Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
In the past eight years, City Growers has expanded their opportunities and reach, offering Summer Camp, professional development, and free workshops. However, it is the child’s newfound understanding and curiosity that truly helps measure progress.
These proposals, we hope, will make the UK a more equal, inclusive and generous-spirited nation, characterised not by private enclosure and public squalor, but by private sufficiency and public luxury. Our land should work for the many, not just the few.
They are creating a relationship between farmer and customer. “It’s what a farm should be doing, feeding local people surrounding the farm,” says Gerald, “if every farmer did that, we wouldn’t need supermarkets. It’s therapy for the farmer and for the community.”
At the PDC level the majority of students will be designing for themselves. Their individual plan will be their own site. The real challenge is to get these students to start implementing permaculture on the ground. I consider this my primary goal.
People around the world are hard at work creating diverse, living versions of the farms of the future. As a way of life, it would be nice to think that it could really catch on, and one day be accessible to most of us.
In September last year, I was very lucky and surprised to find myself in Taiwan for three weeks. I had two weeks free to travel wherever I wanted – so I put the word out for recommendations of permaculture projects, perhaps where I could volunteer and learn about the permaculture movement on another island (Taiwan is a bit bigger than Wales).
Europe’s precautionary principle is being challenged in the name of innovation. What might at first seem like a battle of words could, however, have profound impacts on the future of food and farming in the UK, across Europe and beyond.
We had no illusions about the futures imagined by status quo institutions and actors — but we also left grounded in the knowledge that our vision seeds are rooted 5,000 years deep in the soil already, and roots that deep might just be resilient and resistant enough to create a new abundance for all.
The eventual decline in fossil hydrocarbon flows, and the inability of renewables to fully substitute, will create a deficiency of energy to power bloated urban agglomerations and require a shift of human populations back to the countryside. In short, the future is rural.
The majority of people interested in his soil generally have an affinity for growing their own food. He hopes to help others who might not — especially those who are food insecure.
The dictionary definition of ‘farmer’ is simply: “someone who owns or manages a farm”. A farm is: “an area of land and its buildings used for growing crops and rearing animals”.
Usually a recurring event, food swaps allow direct trades to take place between attendees — for instance, a loaf of bread for a jar of preserves or a half-dozen backyard eggs. Your special kitchen concoctions become your own personal currency, allowing you to diversify your pantry while getting to know members of your local food community.
