Can Wales Lead The Way?
How can we reshape the food system to provide fair access to healthy food, reduce pressure on the NHS and provide a fair deal to farmers?
Join the debate on Friday 19 September. Scan the QR code on the image below to book or use this link
Driving Change…
The Abergavenny Food Festival Conference promises to continue the ongoing dialogue about the future of food in Wales. At a time when Wales is grappling with intertwined crises of public health, ecological degradation, and rural economic fragility, this conference offers a space for robust discussion, visioning, and solution-building.
While food has never been cheaper in relative terms, far too many individuals and families are unable to afford even a basic healthy diet. The burden of preventable diseases such as diabetes weighs heavily on the health system, costing Wales an estimated £500 million annually. Alarmingly, one in four children is overweight or obese before even starting school. Meanwhile, Welsh farmers struggle with diminishing margins and policy uncertainty.
This event is a call to action: to explore where meaningful policy levers exist, and how Wales might harness its devolved powers in procurement, public health, education, and farming to pioneer a food system that is healthier, more equitable, and ecologically sound. By convening industry leaders, policy experts, food producers, and public stakeholders, the conference aims to co-create a manifesto for change, one that is grounded in the realities of Welsh life but visionary in scope. It will explore not only what must change, but how to drive that change in practice.
Miller Research is proud to deliver this important event in partnership with the Abergavenny Food Festival, the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission, the Office of the Future Generations Commissioner, and Professor Kevin Morgan. This is an opportunity for all those who care about the health, sustainability, and resilience of Wales’ food future to have their say.
IDEAL ATTENDEES MAY INCLUDE:
- Policy makers
- Academics and researchers
- Farmers and food producers
- Health and nutrition advocates
- Third sector and community organisations
- Retailers and Food Industry Representatives
- Journalists, writers and influencers
- Anyone who has a passion for food policy, health care, sustainability or social equity
EXPERT PANELISTS:
Sue Pritchard: Chief Executive of the Food Farming and Countryside Commission. FFCC is an independent UK charity that brings together people and ideas from different perspectives to find the practical and radical solutions which also tackle the climate, nature, health and economic crises of our time.
Professor Kevin Morgan: Professor of Governance and Development at Cardiff University. He has worked with the European Commission, the OECD and urban and regional governments throughout Europe on place-based innovation strategies.
Tim Jackson: Ecological economist and writer. Since 2016 he has been Director of the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP). CUSP is a multidisciplinary research centre which aims to understand the economic, social and political dimensions of sustainable prosperity.
Derek Walker: The second ever Future Generations Commissioner, having started the role on March 1, 2023, when he called for ‘urgent and transformational change’ in Wales. Previously he was chief executive of Cwmpas, the UK’s largest co-operative development agency.
Jenny McConnel: has been working at the Office of the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales for the last three and a half years. She works with the ‘Implementation and Impact’ mission to support bodies who come under the Act to achieve the most impact. She also works on the Health mission, which is supporting public bodies to prioritise prevention and support the building blocks of health – including food systems change and reducing obesogenic environments.
Nick Miller: Director of Abergavenny-based Miller Research (UK) Ltd, a public policy consultancy with a strong commitment to ethical working and decarbonisation across all sectors of economy and society. He has led the company for more than 20 years, recently taking it through employee ownership and B Corp status. Nick has worked extensively on food and drink policy and practice in Wales and is passionately committed to building a resilient healthy food system. Outside the day job he is an award winning organic sheep farmer and is currently developing a natural wine vineyard in Monmouthshire.
Kim Smith: PhD Researcher at the Centre for Food Policy, City St Georges, University of London, examining the policy aspect of primary school food education. With 25 years’ experience working across the UK food system, for the last 10 years she has focused on food education through teaching food through the primary curriculum and being a Trustee at TastEd, a charity that helps children learn to love eating vegetables and fruit, using the 5 senses