Kent alumnus and Honorary Research Fellow Dr Simon Platten will speak about his work in Cornwall with Tamar Grow Local in a seminar entitled ‘Building a local food system using learning from social and ecological systems: 10 years of Tamar Grow Local.’
Tamar Grow Local is an umbrella organisation that has established and supported over 20 different local food initiatives in the Tamar Valley to re-invigorate production and engagement in food growing and consumption. These range from community orchards and allotments, field-scale community growing and livestock co-operatives through to community-supported agriculture, produce co-operatives, co-operative market stalls, retail and wholesale food hubs and farmers’ markets and training. These have purposefully bridged community and commercial activity in order to build self-financing elements into community projects and to provide opportunities for progression from recreational growing through to self-employment. Tamar Grow Local has strategically networked these projects consciously using principles from social and ecological systems to develop a resilient local food system. Projects are ‘nested’ within each other to maximise mutual support and economies of scale. Communities and local businesses participate in a network that connects food with wider landscape management and health and wellbeing benefits.
The event will take place on Wednesday 8th November between 11:30 and 13:00 in Jennison Seminar Room 1.