to during the final phase of their solution development. Teams then had time to create a presentation, which was based on their solution development template and included the feedback that they had received during the Ask and Offer session.

Solutions

Teams were invited to present their solution to a panel. The five solutions developed are as follows:

The Forest Food Hub

Maximising the potential of the existing Forest Food Hub.

Feed the Forest

Demonstrating the value of food through education at all levels, to change societal attitudes to growing and consuming food.

Forest Food Friendship

Connecting producers and consumers through a directory, including supporting community shops as centres of innovation.

Practical advice for reducing food waste

Sharing achievable food waste actions through personal networks and providing support to achieve changes.

Grow with us! Community Supported Agriculture

Ensuring there is always a guaranteed buyer for local produce, and allowing people to make connections and share risk for resilient local food networks.

Find out more

Scroll down for further information about this event and its preliminary work, or click the link below to find out more about the Climathon methodology.

Further information about rural climathons Explore other Climathon events Watch Video

Food and farming Climathon

Aimee Morse