How many meetings are truly Sustain-able?

Anyone sat through one of those meeting that just seem to go on for ever… and ever… until… zzzzz… you just about fall off your perch?

Yes, me too. But last week during a brief break between bouts of freezing weather, Sky McCain and I went to an entirely uplifting meeting: the annual general meeting in London of the organisation Sustain, of which the WFA is proud to be a member.

What is Sustain?

The alliance for better food and farming advocates food and agriculture policies and practices that enhance the health and welfare of people and animals, improve the working and living environment, enrich society and culture and promote equity. We represent around 100 national public interest organisations working at international, national, regional and local level.

What was incredibly interesting and encouraging to me was the enthusiasm and variety of those attending. There were around 50 people representing organisations large and small, all with a passion for sustainable living.

One of the first pieces of business was the approval of four new members who wanted to come in under the Sustain umbrella. They illustrate the diversity of organisations with that common thread of sustainable life:

• The Chefs Adopt a School Trust (CAAS) was founded in 1990 as part of the education activities of the Academy of Culinary Arts, which is a Friendly Society founded in 1980. It provides food education in an holistic way, from plant to plate, to primary school children.
• Fairfood International is a non-profit campaign and lobby organisation, which encourages the food and beverage industry to increase the level of sustainability of its products.

• Image: Laertes

  The Natural Beekeeping Trust aims to promote awareness of ways of beekeeping which take as their starting point the nature and needs of the bees, rather than maximising honey yields. It teaches sustainable beekeeping and generally promotes the welfare of honeybees.
  (Remember that the WFA has its own expert in natural beekeeping, Phil Chandler, who is one of our directors.)

• The Scottish Crofting Federation, whose work safeguards and promotes the rights, livelihoods and culture of crofters and their communities. The Federation protects these interests at Scottish, UK and European levels.

This was just the beginning of a day which showed that while there are huge challenges of all kinds for us and our planet, there are a lot of people interested in sustainable living who doing something about it.

Main image above by linh ngan, used under a Creative Commons attribution license