[Diggers350] Allotments like gold dust as thousands join the queue

[Colin Donoghue]

The increasing demand cited in this article is a very good thing, more
people are realizing that the root of the tyranny and ecological/health
destruction is the forcible disconnection from the Earth, from living
Naturally, sustainably and more self-sufficiently (ideally in veganic
homestead communities, I explain why briefly here:
http://www.evolver.net/user/satyagrahi/blog/refining_path_freedom_veganic_homestead_communities).

The right to tax/rent free land is the key, every other proposed
reform/solution is just different shades of the same system, which is
fundamentally unjust, since land and water is a human right.  Demanding housing
as a right, or a garden plot as a right, is in the right direction, but
until people claim sovereignty with the land, declaring they are a human on
the Earth before they are a citizen of whatever country (human farm) they
were "born into", nothing will fundamentally change for the better.  What
does that mean exactly?  It means family sized groups (1-3 adults) claiming
2 acres or so of uncultivated arable land, growing veganic food and not
agreeing to pay land costs or taxes, since both are ultimately unjustifiable
and based in injustice.  This is the comprehensive solution that gets to the
root of all the social/personal/environmental problems we see around us now
and have existed throughout the history of farmed humanity.


*Allotments are like gold dust as thousands join the queue*Tuesday, August
> 02, 2011 - Western Daily Press
> http://www.thisissomerset.co.uk/Allotments-like-gold-dust-thousands-join-queue/story-13055414-detail/story.html
>
> Thousands of frustrated grow-your-own food enthusiasts are languishing on
> allotment waiting lists across the West.
> But a modern version of the wartime Dig For Victory campaign is starting to
> free the log-jam and proving a valuable cash crop for farmers.
> Organisations supporting self-help groups across the West want more
> landowners to offer sites for leasing.
> As National Allotment Week blossomed yesterday latest figures show there
> are more than 86,000 people waiting for allotment plots across England.
> A survey of major authorities showed that 57 people are waiting for every
> 100 existing plots, and that does not take into account parish and town
> council allotments.
> The West is the worst affected as Allan Cavill, regional director of the
> National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners Ltd explained.
> He said: “The West Country just does not have the industrial legacy that
> they have in the North where many more allotments were created. They don’t
> have waiting lists up there, but it’s totally different down here.”
> There may be fewer plots in the West but enthusiasm for grow-your-own could
> hardly be higher.
> Michael Ridgway, 71, is typical of many. As he worked the productive plot
> in Newton, Yeovil, Somerset, he shares with Diane Mather he said: “It’s a
> good site but we have had terrible trouble with badgers. They love the
> sweetcorn and we’ve had to fence them out.”
> Local authorities have a statutory duty to provide allotments, but where
> keeping up with the demand is proving impossible, there are other solutions.
> Mr Cavill said: “We have been very successful with self-help groups in the
> West of England in the last three years and they now number 50. I initially
> developed the model I now use for them with the National Trust. I go along
> and talk to the people who want to form a group, they then find a farmer who
> is willing to rent them land. We do all the legal side and with the grants
> that are available it is at zero cost to the community.”
> Mr Cavill believes that in practice leased sites can have a firm future
> because landowners find the deals worthwhile.
> Alan Rees, chairman of the NSALG, welcomes community food groups but is
> frustrated that local authority allotments, which are far more secure, do
> not qualify for grant aid.
> In Gloucester, the city council has 500 plots, some shared, plus 25 nursery
> sites. It has just brought another 55 half sites into use but has a waiting
> list of 272.
> The charity, Somerset Community Food, has developed the Food Mapper website
> for the county http://www.foodmapper.org.uk/map.php to host a digital
> directory of all the places, events and opportunities to learn, connected
> with locally grown food in Somerset.
>

-- 
“To sin by silence when we should protest makes cowards out of men.” -Ella
W. Willcox
http://colindonoghue.wordpress.com
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