urban

Sustainable Urban Food Production

Kindling's Chris Walsh gave a presentation to several hundred Manchester School of Architecture students on the issue of sustainable food in Manchester in mid-November 2009. As part of the students’ first year project they are exploring urban food production and consumption and the talk raised the many and interlinked problems with our present unsustainable food system and offered some potential solutions.

A History of Feeding Manchester

This chronological narrative of how Greater Manchester has been fed through the ages, looks at each decade from 1750 to the present day: looking at how a changing Manchester was fed, we can see our changing relationship with the countryside. How the ‘urban’ has come to dominate the ‘rural’ to make the most of market opportunities. A detachment from and disregard for the pastoral, and a reverence for the metropolis.

New Smithfield Wholesale Market Report

Report into Manchester's New Smithfield Wholesale Fruit & Vegetable Market (NSM) and its’ role in the city’s food supply. The report aims to: • Illustrate how New Smithfield Market works, defining the roles of traders, agents, transporters etc. • Locate the source of fruit and vegetables sold on NSM, how they are transported to NSM and who they are sold to. • Identify good practice as well as potential and innovation of local growing. • Summarise the interest in and demand for locally produced fruit and vegetables. • Provide detailed information about how waste is managed at NSM.

2009 Food Heritage Calendar

A 2009 calendar produced by the pupils of St. Margaret's Primary School as part of a local food history project where Kindling worked with staff, pupils and local residents to explore the heritage of food growing, cooking and selling in Whalley Range, South Manchester. Topics explored include the turning of 'The Moss' (bog) into fields and roads; Villa kitchen gardens; Digging for Victory during World War Two; the history of allotments, bee-keeping and orchards in the area as well as the cultural influences of Caribbean, Pakistani, Sikh, Polish, Somali and Arabic communities.

Farmers Markets: a case study of local food supply in Greater Manchester

This brief study was undertaken by Kindling in the summer of 2008 to explore a range of questions relating to food production, supply and distribution in Greater Manchester. This snapshot of three Greater Manchester Farmers' Markets took place to examine where food producers were coming from and to begin to explore traders' experiences of the markets studied. This study was informed by the Ricketts-Hein's work which developed an index of food re-localisation (2006) in which Greater Manchester was ranking of 59 out of 61 counties.
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Fuelling Manchester #2

Date: 
13 May, 2010
Charlie Baker's low carbon terrace house in Chorlton

The second Fuelling Manchester social took place on Thursday 13th May 2010 for those involved in community energy projects in the Manchester area. Individuals from Manchester Carbon Co-op, URBED, MERCi, Peak District Energy Co-op, Sustainable Change, Greater Manchester Tree Station and the Energy Savings Trust all attended the social at Odd Bar in the Northern Quarter.Read more

Making Local Food Work for Manchester

Date: 
5 May, 2010
Kindling's Helen Woodcock on the MLFW discussion panel with Rob Squires.

Kindling's Helen Woodcock gave a ten-minute talk at the May 2010 Making Local Food Work Conference entitled: Making Local Food Work for Manchester, introducing the work of The Kindling Trust and explaining the purpose of projects like FeedingManchester.

Helen also joined a discussion panel answering questions from the audience, alongside Rob Squires of Groundwork's Target: Wellbeing and the ever passionate: Kath Dalmeny of Sustain.Read more

Moss Side Carbon Co-op Launched

Date: 
27 March, 2010
Carbon Coop Manual (Moss Side Edition) written by the Kindling Trust

Saturday 27th March 2010 saw the Moss Side launch event of the Carbon Co-op, a new low-carbon social enterprise based in South Manchester. Founded by local residents, the Carbon Co-op aims to bring together friends, neighbours and communities in a bulk buying co-operative, purchasing low carbon technologies, from energy monitors to solar panels, at discount.

The new social enterprise aims to bring green jobs and help Manchester meet its ambitious carbon reduction targets.Read more

Growing Manchester Launched

Date: 
29 March, 2010
Growing Manchester publicity.

Growing Manchester is a new programme to support community growing projects in the city to become more sustainable in the long term and covers a wide range of issues such as maintaining soil fertility, your legal responsibilities, micro-trading and involving more people. The Programme offers a unique package of support including:Read more

Forgotten Fields Secures Support

Date: 
25 March, 2010
Forgotten Fields session at a local allotment.

Kindling has secured Heritage Lottery support of around £40,000 to support its food heritage project: Forgotten Fields.

The project focuses on the heritage of food production and availability in Manchester from 1750’s to present day. It concentrates on six communities from across Greater Manchester that have expressed a need to explore a particular food heritage.Read more

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The Kindling Trust is a not for profit social enterprise with charitable aims (Company number: 6136029).
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