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Monday, 30 March 2009

Cuba, transition and urban agriculture on R4


If you missed our screening of 'The Power of Community', you can learn about Cuba's peak oil moment and about whether we can feed ourselves through urban agriculture, by listening to a recent edition of Radio 4's Food Programme via the 'Listen Again' feature on the R4 website. One of the guests is Ben Reynolds, a local from Blackheath who recently gave a great talk to the Friends of Greenwich Park about urban food projects.

Here's a direct link.

And here's the blurb:

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Can rooftops and railway sidings feed cities? Sheila Dillon looks to London and Cuba to find out.

CUBA and URBAN GARDENING

What is the potential for growing our own food? Sheila Dillon looks at the Mayor of London’s new project to make more land available for food production. She also looks at the experience of Cuba where political and economic change forced the population to attempt an “organic revolution” as the country struggled to produce enough food to survive. One response was to grow more food in urban areas.

This experience has struck a chord with UK groups interested in "peak oil" food production, and the film The Power of Community: How Cuba survived Peak Oil has toured the UK to enthusiastic audiences.

So what can we learn from Cuba and how productive could urban farming be in the UK?

Recordings:

Dusty Gedge,London TV (BBC)

Roberto Perez, Antonio Nunez Jimenez Foundation de la Naturaleza Y el Hombre in Cuba

Vilda Figeroa, for 30 years a nutritionist at the Cuban Government Research Institute

Justo Torres Lazo, urban farmer in Havana

Madelaine Vasquez, food researcher, writer and presenter of the weekly TV programme "Con Sabor"

Guests:

Dr Julia Wright, head of programmes at Garden Organic and author of Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security in an Era of Oil Scarcity: Lessons from Cuba

Ben Reynolds, coordinator of Capital Growth , a scheme launched last November by London mayor Boris Johnson and the woman he appointed to be the chair of London Food, Rosie Boycott.

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