By Laura Stratford, Greater Lincolnshire Food Partnership Co-ordinator. This article was originally published here.

We’re told: “people don’t want a nanny state, telling them what to eat.” But did anyone actually ask us what we do want?

We invited 22 people from different communities across Lincolnshire to have one of many Food Conversations going on across the UK supported by the Food Farming & Countryside Commission, and to ask this question:

What do citizens want from the food system?

As you can imagine, we had a fascinating and wide-ranging conversation! Let me pull out a couple of threads:

When asked, “What’s working and what’s not working?” – there was pretty wide acknowledgement that the food system is broken:

• It’s forcing hardship on farmers (suicide rates are high, with uncertainty, risk, and incomes far lower than most people realise. Experienced farmers are forced out of business, and Lincolnshire land is being bought by overseas investors);
• It’s harming the environment (nature depletion, water pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, etc);
• It’s far easier and cheaper to buy ultra-processed and sugary foods than healthy, nutritious foods;
• There is an increasing number of people who can’t access and/or afford an adequate diet for an active, healthy life.

What’s working, what’s not working in Lincolnshire?

Even so, I found myself among a room of glass-half-fullers, who were quick to find bright spots in the gloom, for example:

• schools that do put an emphasis on good food make a huge difference to children’s diets;
• community groceries and foodbanks are working together very effectively, reducing waste, improving dignity and access to healthier foods;
• Bardney Community Grocery was pulled out time and again as a beacon, linking together a community coffee shop, grocery and allotment – loved and supported by an astonishing proportion of village residents!

Of course, it would not work to replicate Bardney’s project: if every village relied on surplus and donated food, there would not be enough. It was the very volunteers whose efforts and successes were being so applauded who acknowledged the limitations and unsustainability of their work. They argued: What people need is for good food to be affordable.

Affordability has two sides: whether food is cheap enough, and whether people have enough income to pay for it (after mortgage/rent/bills).

Continuing to demand cheaper food is the road to ruin for farming: the impact of low prices and unfair supply chains is devastating farm businesses, and detrimental to diversity in crops, farm scale and landscape.

What do people in Lincolnshire want?

So what solutions did our group of Lincolnshire citizens come up with to these complex and sometimes circular problems?

What struck me most is the relentless optimism and determination of the people in the room.

Top of their wish list was improving food in schools – healthy foods in the canteen, getting cooking back on the syllabus, opportunities for grow-your-own, and for children to experience diverse foods.

Another key theme was valuing food. Participants wanted to heal the disconnect between farmers, food producers, communities and dinner tables, through developing local food economies.

They also wanted to amplify the voices of people in our communities facing food poverty, to hear and tell their stories.

If you're interested in hosting your own Food Conversation, you can find out more and sign up for our free, online toolkit below.