Rob Pekin from the Food Connect Foundation discusses building a local stone mill to produce flour in Brisbane from local grain.
Category: Food Action
Front Yard Food – [register]The Generator is proud to announce the Front Yard Food initiative. This initiative was launched in Lennox Heads by a number of landscapers, nursery’s and garden suppliers to provide materials to help people build food gardens that the community can share. Our first project was constructed by volunteers on Friday August 1, in Lennox Heads on NSW north coast. Click the picture to see more about that project.To contact us about action you may want to take in your community. Please contact Team Generator .
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Milling Native Grasses
Rob Pekin shows off a grand piece of granite – the foundation of the Food Connect Mill -
Mt Tamborine Food Exchange
My Great Notion of the Week this week is the Mount Tamborine Edible Exchange shared by Wavy.
Wavy shows off ginger at the Mt Tambourine Edible Exchange It’s an honour system where people can bring food to the central roadside exchange and take food away. No money changes hands. They post pictures online so everyone knows what’s in the food exchange. There’s pictures and more details on EcoRadio.net
Wavy submitted that as a contribution to my Make and Taste sessions designed to get different people in a workplace sharing food with their colleagues and showing how they make it. However we activate our food networks, the important thing is that sharing food disengages us from being nodes of consumption and converts us into hubs of production. Now that’s a great notion.
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Stronger Together – Activists chat
Activists from legal, communications, mutual aid and class mobilisation backgrounds met to discuss ways that they might be stronger together at a Community Day for Climate at Brisbane’s Northey Street City Farm organised by XR Meanjin.
Geoff Ebbs, Andy Paine and Devlin Pointon at XR Community Day for Climate -
Go tell it to the children – angry Mum
Salisbury children plant corn after school A Salisbury woman was told by Brisbane City Council today that a community garden she has built with local children is to be torn down by Council.
“I’m afraid I was not very polite,” Ms Pia Deerain told The Generator, “I told him not to save it for the children and hung up in his ear. Those kids put their heart and soul into this little garden.”
Ms Deerain and nine neighbourhood children have started a compost heap and vegetable garden in her front yard, which last month extended onto the nature strip. Today, a council worker rang Ms Deerain to tell her that the garden will be dismantled.
There has been a spate of battles between gardeners and council recently with high profile celebrities such as the ABC’s Jerry Coleby Williams getting involved in some early cases in 2008. He recently published a how-to article on working with Council on his own web-site.
The most recent case in Norman Park was allowed to remain after a number of high profile articles in the mainstream media. Council reports that it has “decided that the garden may remain once a trip hazard has been removed”.
Jerry Coleby Williams’ nature strip Council’s online advice is that nature strip gardens should not obstruct access to services and should not involve weeds or inappropriately large trees. Council has told Ms Deerain that they have picked out her garden in response to a complaint, but have not revealed the nature of the complaint.
The Generator observes that this may be due to Ms Deerain hanging up while the Council worker was still talking.
“We are talking about a couple of vegetable gardens in 30cm high bed,” Ms Deerain said. “If anyone needs access to the services I can remove the whole bed in fifteen minutes with a normal garden shovel.”
The controversial garden is geographically in the centre of the Moorooka Ward. Councillor Steven Griffiths has been involved in a number of greening Moorooka activities across the ward. His office has been contacted by The Generator for comment. Greens candidate for Moorooka Leo Campbell said “Obviously Council has to ensure that planting in public spaces is appropriate, but the emphasis should be to encourage local food production and community engagement.”
Readers can contact Steven Griffiths as follows.
Phone: 07 3403 1730
Fax: 07 3403 1733
Email: moorooka.ward@bcc.qld.gov.au
Website: www.stevegriffithsmoorooka.com
Write to: www.stevegriffithsmoorooka.com/contact-us -
Stop the whale slaughter (AVAAZ)
Dear friends,
In days, two Icelandic ships will leave on a bloody hunt for endangered fin whales and export them to Japan — if we shine a spotlight right now on the role of a Dutch transit port, we can get them to shut down this safe harbour for slaughter and create a major stumbling block for the the bloody trade. Sign now:
In days, two Icelandic ships will set sail to butcher 154 endangered fin whales. Trading these majestic creatures is illegal in most of the world, but the Dutch are turning a blind eye and allowing the meat to be trafficked through the port of Rotterdam! Let’s hold Dutch leaders to account and close this safe harbour for unconscionable whaling.
Despite a global commercial whaling ban, Icelandic tycoon Kristjan Loftsson will shoot harpoons to blow out the brains of these majestic creatures, then chop them into pieces and ship their meat to Japan. But we can break a crucial link between the ocean and the customers — the port of Rotterdam, where these massive carcasses are expected to be transferred. If the environmentally conscious Dutch see that the damage to their reputation isn’t worth the profits of trading with this aging Icelandic whaler, they’ll stop the transit and send the whalers back to the drawing board.
We have just over a week before the whalers start the bloody hunt — let’s make sure Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte refuses safe harbour for the whalers and their bloody cargo. Sign the petition now and send this to everyone who loves whales! When we reach one million signers, we’ll create a massive stunt of fake beached whales on the Rotterdam waterfront that they won’t be able to turn a blind eye to.
http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_the_whale_hunt/?bBYMjdb&v=25142
Fin whales are magical creatures. They’re the second longest animal in the world (more than 8-stories tall!) and move through the water like lightning. Their incredible combination of sleek, elegant power and speed earned them the nickname “greyhound of the sea”. Just one fin whale can weigh up to 70,000 kgs! And they’re endangered — only about 118,000 are thought to be left in the wild, and annual hunts are threatening their survival.
Hunting fin whales is illegal under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species and the International Whaling Commission, which has helped fin whales come back from the brink of extinction. But not everyone follows the rules. Loftsson has run the only industrial fin whale hunt in recent years, has brazenly sold the meat to Japan and profited from the whaling ban other countries follow.
Stopping the transit in Rotterdam, Europe’s biggest port, would set a precedent that would make it very difficult for Loftsson to ship his meat profitably through any port in Europe. Hamburg and Finish ports have already shunned the whale trade, and stopping it in Rotterdam could be the final step. A massive public outcry globally and in the Netherlands can help tip the balance — sign now and say no to the slaughter of endangered whales:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_the_whale_hunt/?bBYMjdb&v=25142
Avaaz members have achieved tremendous things working together, from opposing the ivory trade to winning a ban on pesticides that were killing record numbers of bees. In 2010, Avaaz members were central to keeping the international moratorium on commercial whaling in tact — let’s stop this horrific hunt now and keep marching toward a more humane world.
With hope,
Oliver, Pascal, Alaphia, Emily, Alice, David, Ricken and the Avaaz team
PS- Many Avaaz campaigns are started by members of our community. It’s easy to get started – click to start yours now and win on any issue – local, national or global: http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/start_a_petition/?bgMYedb&v=23917
MORE INFORMATION
Iceland to resume disputed fin whale hunt in June (Yahoo News)
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/iceland-resume-disputed-fin-whale-hunt-june-152645167.html#mbpipwPCeaseless Pressure on Whales (NYT)
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/11/opinion/ceaseless-pressure-on-whales.html?emc=eta1&_r=1&Iceland readying for fin whale hunt (The Daily Telegraph)
http://www.news.com.au/world-news/iceland-readying-for-fin-whale-hunt/story-fndir2ev-1226635346527For Iceland’s whale king it’s “just another fish” (AFP)
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5h0e9RgyRi4AF-PqyF7nLp4ufPW1wIceland’s creation of an endangered species trade (Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society)
http://www.wdcs-de.org/docs/WDCS_EIA_Iceland_Whaling_report.pdf
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Other food action projects
In the future, we will be working with local councils to get food projects happening on public land, to build resources in community gardens that people can take home to grow food on their own land, and to put staple foods into people’s back yards. We will start work on these projects once we have Front Yard Food up and running successfully.
The articles
The articles in this section are specifically about action that you can take in your community to create a robust local food supply. We are tracking a number of different approaches to getting local food happening within communities. They include:
- Front Yard Food
- Community Supported Agriculture
- Allotments
- Community Gardens
- Agisting vegetables
- Revitalising the suburbs
For related news items, head on over to the Sustainable Settlement news section of this site. As well as news about new farming and horticultural approaches, there are a range of articles about protests against the corporatisation of the food chain.
