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Wales' Rural Affairs Minister, Elin Jones has launched an action plan aimed at encouraging more people in Wales to Dig 4 life and grow their own food.

The Community Grown Food Action Plan was launched by the Minister during a visit to the Riverside Community Garden Allotment project in Cardiff. The plan contains a number of actions to promote, support and encourage people in Wales to grow their own food, whether it's part of a community project or in their own gardens or allotments.

The plan focuses on three key themes: community growing, allotments and community-supported agriculture and actions contained in the plan link to these themes.

By encouraging more people to get involved in growing their own food, the plan aims to increase people's understanding of the food chain and the health, environmental and economic impacts. It also aims to increase the availability of locally grown horticultural produce in Wales and contribute to improvements in health and well-being.

The Action Plan is the result of joint working with a cross section of public and voluntary groups who share the aim of encouraging people to grown their own. The actions will be taken forward by the different partners, including practical support through a best practice guide.

A number of actions in the plan are to be taken forward by Wales Rural Observatory, including investigating the possibility of creating a land bank and working with local authorities to improve management of allotments, as well as a research project into community growing in Wales.

Rural Affairs Minister, Elin Jones, said:

"Many people right across Wales already enjoy growing their own food in their gardens and allotments, and would swear that it tastes better than what can be bought in the shops! We want to encourage and help more people and in particular, more communities in Wales to grow their own.

"Growing locally sourced food is very close to my heart and I was further inspired when visiting Cuba and seeing the vast array of projects taking place to encourage growing.

"Benefits of community growing include locally sourced food, increased positive health impacts due both to the physical nature of the work and to the fresher food, as well as uniting members of the community in a social activity.

"Wales has a huge amount of growing expertise both in our farming community and in our existing community projects and I hope this action plan expands on this so that more people in Wales share my enthusiasm."

Progress on the action plan will be reviewed next year.

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