Experiments with local food supply in 2 hi-density urban estates Maison Radieuse, Rezé, Nantes and Broadwater Farm, Tottenham, London
The past 20 years have seen massive increases in the corporate share at both ends of our food chain – downstream of the supply end with a few supermarkets and upstream the domination of food production by agribusiness cartels. Thus today just five companies control over three quarters of the world market in cereals with one, Cargill, controlling more than than 60%; three companies control 85% of the world’s tea market; three in cocoa have 84%; and with agrochemicals, the top 10 companies own 90% of the market. So why this wholesale takeover at a time of relentless environmental campaigning and anti-capitalist activism; is it down to the power imbalances of neoliberalism, or the lack of protective legislation, or subsidies skewed heavily in favour of the large, or do the progressive messages have no effect on consumer culture?
Submitted by Siraj Izhar on 4 February 2011 - 10:17am
Netroots UK: day of workshops at TUC Congress House London 8 January 2011
There is an assumption that political consciousness is no longer being shaped by the traditional media or institutional politics but by self-produced social media and the blogosphere. Whilst political valorisation of new media is not new, how can we really assess how the two things, electoral politics and e-activism on social media interact with each other? Behind all the presumptions and opinions, what are the actual convergences? An opportunity to ask these questions came with the Labour party’s netroots UK conference. Billed with the slogan ‘building the progressive grassroots online’ Netroots brought hundreds of e-activists to spend a day indoors with the Labour Party.
Submitted by Siraj Izhar on 30 December 2010 - 12:49pm
Workshops on reducing household energy footprint led by ecoteams at Hackney Town Hall, Mare Street, London 4 December 2010
Anyone whose work involves connecting the lives of ordinary urban communities with ecological awareness, knows the problems – questioning private habits, or critically engaging the space of anyone’s home invariably implies a measure of invasion of who they are. A previous generation of environmental artists and cultural activists saw the connection between ecology and culture as a way to move the present conditions of society to another beyond capitalism, debt, consumerism and individualism. But it has been a double-edged process, with phrases such as ‘ecofascist’ becoming part of our language.
Submitted by Siraj Izhar on 29 December 2010 - 11:20am
Workshop on Urban Farming and Local Empowerment
led by Nomadisch Grün
at Prinzessinnengarten, Kreuzberg, Berlin
24 to 30 September 2010
These workshops for Urban growers take place at Prinzessinnengarten just off the busy traffic hub of Moritzplatz in Kreutzberg, below the drone of cranes engaged in new build. This is Berlin’s real estate land alright. By its looks, Prinzessinnengarten is certainly strange; there is an enormous amount of formal aesthetic innovation in this ‘urban garden’ which combines an economic pragmatism with a rampant grow in any way and every way you can approach: white vinyl bags strewn around with vegetables growing out, herbs popping out of tetrapacks, stackable red plastic containers, a ‘grow or be damned’ attitude. The colours combinations aren’t too bad either, red, white, then the clean minimal lines of the café and kitchen in shipping containers. Everything here is mobile; if push comes to shove this community garden or farm can pack and go, all of which contradicts conventional notions of both community and food growing. So what brings about a phenomenon such as Prinzessinnengarten?
