UK Food Sovereignty

[Anna Harris]

Last weekend I attended the 'Transform our Food System' gathering in London dedicated to UK Food Sovereignty in collaboration with the European arm of Via Campesina, a global peasant movement which represents about 200 million farmers worldwide.  A wide range of food interests were represented, organic farmers, anti GM activists, permaculturists, land squatters, transition towners, War on Want, etc mostly young people wanting to take back control of our food system. I went as someone who has been involved in setting up food projects locally, and helping to initiate a Food Strategy for Bradford. Two days of intense discussions in small groups, using open space, delicious food provided by Organiclea's Hawkwood Plant Nursery, a ceilidh on Sunday eve, and a moving 'Mistica' introducing Monday morning, connecting by heart resonance, made for an inspiring event. I joined a group looking at how to communicate with compassion to others that may not share our viewpoint, emphasising listening, and sharing with where people are rather than trying to convince them. Our final declaration was to set up a UK Food Sovereignty group, to connect with international and indigenous struggles worldwide.  http://foodsovereigntynow.org.uk

[Darren Hill]

Yes I'd agree Anna it was most inspiring and good to meet you :)

[Anna Harris]

Hi Darren,

I'm happy if we met but to be honest I can only remember a sea of faces.

I made  a comment on your pirate pad re ownership. We often think of rights of access to property as deriving from ownership. However if what is important with regards to land is seen as protecting and preserving land in good heart for present and future generations, then usufruct (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usufruct) or stewardship avoid the legal entanglements of ownership, and are more in keeping with seeing land as a commons.

Anna

[Janos Abel]

Hello Mary and Darren,

We have practical philosopher among us.

Mario Molinari writes about food as being a subject that forms the bedrock of education and literacy for humans. That rootedness in reality has been missing in modern universal education with disastrous consequences for global society today.

I would like to trace the links from Molinari's basic Food Literacy approach to the Food Sovereignty movement

[Darren Hill]

Hello Janos,

I like Marios work and am interested in your proposal

[Anna Harris]

Hi Janos,

When Satish Kumar, editor of Resurgence magazine and initiator of Schumacher College in Devon, set up the Small School in North Devon, the first person he appointed was the cook.Then everything was built around the kitchen, with the children growing, cooking and serving the food.

You see what a huge shift in thinking this would necessitate, as compared with the way schools are generally run. I agree with Marios thinking. It is part of the enormous transformation we have to make to wake up to our true relationship to the planet and to each other. It cannot be seen in isolation, but is essential to the whole system thinking we need to create a sustainable and humane culture of food.

Anna

[Janos Abel]

Thank you for that information about the beginnings of the small school. Did you mention this to Mario?

How is the Small School doing now? How do we transform education to do what the word actually means---bring out and nurture the latent gifts every child brings into our world?

I am familiar with lots of world-changing ideas but am at a loss when it comes to the question "how do you actually help their transforming power enter the world"?

I know about wise sayings like "be the change you want to see" and "don't fight what is, but introduce instead something better" and they make me feel out of sorts with other change agents because, wise as they are in the right context, they are not always helpful in everything as guidance.

We have to free ourselves from many restrictions that are not legitimate and necessary in this day and age.

[George Por]

Gardening Art Grows into Activism in the Age of Occupy

[Anna Harris]

PS

If we had less desire to 'educate' children, and more desire to listen to them and ourselves we might make a start.

There is no way that children can be nurtured while being incarcerated under compulsion, to learn a set curriculum, in which interaction is seen as 'cheating'. This system needs dumb children to turn into dumb adults to serve the machinery of capitalism. See 'Dumbing Us Down' By Gatto.

Anna

[Janos Abel]

If we had less desire to 'educate' children...

Indeed, if we just did what the word means and "listen to them...", we would have a "child centered" curriculum and it probably would not be "national"---i.e. one size fits all 12 million people under age of 15.

But, let us face it, "education" is really about three things: child minding, getting the new generation to accept thins as they are and drilling in the three mechanical skills of the "three Rs". This latter produces a population of "job-worthy adults", as I heard a panelist comment concerning the role of education.

This relates to another vitally important commons---the cultural commons---to be reclaimed.

Think about this rather familiar concept: "compulsory state education"...

After the first week in school: grand parent to 6 year old "so, what do you think of school?"; "It's OK but I can no longer do what I would rather do."