CyFAN Cymru: rhaid cael y cyfan!

Why set up a new organisation?

The interconnected nature of our food and farming systems often causes problems, but can also create opportunities – if we can get to grips with its complexity. Separating “food” from “farming” – and “nature” and “climate change” beyond that – in order to make the subjects more accessible for policymakers, funders and many others, is understandable. This is especially so when we also think about food’s role in human health, community building and culture. However, doing this fails to address the underlying causes of the issues and problems that face us, and thus achieve the systemic change that is increasingly seen to be needed.

This is where CyFAN Cymru sits; as a tree that brings diverse partners together in order to “enable our vision of a food and farming system in harmony with healthy and thriving communities, interwoven with a rich natural environment, and reflecting the distinctive character of Wales” to quote from our Vision, Mission and Aims. But let’s look at CyFAN Cymru by starting with its roots…

Roots

CyFAN Cymru’s immediate origin is the committee of the Wales Real Food and Farming Conference (WRFFC), but its beginnings lie further back with Food Manifesto Wales. This came out of a piece of work by Aberystwyth University on shared values and the power of food to connect people as well as policy areas, and culminated in the development of a draft Manifesto and website launch in 2015. The Manifesto owed a lot to the Well-being of Future Generations Act, which had arrived on the scene at about the same time, and was backed by Jane Davidson and Peter Davies who had done so much to develop this progressive legislation.

The next few years were a busy time for Welsh food policy, with the establishment of Food Sense Wales, which grew out of Food Cardiff, and then the Food Policy Alliance Cymru, as well as a great deal of grassroots activity. The Manifesto remained an unfunded voluntary activity, publishing articles and making occasional public appearances – including a particularly exciting standing-room-only gathering at the National Botanic Garden – but although it had widespread support, it wasn’t clear what exactly it was supposed to do.

That all changed in 2019, when a session on the Manifesto at the Oxford Real Farming Conference led to the first Wales Real Food and Farming Conference, which took place in Aberystwyth in November 2019, with a great deal of positive feedback. Further, successful Conferences followed – online while Covid was a concern, and in person at Lampeter, twice, and Llysfasi once conditions allowed. The Conference itself is built on submissions sent in by anyone who feels inspired to contribute. You could call it co-design! It provides an annual dose of encouragement for farmers, community activists, government policy makers and researchers, NGO staff, food businesses, artists, academics, gardeners, nutritionists, farming advisers, organic certifiers and others.

Trunk

The Conference was such an obvious success that the Manifesto faded into the background. It had never been a manifesto in the political sense, to guide policy at election time – that function falls to the Food Policy Alliance Cymru. It was more a statement of aims that were as inclusive as we could make them, a collective aspiration for the people of Wales. But the Conference is not enough either.

For one thing, our annual event needs to be on a more formal footing in order to protect the organizing committee (who were, and remain, volunteers) and to attract funding in order to properly pay those delivering the Conference. At the same time, while there is a great deal of value in a big national event, the ideas that it sparks deserve a year-round conversation, drawing on the WRFFC’s wide contacts and interests.

With the WRFFC and Food Manifesto Wales having similar aims, it made sense to combine them. Hence, CyFAN Cymru came into being in 2022. The name reflects our broad interests: Cymuned dros Fwyd, Amaeth a Natur / Community for Food, Agriculture and Nature, with “cyfan” meaning whole, complete, integral. Yes, we want it all – good food, sustainable agriculture and a healthy natural environment, as well as thriving individuals and communities throughout Wales – and surely, we need all these things if life is to be worthwhile. After considering several options for CyFAN Cymru’s legal status, we applied for charitable status in 2023 … and were rejected.

Unwilling to let this setback stop us, we have been reviewing our application and have started some of the extra activities that CyFAN Cymru is well placed to do.

Branches

WRFFC had already convened a discussion with the aim of contributing to the United Nations Food Systems Summit Dialogue (and discussed the controversy surrounding it) in 2021, and CyFAN Cymru contributed to the Wales Net Zero 2035 Challenge Group report How could Wales feed itself by 2035 in 2023. Then in autumn 2024, we stepped up our efforts to provide spaces for partners to come together for discussion. Our first event was with the Chartered Institute of Ecologists and Environmental Managers (CIEEM) and gave their members the opportunity to ask a panel of farmers any questions they wanted. Our second brought together community food activists and a member of the Office of the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales to learn more about the innovative Wellbeing of Future Generations Act (which established the Office) and how it can be used on the ground.

We want to develop further partnerships and activities, responding to the urgent need for deeper conversations about the climate, nature and health emergencies around us. These are too serious to be left to policymakers, market forces or experts alone – they need us all, wherever and whoever we are, to share ideas and get to work on solutions.

The need for good soil

As the branches of the CyFAN Cymru tree grow, we need to be sure the organization is well rooted in healthy soil. That means good governance, ideally with charitable status. The immediate need is for more founding trustees and an effective steering group that represents all parts of society and will keep us true to our values of good food for all, produced in ways that allow nature to thrive. We know that there are many dedicated and talented people out there working for their natural and human communities – many of you have been involved with the Food Manifesto Wales, WRFFC or CyFAN Cymru already – and we hope that you will work with us to develop the whole food-agriculture-nature system in Wales.

Help us bring the Community for Food, Agriculture and Nature together:

donate towards our establishment costs, including the website (this is via the WRFFC homepage for now);
follow us on LinkedIn;
nominate people to join the steering group;
apply to become a founding trustee. We are particularly looking for people with experience of the management (including financial management) of charities, but would love to hear from people with a variety of skills.

Jane Ricketts Hein

Pictures: Jane Ricketts Hein