29 years living in the bigger county of Portugal - Odemira…
29 years living in the countryside…growing up and seeing my grandparents, my parents, my neighbours making their farming…
Yes, where i live having even a little farm is a good way to run a little bit of crisis because in this way we don’t have to buy every food in supermarket (in big cities people have to buy everything).
Here my parents plant potatoes…my grandparents plant beans…my neighbour plants for example peas and then all of us have everything of this to eat. We share a lot. “if i have a lot i can give a little to you and you give me a little of what you plant” and like my father says “this is like in the old times”.
Personally I don’t meet any project of “community farming” but close to where i live i saw a project where City Hall has a big ground and gives all the conditions (for example water ) so that who wants can sow what they want. In my opinion this is a very good kind of project because gives to people some tools to fight the crisis with their own work and provides new relations between people.
How many hours per week do you evaluate it requires?
In the countryside, the tradition of food production does not seem to have been lost. You seem to indicate that it is still very present in your father’s mind. Multigenerational families or close relationships with family members also must help at keeping food production traditions.
In the larger cities, the family and neighbors ties are not as strong.
Do you participate in food production yourself? How many hours per week do you evaluate it requires? For those not familiar with food production, do you think that it is complicated, a difficult thing to learn? Do you make jars or transform some of the production to be eaten months later, or is it only to be eaten fresh?
How muchfooddo you produce,compared toyour total annual needs?Would it be possibleto produce more,andwhat would itrequire?
I can’t say to you the exactly number of hours that my parents or grandparents take to have their own farming.
My parents have their jobs and they do these things on free time, weekends…
I understand what you say…we grow up with these kind of traditions and maybe in larger cities isn’t so easy…but…why not?why can’t you have your own job all week and have a peace of land where you can plant?
The projects of community farms are growing.
answering to your questions…some food we freeze to eat later (peas, beans…) but there are some fruits and vegetables of the season that we eat fresh, for example lettuce, tomatoes, apples and so on.
Yes it’s possible produce more…if we have land and more time to that…
we don’t produce for our annual needs but what we produce helps a lot in our “home economy”.
There is a growing movement in Poland, that originates from urban food cooperatives (buying food straight from local farmers). A natural step up is to get into long-term relationship with one of farmers and combine her/his proficiency and land with enthusiasm and labour of cooperatists. In most developed cases (Freiburg, Germany for example) the cooperative owns the land and some of cooperatists are professional farmers, running the production. In Freiburg (http://www.gartencoop.org/freiburg/) every coop member spends 4 days per year working on the farm, plus some support for food distribution, plus paying share of cost coverage.
As a result they set up a well-balanced system, where, without commercial relationships, everyone has their needs covered. The completely excluded State and City Hall from their loop, which personally pleases me the most.
Anyway, going through the model of Community Supported Agriculture seems to be a way to lower the treshold between guerilla gardening and serious food poduction. And you need no-one to give you anything - it is purely a win-win system.
I remember when I was little used to stay at grand-grand parents in the countryside, of course those people did not work much with money, they would rather exchange fruit, vegetables, eggs, cheese and other milk products for other goods, just like you say. I’ll always remember taste and smells that I’ve never found afterwards, those of healthy life, in a sort of archaic way. I have a strong feeling some of those traditions aren’t lost.
You might be interested in this discussion on community agriculture as a way to strengthen resilience and increase well being. Also, an important question is: can this collaborative agriculture or growing own food be done in the city? apparently there are initiatives supporting it… and the UK is in the avantgarde e.g. with the long line for public allotments…
Thanks Lenia for taking the time to share this, hope I get to read more about your life in the countryside - in that it’s not clear if you still live there or not, and if not: do you know if the relations gone unchanged with the crisis or growing hardships, or even with aging ? what for the younger generations that at least now live so differently than our grandparents used to live, how do you see them taking care of those lands… ? My parents for example sold land when their grandparents died and there was no one to live and work the land… they sold it and bought an apartment in the city, which in light of these discussions we have on resilience seems a bit … I don’t know, disapointing?
And gone are my memories of that lifestyle and communion with nature.
movement in Poland, that originates from urban food cooperatives (buying food straight from local farmers). A natural step up is to get into long-term relationship with one of farmers and combine her/his proficiency and land with enthusiasm and labour of cooperatists. In most developed cases (Freiburg, Germany for example) the cooperative owns the land and some of cooperatists are professional farmers, running the production. In Freiburg (