Monday, December 19, 2011

Gardening as a subversive activity

Urban farm
I would highly recommend people interested in the production and consumption of healthy foods watch a powerful and humorous 8 minute educational video by Roger Doiron, "My subversive (garden) plot".

This video reminds us that gardening is a form of power... over diet, health and pocket books. Roger also recognizes gardening as a "healthy gateway drug" which entices people to then learn about cooking, food preservation and farmers markets.  By planting a garden we might also influence our neighbors to do likewise.

Swiss chard 
Why should we be concerned about growing more food?  Consider that 900 million people are affected by hunger, while food prices are increasing around the world.  It is projected that we are going to need to grow more food in the next 50 years than we have over the past 10,000 years combined! We will also have to do this with less... oil, water, climate stability farmland,  genetic diversity, and time to grow food.

Where do we go if we only have one planet?

One of the suggestions Mr. Doiron provides is to transform our yards into full service green grocers.  Why?
  1. Because gardens grow good food
  2. Gardens grow healthy families
  3. Gardens also grow economic savings  
Check out their website to learn more about the organization that Roger Doiron heads up, Kitchen Gardens International.  

No comments:

Post a Comment