Feed Bristol

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= "a project that provides one example of how food as a commons works".

URL = http://www.avonwildlifetrust.org.uk/feedbristol


Description

by Sophie Laggan:

"Feed Bristol is a project that provides one example of how food as a commons works. The five-acre urban farm is managed by a group of volunteers and a few full-time staff. The volunteers are largely recovering from drug and alcohol addiction and use the site as a way to reconnect with nature, learn valuable skills and meet new people. The project successfully produces food using organic principles and shares the surplus among volunteers. They also plant local varieties and wildflowers to encourage pollination and offer courses and other learning opportunities for anyone who comes to visit.

Since Feed Bristol began in 2012, Project Manager Matt Cracknell says the social return on investment has been £6.7 million as of 2014. The project does not accrue profits nor does it overexploit the land; it has been conceived holistically to bring multiple benefits with minimal technological input. It is connected to Sims Hill Shared Harvest, a community supported agriculture project that delivers free or subsidised vegetable boxes to households in exchange for work. By using people power there is less need for machinery, while the financial barriers of eating organic food are reduced." (http://sustainablefoodtrust.org/articles/owning-food-in-search-of-a-common-good/)


Discussion

Towards food sovereignty

by Sophie Laggan:

"Food Sovereignty explicitly emphasises that ownership of food should belong to the community that is producing it – such as in the case of Feed Bristol. Not only does this shorten supply chains, it also supports the local economy and is of a scale that can be managed collectively. So, food sovereignty and food as a commons go hand-in-hand; if you have collective ownership over the land, it becomes a common good. This has profound implications for policy makers who have historically sought to privatise or nationalise resources. With privatisation comes monetisation, while with nationalisation comes regulations that are out of the control of the community.

As Feed Bristol shows, there are hidden and often non-economic dimensions of food that can only be realised when it is managed at an appropriate scale. Jose Luis Vivero Pol, human rights activist and proponent of food as a commons, sees this alternative as a powerful moral narrative: “I see it as a common ground for contemporary urban food movements and customary rural indigenous resistance struggles to converge.”

This article skims the surface of a highly complex field of study emerging at the fringes of mainstream academia. In thinking about food, we often forget to reflect on the economic system that governs both its production and us. If we begin to recognise the flaws of this system, we could open the door to the next paradigm shift. The move to relocalisation and collective action can help us wriggle free from the corporate control of food and emerge with a vision that is more sustainable and inclusive. Food, after all, is a human right not a privilege." (http://sustainablefoodtrust.org/articles/owning-food-in-search-of-a-common-good/)

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