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Latest news
Veg Box People has recently updated its purchasing policy in order to sell non-certified-organic produce.
“Why, isn’t that a step backwards…?” you might ask? Well, nope! It’s a strategic move designed to help get more local land into organic production, by supporting farmers who have started growing using organic practices but aren’t yet eligible for the Soil Association’s “in conversion” label. And it's already benefiting two sets of growers right here in Greater Manchester.
Like many, given just a few months to prepare for what will be one of the most significant decisions in the UK’s political history, we were concerned about just how much we didn’t know. So we took the opportunity to explore the role of the EU in our food system at one of our regular ‘Feeding Manchester’ events.
Agro-forestry – two inspirational farming examples.
“You’ll notice that the diversity theme keeps coming up” began Martin Wolfe “diversity in farming is the only sustainable way to farm and Agroforestry is the best way to maximise diversity”.
Our Feeding Stockport co-ordinator Jemma recently helped run a workshop at the Sustainable Food Cities conference focussed on the Food Economy; helping to build skills, jobs, businesses and communities through healthy and sustainable food.
Many local authorities have started to recognise the key role a revitalized ‘good-food’ culture can play in boosting local jobs and businesses, and in making their town centres a destination of choice.
A three-strong team from Salford make up our new Abbey Leys FarmStart contingent. Brother and sister Sam and Jo plus friend Ashley have a mix of growing experience between them, including home growing, working on a potato farm and long-term wwoofing in New Zealand.
Bailey McCracken joined Kindling last year to help get our organic box scheme off the ground – if you’re a Veg Box People customer you’ll know her friendly face from the Tuesday afternoon pick up at Manchester University. But she’s also getting stuck in growing at our Woodbank Park site in Stockport. This means she gets to see the whole food chain, from plant to plate (almost…)
The EU influences every aspect of the UK’s food and farming systems; subsiding farming to the tune of billions and regulating everything from worker and consumer protection to rural development, biodiversity and river water quality.
We’ve just entered our one and a half acres at Woodbank Park into organic conversion, a process that covers the changeover from non-organic to organic growing. It’s being overseen by the Soil Association, one of the UK’s organisations for licensing organic food growing. The Association annually inspects every grower it licenses, to ensure that everyone sticks to its stringent set of standards. We now begin the three-year pathway to providing organic, local produce for the Stockport area.
We’ve recently spent a couple of days helping a group of 8-10 year olds from Hulme to create a Wangari Maathai Peace Grove, in honour of the first African women to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
The grove is one of three being created in the city through the wonderful Manchester Environmental Education Network (MEEN). According to MEEN’s co-ordinator Raichael, the project aims to “inspire our communities with Wangari Maathai’s story, to bring young and older community activists together to share their stories whilst taking positive action together by planting trees”.