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Monday 24 June 2013

Changes in Food Growing in Brent

A while ago, the Guardian carried a piece on transition towns.  These are self formed networks interested in working out innovative ways to develop low carbon living.  Brent has its own version in Kilburn.  They tend to focus mostly on food growing projects, such as fruit harvesting, and it reminded me that I have been meaning to post how the Council's food growing strategy has evolved beyond a traditional allotments approach to something more imaginative.

When we were in opposition, my concerns focused simply on providing allotments to meet demand, which appeared to be rising rapidly.  Once we won power, I asked for some work to be done on this, and it turned out to be quite artificial.  The database was never cleaned, so that people just stayed on it forever, even if they moved away.  After a cleaning exercise, and a rise in fees, the demand seemed much more manageable.  With the additional step of giving smaller allotments to newcomers, it looks as if we can meet that traditional type of demand.

However, the strategy we passed in August 2012 now recognises that there are lots of other approaches to food growing these days.  In some cases, schools have adopted food growing projects.  There are also a number of food growing opportunities around meanwhile sites.  At a modest level, there are herbs being grown in the plants on Tubbs Road Pocket Park. A lot of these types of schemes have in common that they are in some sense collective and communal, whereas traditional allotments tend to be more individual and proprietary.

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