The Government has launched a new loan fund to enable a small number of farmers to build small scale Anerobic Digestion units on their farms. The funding is a modest £3M and the Farmers can apply for up to £400,000 for one of these pieces of equipment which suggests that the number of new AD units being commissioned will not exceed 8-10 at any time. Establishing on-farm Anerobic Digestion will help save farmers money on energy, while the bio-fertiliser created by the process of turning organic waste into energy can also be used to replace some of the artificial fertilisers farmers would otherwise have to buy. A fuller account of this story can be found here. At present there are around 100 AD units in the UK and most of these are large scale units established by Retailers and Private Sector Companies to deal with waste from you and me or from the food chain.

It is vital that our narrative on waste across the UK does not become a series of disconnected monologues but that the relevant actors enter into some form of widespread dialogue. We know that household waste is at unsustainable levels. Sadly this sort of waste can only be reused within the home. We could invite our neighbours to a feast, but in the interests of food hygiene, there are limits to how easily this food surplus can be offered to other people. We know that food retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers can access networks such as FareShare to dispose of food they cannot sell or distribute themselves. However this process costs time and effort when compared to simply opening up the door of an AD unit and pushing the food in. Not all retailers have the will to do this, moving from waste prevention to energy recovery in one step, ignoring the re-use option that FareShare can offer.

There are still substantial volumes of waste food within our retail and wholesale network that could be released to feed people, rather than generate energy through AD. However our focus needs to go further. The growers of our food need to also be engaged in this process, recognising that at each stage in the chain the volumes and logistics becomes a greater challenge. Whilst AD has a place in all stages of the food chain, it must remain as the final part in the hierarchy and not be elevated by this scheme or indeed any other actions by our Government. The risk is that our DEFRA Ministers are more familiar with the use of AD by farmers, than our DWP Ministers are with the vital role that food surplus plays in the food banks and other charities that FareShare provides with food.