Local Food was launched in November 2007 and is a £60 million open grant scheme that distributes grants to a variety of food related projects in order to help make locally grown food both more accessible and more affordable. The types of project involved include food co-ops, allotments, education and learning (food related), farmers’ markets, community food growing, box schemes, composting, the celebration of food cultures, community supported agriculture, food distribution, community gardens and city farms.
The CCRI, together with f3, were contracted by the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts (RSWT) to conduct an ongoing evaluation of the programme. In order to do this, 25 in depth, face-to-face, case studies will be conducted with a range of different project types, together with a further 65 telephone-based case studies. The evaluation examined the overall administration of the scheme and made an assessment as to the programme’s legacy and need for future funding support. Ongoing progress reports were produced at three monthly intervals.
This evaluation ran from December 2009 through until March 2014 and involved Dr James Kirwan as project manager, together with Professor Brian Ilbery and Dr Damian Maye from the CCRI and Joy Carey from f3.
The final evaluation summary report can be downloaded from the Local Food website. The full version of the final report can also be downloaded.