21 Jul 2010
Jeremy Jackson on How We Wrecked the Oceans
Here is a staggering TED talk about the state of the Earth’s seas. You might want to watch this sitting down … and to cancel that fish supper…
An Evolving Exploration into the Head, Heart and Hands of Energy Descent
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I no longer blog on this site. You can now find me, my general blogs, and the work I am doing researching my forthcoming book on imagination, on my new blog.
Come find me at robhopkins.net
Archive for “Food” category
Showing results 91 - 95 of 267 for the category: Food.
8 Jun 2010
Matt Harvey on Slugs
Totnes legend poet Matt Harvey has just posted, as part of his occasional ‘mattmail’ email newsletter (which you can subscribe to on his website), a rather wonderful poem about slugs. Matt is an old friend of Transition, and did the equally wonderful piece for BBC Devon about TTT a while ago. Given that slugs are an oft-discussed subject here at Transition Culture, I thought you would enjoy this…. Matt is the Wimbledon Tennis Championships’ official ‘Poet-in-Residence’, so expect to hear more from Totnes’s favourite export in coming weeks. I love slugs being referred to as “bold-as-brass brassica editors”…
27 May 2010
Book Review: ‘The Ministry of Food’ by Jane Fearnley-Whittingstall
The Ministry of Food: thrifty wartime ways to feed your family today. Jane Fearnley Whittingstall. (2010) Hodder & Stoughton and the Imperial War Museum.
I hadn’t heard of this until a couple of weeks ago, when a group of folks visiting from the US dropped by, en route from London, where they had visited an exhibition at the Imperial War Museum called ‘The Ministry of Food’ (which runs until January 3rd 2011), gave me their copy of this book. Having read this book, I will definitely make a point of going to see the exhibition next time I am in London. The book is the exhibition catalogue, but it is also a superb stand-alone publication, offering many useful insights on how the British people managed during the war, how the Ministry of Food successfully promoted the Dig for Victory/Kitchen Front campaigns which kept the country from starvation, and, ironically, led to the healthiest population in the country’s recent history.
26 May 2010
Transition Town West Kirby’s Allotments Study Makes the National Press
Ian and Margaret Campbell of Transition Town West Kirby recently researched and published, together with the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners (NSALG), a report called ‘Allotment Waiting Lists in England 2010’. The report, which you can download in full here, is an up-to-date detailed look at what is happening in terms of allotment provision. They found that waiting lists have grown 20% just in the last year, and that in some parts of the UK, some people will need to wait as much as 40 years for an allotment, but the average wait is 3 years. They estimate that nationally, 180,000 people are waiting for allotments, and that while Councils have a statutory duty to provide allotments, most are failing to do so. Publication of the report generated a lot of press coverage, including this piece in the Telegraph, and pieces in the Sun, Mirror (see top left) and the Express. A fantastic piece of work, and great to see Transition initiatives getting this kind of coverage.
19 May 2010
A Chance to Learn How to Replicate Growing Communities in your Community
For Transition groups looking to set up viable local food systems, there is a range of models to choose from. There are the better known ones such as CSAs and box schemes, and the more innovative ones, such as Food Hubs. One less well known, but equally exciting model is that being developed at Growing Communities in Hackney, who I have often written about glowingly here. For the uninitiated, here is a short film about their work:
