Self-sufficiency is a big part of living a more sustainable lifestyle. When you’re not dependent on others for your food, water, energy, clothes, or entertainment, you have more control over how those things are grown, purified, and produced.
Over the past few years, we’ve seen individuals become self-sufficient by growing their own food or going off-grid through renewable energy, but rarely have we seen an entire town support the idea of long-term food independence the way the small Victorian mill town of Todmorden, West Yorkshire has.
Citizens in the town have rallied behind an effort called “Incredible Edible,” a program and website dedicated to making the town of Todmorden food-independent by 2018.
To that end, townspeople have constructed raised vegetable, fruit and flower garden beds on almost every available nook of groundspace throughout the town. There are plots in front of the police station, the railway station, and even down by the canal. Citizens are invited to help themselves to whatever happens to be in season in the beds, at absolutely no cost.
Incredible Edible is also about much more than plots of veg, writes Wake Up World, it’s also about educating people about food, and stimulating the local economy.
There are lessons in pickling and preserving fruits, courses on bread-making, and the local college is to offer a BTEC in horticulture. The thinking is that young people who have grown up among the street veg may make a career in food.
The Incredible Edible effort has also helped to stimulate the local economy, as now local cafes and restaurants can source many of their ingredients from right within the city limits.
Tired of depending on corporations and factory farms to supply her food, artist and technologist Britta Riley decided to employ the experience (and window space) of a community of co-developers to quickly find an indoor farming solution for urban dwellers.
The result, a scant two years later, is Windowfarms: an independent company that makes vertical hydroponic platforms for growing food in city windows, designed in conjunction with a online citizen science web platform for with over 16,000 community members worldwide.
“What we’re doing is what NASA or a large corporation would call R&D, or research and development,” explained Riley in her presentation for TEDxManhattan. “But what we call it is R&D-I-Y, or research and develop it yourself. So for example, Jackson came along and suggested that we use air pumps instead of water pumps. It took building a whole bunch of systems to get it right, but once we did, we were able to cut our carbon footprint nearly in half.”
Hear more about how crowdsourcing can help solve one of the biggest environmental problems on the planet (and shrink your food bill) in the video below.
Americans of all ages, political persuasions, and socio-economic backgrounds have been gathered in parks, churches, plazas, and court houses around the nation for over two months.
And while politicians and their corporate sponsors might do everything within their power (and a few things outside of it) to get Occupy Wall Street out of the public eye, the larger movement shows no sign of surrender.
While the marches, arrests and evictions at OWS might catch the headlines, it’s what’s going on behind the scenes that has the potential to create real change in communities around the world. Especially when it comes to food.
On December 4th, all those concerned with the growing, distributing and eating of healthy food (that’s pretty much everyone!) will gather in New York City to open up a dialogue about the politics of our current food system and what can be done to fix it.
After some speaking and a march to Wall Street, the Farmers March will convene at Zuccotti Park where there will be a seed swap among all who attend. One Pack Productions and Seismologik Media, the two organizations that filmed the video above and have had a big hand in broadcasting the sustainability efforts of Occupy Wall Street, will be on hand to kick off the filming for their feature-length documentary about the movement.
The Occupy Wall Street movement turned one month old yesterday. Despite the exponential growth of this international protest, there are some who still say that the action is doomed because it doesn’t have a leader or a succinct list of demands.
Personally, I love the fact that #OWS has resisted pressure from the media and political critics, and allowed the movement to remain as inclusive as possible. What’s most important right now is that Occupy Wall Street participants continue spreading the word and the message of the 99% in all its forms. Over the weekend there were 1,500 protests in 82 countries, but the numbers need to be bigger–especially in the United States–if the Government and the 1% are going to start taking the movement seriously.
Assuming that protests continue growing both in size and number, there will come a time when they will take the movement seriously. And in that moment, Occupy Wall Street better be ready to clearly articulate what it wants–from the Man and from itself.
I don’t presume to know what’s best for the thousands of disenfranchised people now sleeping in parks and plazas all around the country (or the millions that wish they could join them), but in researching principles of the Slow Money Movement, I found ideas that definitely overlap.
Basically, the Slow Money Alliance is an organization for those who are tired of watching banks invest millions of tax-payer dollars into companies and politicians that work for profit rather than “We the People.” Sounds familiar, right?
Here are some more Slow Money principles that I think might serve well as a framework for creating a workable, practical list of goals for Occupy Wall Street:
I. We must bring money back down to earth.
II. There is such a thing as money that is too fast, companies that are too big, finance that is too complex. Therefore, we must slow our money down — not all of it, of course, but enough to matter.
III. The 20th Century was the era of Buy Low/Sell High and Wealth Now/Philanthropy Later—what one venture capitalist called “the largest legal accumulation of wealth in history.” The 21st Century will be the era of nurture capital, built around principles of carrying capacity, care of the commons, sense of place and non-violence.
V. Let us celebrate the new generation of entrepreneurs, consumers and investors who are showing the way from Making A Killing to Making a Living.
The best thing about incorporating Slow Money principles into the Occupy Wall Street list of demands is that it provides a way for those with disposable income to get involved and catalyze change. Occupy Wall Street is more inclusive than you might think, but other than carrying a sign that says “Tax Me” and donating to progressive causes, it can be hard for the upper classes to see how they can get involved.
Do the principles of Slow Money and Occupy Wall Street align? How can these two movements work together to bring about food and financial systems that are people-centered?
Food is a critical topic. As we struggle to feed a skyrocketing population, it’s not only important but controversial. Some say that organic can feed the world, while others insist that we need GMOs. Some argue that plant-based food is the key to our food future. No matter where you fall, it’s crucial that we talk about the future of our food supply and the social, environmental, and health impacts of our food choices.
This year, Blog Action Day focused on continuing the conversation about what it means to have a truly healthy food system. And here at Important Media, we pulled together to address these questions, and gathered all of the links from yesterday’s conversation on this page!
Hi HSF Volunteers - Thanks for your interest in volunteering for the Homestead Skillshare Festival on Sat. May 26th. http://sfbace.org/homestead-skillshare-festival-workshop-schedule/...
