“Food growing should be regarded as an important component of future urban living.“-from Creating Sustainable Cities by Herbert Girardet
‘Creating Sustainable Cities’ is one of my favorite books and it is also the book that led me to connecting with The Schumacher Institute (TSI) and in February 2022, becoming confirmed by TSI Director Ian Roderick as a fellow.
The Schumacher Institute is an educational charity which exists to promote systems understanding and application to further ecological sustainability, social equality and human flourishing.
In the 3 years now of my fellowship, I feel enriched by the association and alignment and have also greatly valued taking part in diverse Institute related activities and collaborations.
In July 2024, The Schumacher Institute hosted my first presentation and session on community and urban agriculture. Titled ‚Walkability & Narrative Building around Community Agriculture’, the session was about my emergent media work and research groundwork related to community and urban agriculture.
It had great attendance, a busy and interactive chat board, very engaging discussion and so much ‚food for thought’ exchanged for all of us. It was great to see in attendance people who have been working with local food systems in diverse ways for years as well as some people new to the theme but equally passionate about the importance of these themes.
I look forward to carrying on with this work and am laying the foundation for research to do post PhD, in centering issues of local food systems and urban resilience further in the contemporary ‘sustainable cities discourse’.
I would love to also establish a multidisciplinary education and engagement lab also incorporating themes of the 15-minute city, mobility, and food.
If this piques your interest and you would like to explore future collaboration, please feel free to send an email.
Also, are you a home (balcony, indoor, outdoor, greenhouse) or allotment gardener based in Europe and willing to take a brief survey on your observations of how climate change has affected your gardening and thoughts on mainstreaming community agriculture activity? Welcome to the survey link below:
Europe-based Home and Allotment Gardeners Survey
