A group of experts, discussing local food at a symposium held at London's City University, have looked at the role local food can play in bolstering food security, as well as identifying the barriers preventing this.

The Centre for Food Policy's third City Food Symposium, held last week, featured a number of speakers looking at regional and grass-roots approaches to food production and their use in addressing problems being faced the world over (including climate change, water use, and poverty) as well as factors limiting their efficacy. Tim Lang, one of the speakers at the event and a professor based at the Centre for Food Policy, said that current trends in food production and distribution risk exacerbating many of these problems.

Local food production and distribution is becoming an even more pressing area for engagement as urbanisation progresses and more of the population shifts towards living in towns and cities.

Professor Lang said that localism, a concept with supporters across the political divide, has brought positive changes to the food system, including a rediscovery of seasonality in food and shorter supply chains, through farm shops, farmers' markets and local food networks, which major retailers have sought to emulate. Lang, who popularised the notion of 'food miles' said this has benefits for all concerned, as local food helps retailers cut on fuel costs and reduces pollution.

However, Professor Lang warned that, as austerity measures continue to bite and the gap between rich and poor in the UK continues to grow, attempts which have previously been successful in marrying healthy, sustainable food organisations with local authorities face uncertain futures. This means community organisations will be forced to pick up the slack alone, but their limitations (including reliance on volunteer hours and reduced resources) may impact upon their ability to deliver and spread their ideas.

A number of city councils, including those of Sheffield and Brighton and Hove, have considered introducing formal food policies, authorities in Greater Manchester have engaged with sustainable food organisations, and Bristol has moved one step further, introducing a food policy council. However, despite moves towards supporting local food, which have included a number of government-sponsored local food drives and millions in public money spent on rural businesses as part of the coalition government's attempts to 'boost the rural economy', current changes risk hampering moves towards the development of effective food policy.

The UK is ranked third lowest in the EU in terms of income inequality, with only Latvia and Portugal having a greater income gap. Professor Lang said that, "if local food is merely bolted-on to existing patterns of consumption, it can cost more," meaning only those with the money, time and knowledge of healthy food can benefit from it and it will cease to provide the benefits outlined above. He said that, currently, "Localism is grounded by social economic status."

Recent research from the United States revealed that Community Supported Agriculture projects, which have been shown to provide a range of advantages, remain the preserve of a 'privileged few'.

Speakers at the symposium agreed that local food, in its diverse forms ranging from community growing initiatives to farmers' markets which form part of the 'shortened supply chains' advocated by the EU, present benefits, but questioned whether "financial restructuring by the State is threatening this dynamism… And whether the fiscal pressure on social spending highlights how the corporate version of localism is being supported by the Coalition."

The corporate view of localism, which is being championed in current government policy, values local 'products', which can be sold for premiums, benefitting from the same civic pride that drives the more "democratic notion" of local food, where food is ascribed a social, cultural or environmental importance, over its monetary value, according to the experts at last week's symposium.

In response to the negative impacts of the corporate attitude to local food, Professor Lang called for greater cohesion, urging farmers to embrace local food movements as potential allies with many mutual interests, rather than seeing them as competition. He said big business has so far dominated discussions about food and agriculture, skewing the approach to food policy and warned that "nothing will improve until British farmers start growing 'food' rather than commodities."