the will to live life differently can
start in some of the most unusual places
this is where I come from Tamil and it's
a market tone in the north of England
15,000 people between Leeds and
Manchester fairly normal market tone
used to look like this and now it's more
like this with fruit and veg and herb
sprouting up all over the place we call
it propaganda gardening corner of our
railway station car park front of our
health centre people's front gardens and
even in front of the police station
we've got two edible Canal towpath
and we've got sprouting cemeteries the
soil is extremely good
we've even invented a new form of
tourism it's called vegetable tourism
and believe it or not people come from
all over the world to poke around in our
raised beds even when there's not much
growing but it starts a conversation and
you know we're not doing it because
we're bored we're doing it because we
want to start a revolution we try to
answer this simple question can you find
a unifying language that cuts across age
and income and culture that will help
people themselves find a new way of
living
see spaces around them differently think
about the resource there used
differently interact differently can we
find that language and then can we
replicate those actions and the answer
would appear to be yes and the language
would appear to be food so three and a
half years ago a few of us a trendy
kitchen table and we just invented the
whole thing
we came up with a really simple game
plan that we put to a public meeting we
did not consult we did not write a
report enough of all that and we said to
that public meeting in Todmorden
look let's imagine that our tone is
focused around three plates a community
plate the way we live our everyday lives
a Learning plate what we learn what we
teach our kids in school and what we
want new skills we share amongst
ourselves and business what what we do
with the pound in our pocket and which
businesses we choose to support now
let's imagine those plates agitated with
community actions around food if we
start one of those community plates
spinning that's really great that really
starts to empower people but if we can
then spin that community plate with a
learning plate and then spin it with a
business plate we've got a real show
though we've got some action theater
we're starting to build resilience
ourselves we're starting to reinvent
community ourselves and we've done it
all without a flipping strategy document
and here's the thing as well we've not
asked anybody's permission to do this
we're just doing it and we are certainly
not waiting for that cheque to drop
through the letterbox with all we start
and most importantly of all we are not
daunted by the sophisticated arguments
that say these small actions are
meaningless in the face of tomorrow's
problems because I have seen the power
of small actions and it is awesome so
back to the public meeting we put that
proposition to the meeting two seconds
and then the room exploded I have never
ever experienced anything like that in
my life and it's been the same in every
single room in every town that we've
ever told our story people are ready and
respond to the story of foods they want
positive actions they can engage in and
in their bones they know it's time to
take personal responsibility and invest
in more kindness to each other and to
the environment and since we had that
meeting three and a half years ago it's
been a heck of a roller coaster we
started with a seed swap really simple
stuff and then we took an area of land a
strip on the side of our main road which
was a dog toilet basically and we turned
it into a really lovely herb garden we
took the corner of the car park in the
station that you saw and we made
vegetable beds for everybody to share
and pick from themselves we went to the
doctors we've just at a six million
pound Health Center built in Todmorden
and for some reason that I cannot
comprehend it has been surrounded by
prickly plants
so we went to the doctor said would you
mind is taking a mock they said
absolutely fine provide you get planning
permission and you do it in Latin you do
it in triplicate so we did and now there
are fruit trees and bushes and herbs and
vegetables around that doctor's surgery
and there's been lots of other examples
like the corn that was in front of the
police station and the old people's home
that we've planted up with food that
they can pick and grow but it isn't just
about growing because we all a part of
this jigsaw it's about taking those
artistic people in your community and
doing some fabulous designs in those
raised beds to explain to people what's
growing there because there's so many
people that don't really recognize a
vegetable unless it's in a bit of
plastic with a bit of an instruction
packet on the top so we have some people
who design these things it looks like
this please don't pick it but it looks
like this help yourself
this is about sharing and investing in
kindness and for those people that don't
want to do either of those things maybe
they can cook so we pick them seasonally
and then we go on the street or in the
pub or in the church or wherever people
are living their lives this is about us
going to the people in saying we are all
part of the local food jigsaw we are all
part of a solution and then because we
know we've got vegetable tourists and we
love them to bits and they're absolutely
fantastic we thought what can we do to
give them an even better experience so
we invented without asking of course the
incredible edible green route and this
is the route of exhibition gardens and
edible tour paths and be friendly sites
and the story of pollinators and it's a
route that we designed that takes people
through the whole of our town past our
cafes and our small shops through our
market not just to and fro from the
supermarket and we're hoping that in
changing people's footfall around our
town we're also changing their behavior
and then there's a second plate the
learning plate well we're in partnership
with the high school we've created a
company we are designing and building an
aquaponics unit in some land that we
spare at the back of the high school
like you do and now we're going to be
growing fish and vegetables in an
orchard with bees and the kids are
helping us build that and the kids are
on the board and because the community
was really keen on working with the high
school the high school is now teaching
agriculture
and because it's teaching agriculture we
started to think how can we then get
those kids that never had a
qualification before in their lives but
they're really excited about growing how
can we give them some more experience so
we got some land that was donated by a
local garden center it was really quite
muddy but in truly incredible way
totally voluntary led we have turned
that into a Market Garden training
center and that is Polly tunnels and
raised beds and all the things you need
to get the soil under your fingers and
think maybe the job in this for me in
the future and because we were doing
that some local academics said you know
we could help design a commercial
horticulture course for you is there's
not one that we know of so they're doing
that and we're going to launch it later
this year and it's all an experiment and
it's all voluntary and then there's the
third plate because if you walk through
an edible landscape and if you learning
new skills and if you start to get
interested in what's growing seasonally
you might just want to spend more of
your own money in support of local
producers not just veg but meat and
cheese and beer and whatever else it
might be but then we're just a community
group you know we'll just throw
volunteers what could we actually do so
we did some really simple things we
fundraise we got some black boards we
put incredible edible on the top we gave
it to every market trader that was
selling locally and it scribbled on what
they were selling in any wrong one week
really popular people congregated around
it sales were up and then we had to chat
with the farmers and we said we're
really serious about this but they
didn't actually believe us so we thought
okay what should we do I know if we can
create a campaign around round one
product and show them there is local
loyalty to that product maybe they'll
change their mind and see we're serious
so we launched a campaign because it
just amusingly called every egg matters
and what we did was we put people on our
egg map it's a stylized map of Todmorden
anybody that's selling their excess eggs
at the garden-gate purple illegally to
their neighbors we've stuck on there we
started with four and we've now got 64
on and the result of that was that
people were then going into shops ask
him for a local table and an egg and the
result of that was some farmers up the
amount of flock they got free rent Birds
and then they went on to meet birds and
although these are really really small
steps that that increasing local
economic confidence is starting to play
out in a number of ways so we know how
farmers doing cheese and live up the
flocks a rare breed pigs
pasties and pies and things that they
would have never have done before we've
got increasing market stall selling
local food and in a survey that local
students did follows 49 percent of all
food traders in that tone said that
their bottom landed increase because of
what we were actually doing and we're
just volunteers and it's only an
experiment now none of this is rocket
science it certainly is not clever and
it's not original but it is joined up
and it is inclusive this is not a
movement for those people that are going
to sort and selves out anyway this is a
movement for everyone we have a motto if
you eat you're in
across age across income across culture
it's been really quite a roller coaster
experience but going back to that first
question that we asked is it replicable
yeah it most certainly is replicable
more than 30 Jones in England no I spin
in the incredible edible plates
whichever way they want to do it they're
of their own volition they're trying to
make their own lives differently and
worldwide we've got communities across
America and debates incredible isn't it
I mean I'm working America and Japan and
New Zealand people after the earthquake
in New Zealand visited us in order to
incorporate some of this public
spiritedness around local growing into
the heart of Christchurch and none of
this takes more money and none of this
demands a bureaucracy but it does demand
that you think things differently and
you are prepared to bend budgets and
work programs in order to create that
supportive framework that compute
communities can bounce off and there's
some great ideas already in our patch a
local authority has decided to make
everywhere incredible edible and in
support of that have decided to do two
things first they're going to create an
asset register of spare land that
they've got put it in a food bank so
that communities can use that wherever
they live and they're going to underpin
that with a license and then they said
to every single one of their workforce
if you can help those communities grow
and help them maintain their spaces
suddenly we're seeing actions on the
ground from local government we're
seeing this mainstreamed we are
responding creatively at last to what
real demanded of us and there's lots
more you could do I mean just to list a
few one please stop putting prickly
plants around public buildings it's a
waste of space secondly please create
please please create edible landscapes
so that our children start to walk past
their food day in day out on our high
streets in our parks wherever that might
be
inspire local planners to put the food
sights at the heart of the tone and the
city plan not relegate them to the edges
of the settlements that nobody can see I
encourage all our schools to take this
seriously this isn't a second class
exercise if we want to inspire the
farmers of tomorrow then please let us
say
to every school create a sense of
purpose around the importance of the
environment local food and soils put
that at the heart of your school culture
and you will create a different
generation there are so many things you
can do but ultimately this is about
something really simple through an
organic process through an increasing
recognition of the power of small
actions we are starting at last to
believe in ourselves again and to
believe in our capacity each and every
one of us to build a different and a
kinder future and in my book that's
incredible