Friday 5 August 2011

Sharing The Food We Grow

Hello and welcome to this new blog. My name is Ian Hurd. I am a local artist, educator, Green Party candidate, member of Transition Town Southend, and I want to start a food revolution!
You may have noticed that all over the UK people are getting together to grow food in their communities, start box schemes and the like, which is great. I also noticed recently that more and more people are growing food in their gardens, as well as allotments in and around Southend and don't know what to do with their abundant crops, which tend to get given to family and friends, which is also great but doesn't really incentivise growers or allow them to save much money.

I have agreed with a local, central business owner to let me use a space to set up a swapping market, which can happen as regularly as possible, in line with demand. Think about it; you grow (like I have) loads of potatoes, runner beans and broccoli but have too much to eat and or store, and too little to sell. A number of other people grow a number of other vegetables or fruit and everyone brings their load to the market and we share, barter, swap, and everyone goes home with a variety of delicious locally grown, fresh food. It hasn't travelled 5 zillion miles to get there, it hasn't been sent from a farm in the outskirts of London and best of all it's pretty much organic in most cases and FREE! I will also be doing this from 10-12 am to avoid paying car parking fees for the first hour (the venue has plentiful parking in very close proximity).

So, I am awaiting confirmation for Sunday 21st August to start this and would be very grateful if you'd tell anyone you know who lives in Southend or the surrounding area about this scheme and to contact me if they'd like to attend. I will be opening it up to anyone on the day but I need to get an idea of numbers and organise things so whoever contacts me first will definitely get a space.

I will be asking for donations, though no one is obliged to give me anything, and I will be collecting up this money to put towards any events, change of venue etc. as part of a Not-for-Profit Community Investment Scheme co-operative under the same name (Swap Food Southend).

If you're interested please don't hesitate to contact me: ian.r.hurd@googlemail.com

Thank you for your time and I will post again as soon as I have confirmation of the date and time.

1 comment:

  1. Metal have a thriving kitchen garden in Chalkwell Park. We would love to bring along our excess vegetables and swap with others.

    ReplyDelete