We are in charge now

Carrotmob Makes It Rain from carrotmob on Vimeo.

SUSTAINATION – Find us on www.PeopleFund.it from Ed Dowding on Vimeo.

Greening Alton

apple Malus domestica var Cornish Aromatic

Politicians have failed to wake up to the fact we are living in a new world where they are an irrelevance. If you want something doing, do it yourself.

Every time two-faced hypocritical Nick Clegg opens his mouth he becomes a laughing stock.

Spineless Ed Miliband and useless Ed Balls have rendered labour unelectable. They oppose the ConDem cuts, but will keep in place in the unlikely event they are re-elected. They will not oppose the cuts to the poorest in society. An odious Labour women on Westminster Hour (BBC Radio 4) last night said their only concern with the cuts was that it might hurt local councils!

Tories justify the cuts on the grounds the poor will be better off having their benefits cut! This priceless piece of news speak would have made George Orwell proud.

Unemployed are to be harassed and bastardised even more by Job Centres making their already miserable lives even more miserable. People are jobless because there are no jobs! Instead of harassment, provide encouragement to make productive use of the time on their hands so they retain their dignity as human beings.

With the ConDem government so hated and despised, Labour should be head and shoulders ahead but they are not, they are trailing, such is the track record of Messrs Miliband and Balls.

The Trade Unions should, as PCS are considering, cut off all funding to Labour and instead hand that money over to activists who are making a difference.

In the States we see an odious vile bunch of Republican wanna be President. Barack Obama should be able to walk the election against this odious bunch, except he has been an unmitigated disaster, the Houseboy in the White House, the tool of Big Business and Wall Street.

Food speculation and crops for fuel, is driving up the price of land and food, driving poor people off the land.

All though is not lost. We can re-engineer from within, bypass Parliament, bypass Big Business.

Occupy is not just about occupying space, it is about using that space, creating a multiplicity of ideas, a parallel world.

Last week St Paul’s in-the-Camp got their marching orders, they are due for eviction later this week. The judge claimed the camp was obstructing the highway, blocking access to St Paul’s, neither statement was true.

Occupy is growing urban food, investing in urban food distribution networks.

Flash mobs and social networks are being used used to re-engineer how food is grown, distributed and sold.

Carrotmob targeted stores in an area. The one store that delivered the best environmental proposals would have a large number of purchasers delivered to the store when its doors opened. Within a couple of hours, over $9,000 had been spent in the store, normal take $1,000 to £1,300, on an exceptionally good day $3,000.

For example Waitrose uses plastic bags for loose fruit and vegetables. There is no reason why they cannot use paper bags as does the local street markets. What if we formed a buying flash mob, a buy pod, to target Waitrose on this one issue?

In the States we have Community Supported Agriculture. The community supports the farm, the farm supplies what the community wants. A world of difference to being ripped off by supermarket chains and food speculators.

Cultivate is small farm of 5 acres south of Oxford. The community invests in the farm, the farm grows what the community wants. The farms goes to the community with their produce. They catch the commuters as they come off the trains, they catch the parents as they pick their kids up from school.

Curitiba has a had urban agriculture for some time. It also encourages farmers outside the city.

Greening Alton finds little plots of land and grows vegetables. There is a plot at Alton Station. Whether one is supposed to help oneself is not clear. They also match people up, those with a garden, those who wish to grow food, and an arrangement reached to share to produce.

Transition Heathrow has taken this to a whole new level. When the threat of a Third Runaway was mooted for Heathrow, the area became blighted. Transition Heathrow seized a derelict market garden and turned it back to productive use. They even had a positive impact on the local crime rate. The owners of the land, now that they see a success has been made, are trying to seize it back.

What has been achieved at Alton and Heathrow has been taken to a whole new level by Incredible Edible Todmorden. First, like Alton, small plots of waste land, now the whole town is involved, food grown by the town for the town. It makes a pleasant change to find a local council working with a behalf of a local community, not in the pockets of developers.

Christchurch was all but demolished by the earthquake last year. Town planners are looking at Todmorden as the model for the new Christchurch, that it will grow its own food.

Sustaination is making it easy to link growers, and restaurants and other local buyers. I eat in a restaurant, I ask where did their delicious lamb come from, or I can tell them where I get my top quality food from.

Food security is the issue. Without food we starve and die. We cannot carry on as though the rest of the world owes us a living, that they are under some obligation to feed us, as they are not.

We have to grow our own food. It is ludicrous to import tasteless apples from France, and grub up our own orchards. English strawberries put to shame those imported from the rest of the world, to give all-year-round, out-of-season strawberries. What is wrong with waiting for for the new season strawberries fresh from the fields?

The only food imports should be luxuries, pineapples and bananas, and when in season from southern Europe melons and water melons, and citrus fruits from southern Europe and the Middle East, similarly apricots and peaches.

In Petersfield, there is a walled garden, the Petersfield Physic Garden, all that remains of a medieval burgage plot. There I found the most delicious apples. I know, because I ate one. When the lady came to lock up, I owned up. That is what they are there for she said, please help yourself. A very peaceful and tranquil garden.

We have to move to Open Government, Participatory Democracy, where we are in charge. Social media now makes this possible.

– Generation Food
– A sense of the masses – a manifesto for the new revolution
– Documented@Davos: SOPA Panel

Tags: agriculture, apples, farming, flash mobs. Community Supported Agriculture, food, food security, Occupy, pears, strawberries