It may be that the time has come for a lot of us to starting putting our shovels where our mouths are (if you’ll excuse the pun) and start farming.
As Rob Hopkins pointed out on his blog recently:
It is often said that in Cuba, during the Special Period, the country went from needing 1% of its population working in farming to 20%. If the same thing is applied to the UK in the event of an energy famine, we would need around 8 million new farmers.
Sharon Astyk a farmer, blogger and author well known in peak oil circles, argued in her book A Nation of Farmers that the U.S. would need 100 million new farmers. If we apply the 20% figure to ourselves here, Liverpool would need a few less, maybe around 87,000.
In order to manage this, we’ll need to start thinking about farming quite differently and instead of hankering for idyllic Welsh farms like the one in the picture above, many in the U.S. and Canada are now turning to urban homesteading. I haven’t read anything yet about how this model might fit in the U.K., but the much smaller average backyard sizes already suggest that it can’t simply be copied here on a large scale.
Allotments still seem to be the most immediate way to go for those interested in growing their own food, but as Transition West Kirby have so wonderfully highlighted, allotment waiting lists are much too long. I haven’t found any data available for allotment waiting lists in Liverpool yet – please share if you know of any – but odds are they are as long.
It seems that a pressure group representing people on waiting lists, The Liverpool Area Federation of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners, was set up. But, while it is still advertised by the Liverpool council, the website no longer exists, many individual allotment sites fail as well.
Another group set up to promote local food production Urbanag, which I’ve been keeping an eye on for a while now, did not have too much news about new projects in Liverpool in 2010, although the Greater Liverpool Food Alliance was launched. However, the Alliance’s Project Dirt page suggests that things could be changing, with a new agenda set for 2011.
Getting sustainable local food systems in place is an urgent task, but also an overwhelming one. 87,000 is a big number. But small steps lead to big changes, as they say and so in 2011 Transition Liverpool is hoping to develop a Liverpool Local Food Guide to raise awareness of the local food already available, and also gather and publicise data on the current state of allotment waiting lists. Don’t forget that our community allotment is also welcoming new volunteers, as is Jaz Jackson’s Dingle Growers project.
Do you know of any other local food projects in Liverpool, or have ideas for how to encourage farming in the city? If so, please let us know.
Thanx for an interesting post. Whilst not everything in the garden seems to be growing there do seem to be a few seeds and shoots evolving. This is a far cry from a few years ago when Jerry Spencer and I (representing Liverpool Vision) met representatives of Liverpool City Council to discuss the idea of giving up brownfield land to communities. There were various things going on in min and Jerry’s minds that prompted this (and still do go on in my mind) but whilst nothing obvious happened then, there is progress; as the scheme in the Dingle alludes.
So just like gardening I‘d suggest that local authority engagement is a process of making the ground fertile, planting seed, and then waiting…..Oh, and avoiding the manure that may from time to time be thrown around!!
I confess my own allotment on Wirral side. It took years to get and was not without its own saga. Not least the fact it was waste ground, derelict and covered in a “tumulus” we estimated to be about 22 tons. It was not just earth either. It was with glass and crunched when you walked. I slipped on it once and cut my hand open. The deal was that I must clear the land myself!, but issues of public health, personal injury to me, and plain common finally saw Wirral take responsibility. My wife and I now have a half plot. Delivery was perfectly timed (not) as we were doing up the house at the time, and then ran into the dark snowy winter. But we’ve posts to fence the site, and hope to get started in the next 2 weeks. So for anyone waiting, there is hope……………………..eventually
I found out the allotment i rent,at the top of my street in Edge Hill ,was houses
30 years ago(plots leesed from LHT)
I am in the last complete steet,after recent &ongoing demolition,but “regeneration”has lost all its funding.
How do we campaign for the vacant lots to become allotments?
The possabilty of making them fertile after demolition is proved by the fertile allotments on cadogan Street
I’ve been looking into this more since writing up the post and have found allotment waiting list data, courtesy of one of the members of Transition Town West Kirby.
Info here for anyone interested:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/waiting_lists_for_allotments_154
467 new liverpool farmers waiting for plots!
Barb – using those empty grassed areas for allotments definitely seems like a great idea.
Colin – glad your allotment finally worked out! Good luck with the new little seedlings 🙂
hi my name is Pete, we have formed an alliance with the city’s homeless hostels and homeless day centre’s we are growing around the city, we are also members of the Liverpool food alliance and hope to be working and setting up a new project with them very soon. The homeless hostels food alliance is keen to meet up with like minded groups and people and start producing locally grown food and greening our fine city! if you would like to meet up or discuss our ideas please contact me at the ymca 😉
All the comments seem to relate to allotments. I am lucky to have one, but I know in this city there are long waiting lists. I recently sent an email via the head of leisure in liverpool to actually ask about the allocation process to see if there is any monitoring of the situation. Alot of allotments are not maintained on sites over very long periods of time, over a year in some cases, and the allocation can seem dubious when plot secretaries may be handing them out to people who are not on the top of the list. There is not response as yet from the council in relation to how getting an allotment is regulated. I always wonder as we do not know who is on the lists, who is missing out while land goes to waste.