Orkney Food Dignity Recommendations Report
The Orkney Food Dignity Recommendations Report was launched on 22nd July 2022. If you couldn’t join us at the time, please click the link below to view a recording of the launch.
Food insecurity and poverty is rising in Orkney. In a recent Scottish Government survey, one in ten ferry-linked isle residents reported having to chose between heating and eating, with one in fourteen facing the same impossible choice on Orkney Mainland.
Food poverty occurs when people do have enough money to put food on the table. This can be caused by a range of factors, including the amount of benefits they receive not being enough to cover basic household costs, or the income they receive from work being too unreliable or too low.
As energy bills, inflation and the cost of island living continue to increase, we expect more people in Orkney to experience poverty.
In response, throughout the first six months of 2022, we convened the Orkney Food Dignity Working Group, which brought together statutory bodies, third sector organisations and people with a lived experience of food insecurity and poverty.
The aim of the group was to create recommendations about the actions that are needed to reduce food poverty in Orkney, and to alleviate its effects for those who experience it.
We did this through a series of co-production workshops, which were informed by a research report and community consultation.
In the links below you can read the full Recommendations Report, as well as our Summary and Action Plan, which outlines how we will take these recommendations forward.
It will be the responsibility of the Poverty Action Group, which reports into the Orkney Partnership’s Community Wellbeing Delivery Group, to monitor and support the implementation of these recommendations. The Poverty Action Group will meet quarterly and share updates on this work regularly.
If you have any questions about these reports or the group, please contact Harry Johnson at harry@community-consulting.co.uk.
This work is supported by the Rural Communities Ideas into Action fund, supported by the Scottish Government and delivered by Inspiring Scotland to encourage and support innovative approaches to community-led local development in rural communities across Scotland.
