Last Sunday and Monday I (Helen) was lucky enough to attend the first of what will hopefully be many gatherings, of people working towards food sovereignty in many different ways. Over 100 community growers, producers, co- operative workers, researchers, campaigners and activists came together to help build the food sovereignty movement here in the UK.
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Greater Manchester's sustainable food conference, FeedingManchester, reached a landmark tenth meeting on Thursday 5th July, gathering individuals and organisations together once again with shared interests in creating a more equal and secure food chain for the county.
One of the biggest challenges for community food-growing projects is finding volunteers. Big Dig is a project to help you find and keep volunteers to make sure your food-growing project is a success in the long-term.
In Greater Manchester Big Dig is being run by the Kindling Trust, and we want to help as many growing projects as possible find new volunteers. We'll be doing this by co-ordinating 3 major events:
Kindling has benefited from MMU Business School students over the last few months, exploring and identifying non-food crops that can be grown by local farmers and sold in products on the local market.
The report (see below) aims to produce a set of recommendations for Kindling to take forward in our vision for a sustainable society.
Kindling’s Forgotten Fields project was enthusiastically received at the biannual Manchester Histories Festival by many visitors, young and old, (7 - 87) who popped in to see the food heritage work that has been researched and illustrated over the last two years.
On the Celebration Day (3rd March 2012) at Manchester Town Hall there were a fantastic mix of interested people...
Twelve of us spent today (Wednesday 7th March) on a day-long horticulture course run by Jenny Griggs of Climate Friendly Food. It was the first day of four consecutive Wednesdays as part Kindling’s work to encourage more people to consider commercial-scale food growing in the North West.
We have been in Edinburgh visiting the inspiring Cyrenian's charity – a family of projects focused around food and supporting homeless and vulnerable people across the city.
Four members of the Kindling team joined up with Liverpool Food Alliance to journey to Edinburgh for a two day visit organised by Nina Dale of Making Local Food Work.
The combination of farm, supported community, sheltered accommodation, community gardens and Good Food waste project (via a Fareshare franchise) offered a fantastic opportunity for us to learn more about working with volunteers.
Our Forgotten Fields project will be showcasing its work and findings from the last two years at this year’s Manchester Histories Festival (MHF); a celebration of Greater Manchester’s unique history and heritage through a packed ten day programme of events and activities.
Want to help bring the freshest, most local organic produce to Manchester? Do you have a passion for good food, a business mind and want to support local farmers? Then Manchester Veg People may be for you.
As part of our work to increase the supply of truly sustainable food to Greater Manchester we are undertaking the mammoth task of creating 500 apple trees over the weekend of 24th and 25th March 2012.