Story submission

Innovation, adaptation & resilience - your response to Covid-19

The food and farming landscapes have changed almost overnight and communities are coming together to support each other. This will have long-lasting and far-reaching effects into the future.

We are collecting and documenting all the ways in which people are responding across the UK – to show how the food and farming sectors adapt and the effect the pandemic is having on rural communities.

We want to hear how your business or community has changed and adapted in response to Covid-19.

We’re looking for short 2-5 minute videos or written stories from people all over the UK.

The videos can be just you, filming yourself on your smartphone, or you can involve the people around you (in line with government social distancing guidelines!) There’s no need for it to be polished – it’s the stories we’re really interested in.

For example - if you are a farmer that usually supplies directly to restaurants, what changes are you making now the restaurants are shut? We’re interested to know how you’ve made these changes – was it help from your community? A change in your business model to supply veg boxes instead? Or was it something else? We want to hear from communities who have mobilised to get much needed supplies to vulnerable or isolated people. What helped you do this?

How to

Start by telling us your name, where you are in the country, tell us what your business is and who this involves (family, number of employees etc), or what community or group you are from. Tell us about your work and the impact Covid-19 is having. After this, you could consider some of the following questions – (but don’t feel that you have to answer these – we want to hear what matters to you).

• What was the immediate problem/challenge you were faced with?
• What changes have you had to make?
• What’s working well and why?
• What’s tricky and difficult?
• What is enabling you to make these changes?
• How has this impacted your business/livelihood?
• How are you feeling?
• Is anything surprising you?
• What are you learning from this – have you even got any time to take stock yet?
• Are there any positives (yet) you will take forward?
• Who do you trust and rely on right now? Where are you getting the information you need?
• What do you want to say to others in a similar situation?

Use the written submission box below or upload your film using the file upload.

Please read the disclaimer here which outlines how the stories will be used, consent and permissions.