First Steps into Fallow

I’m enjoying the initial stages of the Fallow Project, working with Artwalk Porty, the research and planning within the town and in the hinterland.
 
My first move has been to try to put together a small group in the town to look at how we might start small scale but visible food production. Some call this guerrilla gardening (but we’ll come up with our own name so as not to upset people). The idea is an extension to the amazing flower displays in the town whereby we introduce small planters of food and maybe herbs, attractively presented and dotted around the town so that people can help themselves when the food is ready to eat. There’s a substantial support network in the Borders so the precedents are there. Apart from the polytunnel at the school I don’t know of any small scale food growing in Jedburgh which puts us at odds with most of the other Border towns.
 
I’m also getting in touch with farmers and figuring out what I want to ask them. I’ve been reading a lot about global agriculture and the food ecosystem, in particular George Monbiot’s excellent positioning work Regenesis which offers a fairly bleak assessment of out current position with respect to land use and food production. I suppose what I’d like to find out from farmers is how they see their work within the constraints and conditions imposed by climate, government policies, the global food markets, financial considerations and so on, and what they see as the future of sustainable food growing.  I'd also like to find out what they would see as the future of agriculture if some of the constraints were removed or changed.
 
At the other end of the food chain, the cooking and eating department, I’m pleased to see that there’s a cooking initiative coming to town from a Glasgow based group Outside the Box.
 
As for en eventual art work let’s wait and see but I’m fascinated by Monbiot’s discourse on the supreme importance soil and how we, in his own words, treat it like dirt. He has a podcast on his book on Spotify which is well worth a listen. The things that go on beneath our feet.