Where the Leaves Fall - Resetting Global Food Systems (from issue #4)

Exploring humankind's connection with nature
WHERE THE LEAVES FALL
WHERE
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LEAVES
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Mutualism / Interconnectedness / Pandemic
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EDITORIAL
We edit and publish a quarterly magazine, Where the Leaves
Fall, exploring humankind’s connection with nature, created
in conversation with OmVed Gardens. Our aim is to amplify
under-represented voices, knowledge, and perspectives from
around the world, to inspire positive personal and social
change. Each issue of the magazine is divided into three
themed sections alongside a series of dialogues.
For the fourth issue of the magazine we came to reflect on
the pandemic, and how it has highlighted the fragility of
our food systems. Francis Mwanza introduces the section
Resetting Global Food Systems in which we meet a number of
extraordinary people from around the world who discuss their
initiatives to offer healthy sustenance to their communities.
_
Luciane and David / The editors / @wtlfmag
PHOTOGRAPH BY ANGELES RODENAS.
Subscribe for the magazine:
www.wheretheleavesfall.com
Sign up for the newsletter:
www.wheretheleavesfall.com/newsletter
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Introduction by Francis Mwanza
Global Food Systems
Interviews by David Reeve, Patrick Steel and Angeles Rodenas
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF COLECTIVO AHUEJOTE.
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As global food systems and
supply chains have been
disrupted by Covid-19, Francis
Mwanza, researcher and writer
on African and local foods,
and former head of office of
the United Nations World
Food Programme’s London
office, UK, introduces a series
of interviews looking at how
communities around the world
are adapting and finding local
food security solutions to
a pandemic-struck planet.
Many years ago I interviewed a Zambian village
elder who warned me against eating processed
foods, which are unhealthy and unreliable, and
recommended eating local foods. Any talk about
local foods, then and now, tends to focus on
vegetables, fruits and, sometimes, edible insects
like mopane worms or locusts, and very small
amounts of meat. This has helped my family during
this pandemic as we have been dependent
on our garden for cultivated and spontaneous
vegetables, just as the elder advised.
Covid-19 has brought renewed global focus on
local producers, local foods and food supply systems.
It has come at a time when global food needs
are at unprecedented levels, with one out of nine
people facing hunger every day and a record 168
million already requiring humanitarian assistance.
As the World Food Programme points out,
the Covid-19 pandemic is complicating existing
crises and threatening to worsen others, with
the potential for multiple famines in the coming
months. And the UN is reporting that there is
now a high risk that the broader disruptive effect
of Covid-19 will drive up levels of global food insecurity.
Yet one third of the food produced - that
could feed all of the world’s vulnerable people -
goes to waste.
This pandemic is but one example of likely crises
the world faces and should prepare for. Fixing
our broken food system is more urgent than ever
before. Everyone eats, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.
And everyone is involved in the food system,
whether the system is local, regional or global.
Unfortunately, the most common system is
the agro-industrial system, dominated by a few
multinational corporations, flooding markets with
predominantly processed foods, which include
unhealthy levels of sugar, salt, and fat, leading to
health issues like obesity, heart disease, high blood
pressure, and diabetes (all risk factors for Covid-19).
With lockdowns, sparked by the spread of
coronavirus, the global food system and its global
supply chains have been disrupted and continue
to be under pressure. The pandemic is negatively
and seriously affecting economies and daily life
everywhere.
Now, after years marked by limited access to
food, particularly for the poorest, rising or often
fluctuating prices, ecological threats to seed diversity,
and what is generally referred to as “food
sovereignty”, Covid-19 is demanding that we hit
the reset button on our broken food system.
Local food systems are becoming stronger
because of their short supply chain, minimally
processed food from local farmers, and food that
fits local consumption habits. The push now is for
resilient and sustainable food systems for urban
centres, peri-urban and rural areas, with increasing
emphasis on sufficient and diverse local production,
affordable prices, good quality, healthy
eating, and a stable food supply.
In major cities, whether it be New York, Kigali,
Harare, Bogota, Mumbai, or Lahore, an increasing
number of people are responding creatively with
non-traditional farming methods: tunnel, vertical
and micro gardening. We are now seeing more
rooftop gardens in unlikely places in both developed
and developing countries.
These methods are helping shorten supply
chains, ensuring access to fresh foods, with a
smaller carbon footprint compared with the international
food supply chain. Restaurants are
also engaging in precision indoor gardening. And
chefs in the mainstream restaurants are exploring
local markets for local ingredients and hitherto
little-used food plants.
In Africa and Latin America, for example, it is estimated
that some 360 million residents are already
engaged in urban or peri-urban local food production.
In Fiji, home gardening is being promoted and
funded by the government as a direct response to
Covid-19 and the challenges of the disrupted food
supply chain. And there is another push: a push for
“ancestral” foods. There is now a stronger movement
trying to protect rare indigenous seeds and
take seeds back to tribal communities.
Traditional lifestyles and eating locally-grown
or locally-available spontaneous plants are being
seen as an effective arsenal to dampen the effects
of the broken global food system and improve the
health of local communities with nutritional, rich,
local foods. While conventional vegetables like
cabbage, lettuce and spinach are often heavily
dependent on inputs such as fertilisers and pesticides,
the cost of which continue to rise and
can have negative impacts on the environment,
traditional vegetables like amaranth and African
egg plant have an advantage because they produce
well without such inputs. This holds out the
prospect of a broad, hardy, nutritionally-sound local
food base, which does not require inputs (that
many local farmers cannot afford).
Covid-19 is fuelling the fire for addressing the
failures of an inequitable and broken global food
system and demanding that we address food security
issues differently. As the interviews in this
section show, the pandemic may be hurting us and
undermining food security for the poorest, but it is
also helping to highlight the necessity for thriving
local and regional food systems, and focus on Indigenous,
sustainable, and nutritious local foods.
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1.
2.
6.
5.
3.
4.
US
1. Samuel S. T. Pressman, founder,
Samuel’s Food Gardens
Samuel founded Samuel’s Food
Gardens in Brooklyn, New York, to
inspire and teach city dwellers
how to grow food at home. His first
rooftop garden was built during
the pandemic, in May 2020, on a
rooftop patio in Brooklyn to provide
food for himself and his flatmates,
and he has partnered with
the RETI Center to work on food
security and rapid resilience health
initiatives like Covid-19 testing and
mask handouts.
PHILIPPINES
2. Cherrie Atilano, founder
and CEO, AGREA
Cherrie founded AGREA to focus
on sustainable agriculture in the
Philippines, a country of more
than 7,000 islands. The country is
reliant on Vietnam and Thailand for
rice, and food imports are flown or
shipped to the islands. AGREA is
working to connect local farmers
with local markets, and promote
gardening and farming to ensure
food security for the country.
SIERRA LEONE
3. Fatmata Mansaray, Kenema
Kola Nut producer, member
of the Slow Food Network
Fatmata is a community educator
and an activist in the fields of sustainable
agriculture and development.
She is active in the 10,000
Gardens in Africa project, which
includes the establishment of gardens
in schools to provide healthy
food for schoolchildren. She is
committed to the diffusion of slow
food values, consumer education,
training the next generation, and
promoting local biodiversity.
TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
4. Alpha Sennon, founder, WhyFarm
Alpha launched WhyFarm in 2015
to promote sustainable agriculture
to young people through what he
terms agri-edutainment. WhyFarm
also runs the Farmers Collective,
through which new farmers come
together and exchange labour,
goods, and products. One of Why-
Farm’s signature projects is the
creation of a superhero character
called Agriman, the world’s most
powerful food provider, who is
there to ensure that children eat
healthily and don’t waste one grain
of rice.
PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF SAMUEL’S FOOD GARDENS (1), AGREA (2), SLOW FOOD INTERNATIONAL (3), WHYFARM (4),
ST RAPHAEL EDIBLE GARDEN (5), COLECTIVO AHUEJOTE (6), HÁBITAT SUR (7), PROJECT MUMBAI (8).
UK
5. Jim Sheeran, manager,
St Raphael Edible Garden
Jim manages the St Raphael Edible
Garden, which is based on St
Raphael’s estate, the most disadvantaged
neighbourhood in Brent,
London. The garden also hosts the
Sufra food bank and community
hub, which distributes food and
support to vulnerable people and
families living in extreme poverty,
helping them to survive, improve
their wellbeing, and find work to
become financially stable.
MEXICO
6. Raúl Mondragón, founder,
Colectivo Ahuejote
Raúl founded Colectivo Ahuejote to
work with farmers in the Xochimilco
lake area to the south of Mexico
7.
City, first settled by the Aztecs,
where floating islands known as
chimpanas are farmed according
to traditional methods. The
organisation’s focus is on building
a sustainable agrifood system, connecting
the farmers to consumers
and local markets through sales
networks and eco-tourism.
COLOMBIA
7. Adriana Bueno, founder,
Hábitat Sur
Adriana founded Hábitat Sur to
highlight and preserve the social,
cultural and ecological wealth of
the Amazon. Her organisation runs
the Hábitat Sur Nature Reserve, a
responsible tourism project based
on agroecological principles; the
NgüeChica Cultural Centre, which
focuses on the intergenerational
transmission of knowledge from
the elders of the Indigenous Tikuna,
Yagua and Kokama tribes to the
younger generations; and El Rastrojo
Cultural and Environmental
Centre, a local market on the outskirts
of Leticia for artists, artisans,
farmers, and entrepreneurs.
INDIA
8. Shishir Joshi, co-founder,
Project Mumbai
Shishir founded Project Mumbai
in 2018 as a not for profit to
promote civic empowerment and
volunteering. During the pandemic
Project Mumbai was a partner in
the launch of Khaanachahiye, an
initiative to provide food relief to
people affected by the lockdown,
feeding over 6 million people
across the region.
8.
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How has the pandemic affected you and your
community?
Cherrie (Philippines): It was harvest time in the
Philippines when the lockdown started in March.
A lot of produce was harvested because usually 8
million tourists come to the country for the summer;
people are on the beach, and the restaurants
need to be supplied. Then all of a sudden
this pandemic just collapsed everything. There
was produce rotting on farmers’ fields, no market
any more, and a lot of restrictions were on the
farmers. There was also a stigma around leaving
the house with the Covid-19 virus around and a
lot of the farming communities were not allowed
to leave their houses to go to the farm.
Adriana (Colombia): The Amazon was one of the
regions of Colombia most affected by the virus,
with a rate of infections per 100,000 inhabitants
that was 42.9 times the national average. Food
supplies (non-perishable food and some fruits
and vegetables that are difficult to grow locally)
come to Leticia either by plane from Bogota, from
Tabatinga in Brazil, or from Iquitos in Peru. With
the lockdown, all borders were closed both for
goods and people, and the closure of the airport
and ports severely affected the food delivery
chain to the region.
Fatmata (Sierra Leone): With experience of the
2014 Ebola outbreak in mind, in which Sierra Leone
saw 14,000 cases and nearly 4,000 deaths,
the government developed a Covid-19 preparedness
plan three weeks before its first case was
confirmed. This enabled the Ministry of Health to
quickly identify, test and quarantine most of the
primary contacts of any cases, limiting the spread
of the disease.
Raúl (Mexico): In Mexico the lockdown was not
that strict, but people got scared and didn’t want
to go out to buy things - so in one way the food
system, from the consumer-end, changed. The
central market, Central De Abasto, was a red alert
place - there were a lot of contagious people - so
some producers stopped supplying it and started
to look for other channels to get their produce out.
Walmart and the supermarkets, like Amazon,
got very strong because of home delivery. And
some social spheres, like the middle classes and
upper middle classes, stopped going out to buy
their groceries but switched to buying online to
get whatever they wanted. For the lower social
classes, they have to live, they have to buy dayby-day,
so they still went to the market.
Samuel (US): When Covid-19 hit New York City,
the grocery stores immediately went into chaos.
They were unable to keep up with the demand for
fresh food due to a breakdown in the nationwide
macro food distribution system, in which food is
imported from around the world and also travels
several states to get here.
Not only were stores largely out of produce,
but the prices went up. Due to the price spikes
and inconsistent availability of fresh produce,
many low-income residents and families have
been forced to buy what they can afford, which
is all highly processed food items. In some areas,
I have also seen the price of a couple of large
tomatoes costing more than a loaf of bread and
peanut butter combined.
Adriana (Colombia): During the first couple of
weeks of the lockdown, food price speculation
started to be an issue even when there was still
enough food to supply the local market. This was
more to do with a move by local supermarkets to
make the most out of the beginning of the crisis
and the panic-shopping wave that hit as soon as
the lockdown was announced.
Fatmata (Sierra Leone): With the closure of restaurants
and hotels in Sierra Leone, demand for
higher end food categories, such as meat and
fresh produce, was already depressed. In the
medium- to long-term, demand is likely to fall further
as more people could lose their jobs, disproportionately
affecting low-income earners and
informal jobs in urban and rural areas.
Given that lower-income households often
spend 60% to 70% of their incomes on food,
even a moderate reduction could lead to nutritional
problems from skipping meals, reducing caloric
intake, or switching to cheaper but less nutritious
Rodney Dawkins, who has lived on
St Raphael’s Estate with his wife
for eight years, had never seriously
contemplated eating from the plot
to the table before the pandemic
struck. Furloughed from his job
as a warehouse supervisor, and
with his children back home from
university, gardening his patch
has provided him with space
and a sense of purpose. “It was
just a bushy garden full of weeds
before the lockdown”, he says.
Now he is growing tomatoes, peas,
lettuce, green beans, cabbage,
peppers, and lemon and orange
trees. He says it has given him a
greater appreciation for nature,
and by replacing a daily intake of
chocolate with strawberries he
has improved his diet. “Compared
to the food from the supermarkets
this is much fresher and tastes
much sweeter,” he says. Although
far from self-sufficient, he adds,
it has also been a money saver.
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foods. This is likely to be exacerbated by school
closures, given that school meals and our Slow
Food Schools Gardens programme are often a
major source of nutrition for children.
them do not have space to grow their own food,
and a large proportion of the population derive
their income either from tourism-related activities,
commerce, or from the informal economy.
Not all new growers have a
garden. Claudette Drummond
lives in a top floor flat in a block
on St Raphael’s Estate but the
lack of space hasn’t prevented
her from growing potted
brussels sprouts, tomatoes,
lavender and rosemary along
the walkway. “I’m hoping the
pumpkin plant will go all the way
up the drainpipe and around
the kitchen window,” she says.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANGELES RODENAS (THIS PAGE, PREVIOUS PAGE AND PAGES 108-109).
Shishir (India): The pandemic affected everyone,
but most of all the marginalised communities living
in underprivileged pockets across the city.
Mumbai is home to around 7.1 million migrants.
These people were mostly employed as daily
wage labourers or engaged in menial jobs, many
in the infrastructure and construction business.
The lockdown adversely impacted this informal
sector by completely pausing their wages.
Jim (UK): Our food bank in north London had a
huge increase in demand for food from people
who lost their jobs. The produce in our garden
wasn’t hugely affected because it was the start
of the growing season, but our volunteers didn’t
have the opportunity to devote their time to
coming once a week to the garden - they were
told to stay away - and it affected them mentally.
It didn’t have an impact on growing produce because
I diverted my attention from my management
responsibilities to focus on growing.
Alpha (Trinidad and Tobago): When the pandemic
got to Trinidad we were on a full lockdown,
everywhere closed down, and everyone wanted
to plant something because that was like the
most common activity to do. No one knew what
was going to happen with food. So everyone was
trying to secure their own plate.
Adriana (Colombia): During the crisis Indigenous
communities were able to rely on their chagras
(smallholdings) to produce a large part of their
food, and most of them either fished or hunted
to provide their families with animal protein.
In many communities we visited, people told us
that before the pandemic, they were not working
the land because they were getting income from
tourism, but now most families have gone back to
work their chagras with the realisation that food
sovereignty is critical for their people.
For most of the city dwellers, the food and
economic crisis was more severe as most of
Jim (UK): There was a chronic shortfall of topsoil
and compost because everybody was ordering
these. It was very difficult to get hold of seeds
and there were also delays in receiving plot
plants. The whole world ground to a halt due to
shortages of goods and delays in delivery. Placing
orders online was difficult as well.
Fatmata (Sierra Leone): This pandemic imposed
shocks on all the parts of the food supply chains,
simultaneously affecting farm production, food
processing, transport, logistics, and final demand.
Many farm owners in the Kenema District
reported high rates of worker absences. For example,
farm worker availability was reduced by up
to 35% among the kola nut producers in the regions
of the country worst hit by Covid-19.
The government made encouraging steps to
allow the agriculture sector to continue to operate
during lockdowns and movement restrictions,
including recognising agriculture as an essential
service. But there was a lot of uncertainty over
what was allowed and what wasn’t.
Shishir (India): As the lockdown began it was
about providing cooked meals for the hungry.
Mumbai was in economic shutdown. Kitchens
were shut, which meant no manpower. Borders
were shut, which meant procurement of raw material
for cooking was a challenge. To add to it, the
virus was spreading fast, which meant there was
no one to transport or deliver anything.
Cherrie (Philippines): Logistics were not available.
So if you got a truck to drive your produce
to the city, there was no driver. They were all
afraid to drive from the mountains to Metro Manila,
which is the central business district of the
Philippines, composed of 16 mega cities, with a
population of around 13 million people. They were
afraid that they would bring the virus back to their
community. So it was a nightmare. If you go to a
supermarket it takes two hours minimum of your
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time; you have to go through the line, following
the physical social distancing, and there is only a
limited selection.
Adriana (Colombia): We saw a shortage in local
produce like fruits, vegetables and staples such
as plantain and cassava, which are grown by Indigenous
farmers. They were on lockdown in their
communities as a measure imposed by the Indigenous
authorities to protect their people from
the virus. Fish was also scarce since the lockdown
started as fishermen from the communities
were not allowed to enter the city, and the main
fish and farmers market in Leticia was shut down.
How are you addressing the issues raised by
the pandemic?
Cherrie (Philippines): We launched the Move
Food initiative, bringing food from rural farms to
Metro Manila. We helped the farmers bring their
produce to the market, but rather than restaurants,
the markets were now households or individuals.
So we created an online ordering system
for them.
Alpha (Trinidad and Tobago): We started a
movement called Plant Yuh Plate, literally planting
what you want to consume on your plate. We
started providing seeds and seedlings, and soil
and growboxes. It generated revenue as well as
starting to build a community.
Based on the food we have on the farm, and in
collaboration with neighbouring farmers, we also
developed a project called Dash-een Yuh Doorstep
market (dasheen is a tropical plant that produces
edible corns), which is essentially a food
box that is delivered to your doorstep, focused
especially on the elderly people in the community,
because they are the most vulnerable ones
and they don’t want to come out to the market.
Adriana (Colombia): Before the national lockdown
was imposed, foreseeing the food-related
issues that it would create in the region, Hábitat
Sur and La Confianza (our family’s company) partnered
to start a food security initiative we called
La Cosecha - Trueque Amazónico (the harvest -
Amazonian barter). The main aim of this initiative
was to guarantee local food security.
Shishir (India): Project Mumbai has been at the
forefront of the Covid-19 fight in Mumbai and this
region. What started out as a volunteer-driven
support to provide meals, medicines and groceries
to senior citizens living alone, soon also led
to providing cooked meals to doctors and hospital
kitchens of all the frontline hospitals - almost
1,500 a day.
Project Mumbai also provided grocery kits to
over 20,000 families, and we co-founded a citizen-driven
mission to provide cooked meals to
the increasing numbers of hungry people. The initiative,
which is called Khaanachahiye, has at last
count provided over 4,500,000 meals across the
Mumbai metropolitan region.
Raúl (Mexico): Our main task, during the pandemic,
was how to be an alternative for those people
who were not going out, how can we get to their
houses. So we targeted the middle classes with
food delivery to their houses and from collection
points. And for the lower classes, we sold in the
public market.
Samuel (US): I am currently in talks with Rethink
Food, working to take leftover food from restaurants
and stores, from which their chefs create a
delicious recipe, and their cooks prepare those
meals to distribute each week. I am looking to
contribute high nutrient microgreens and herbs
to use for the cooking. They distribute hundreds
of meals each week to low-income populations
throughout Brooklyn.
Jim (UK): When Covid-19 came along, I thought:
“There are a lot of empty back yards out there, I
wonder if I could do something useful with raised
beds?” So I made 10 of them and went round
the neighbours and asked them if they wanted
a hand to sort out their patches. It improved the
profile of our expertise and helped our neighbours
realise their ability to grow food. It took
on a life of its own and our neighbours are now
growing their own vegetables to supplement
their consumption.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF COLECTIVO AHUEJOTE.
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2.
5.
1.
4.
3.
PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF COLECTIVO AHUEJOTE (1 & 7), PROJECT MUMBAI (2), SAMUEL’S FOOD GARDENS (3 & 6), AGREA (4), HÁBITAT SUR (5), WHYFARM (8).
Opening image: Preparing a
mud nursery bed at Colectivo
Ahuejote, Mexico.
Double page spread: St Raphael
Edible Garden in Brent, UK.
Previous page: A chinampa
in the Xochimilco lake area
to the south of Mexico City.
These pages: 1 & 7 - Colectivo
Ahuejote, Mexico; 2 - Project
Mumbai, India; 3 & 6 - Samuel’s
Food Gardens, US; 4 - AGREA,
Philippines; 5 - Hábitat Sur,
Colombia; 8 - WhyFarm, Trinidad
and Tobago.
6.
8.
7.
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PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF SLOW FOOD INTERNATIONAL, © PAULO VIESI (THIS PAGE AND NEXT PAGE).
Adriana (Colombia): In the first week of the lockdown,
my brother took a group of workers, fully
equipped with protective gear, and a truck full
of non-perishable food and personal and home
cleaning products, and drove to the furthest Indigenous
settlement that can be accessed by
land. We had previously coordinated with the Indigenous
leaders, so when we arrived, dozens of
families were already waiting with bags full of lemons,
oranges, yuca, plantains, bananas, papayas
and many other fruits to be exchanged for what
we had brought. No money was involved. We mutually
agreed on the value of each product to be
bartered and we used our own currency, which
we call semillas (seeds), to facilitate the exchange.
Then in Bogota, we set up a door-to-door delivery
system to bring baskets of fresh produce to
families in the city, encouraging them to eat local
and to support Amazon farmers. By leveraging
donations from different sources we were able to
give the baskets to the most vulnerable families
in the city, a side of the initiative we called La Cosecha
Solidaria (the solidarity harvest). Through
this system we delivered more than 4,000 food
baskets to families during the quarantine.
Raúl (Mexico): We cannot compete with a Walmart,
but we tried to be an alternative in terms
of logistics, because people wanted grocery
delivery, and an alternative in sales. Through
WhatsApp groups we have built a business sales
programme. When the restrictions got really
tough in April, May, and June, the sales went up
420% for three months.
Cherrie (Philippines): We used Viber, a mobile
messaging service, to work with people who had
access to their community Viber group. And most
of the time these Viber groups, for example the
one in our village, were around 800 household
members, and we sold there. So during the pandemic,
each village or each subdivision of apartments
developed a Viber group, or a Whatsapp
group, or a Facebook group.
And these groups were like an online marketplace:
someone was selling meat, someone was
selling cakes, everyone was in their house, everyone
was sharing recipes, everyone was cooking.
Someone was even selling alcohol and masks. It
was like a marketplace put together by different
households. Instead of going down the department
store or supermarket, you just needed to
message your Viber group and they delivered to
you. It was more of a village, or community-based
ecosystem, that’s happening: a village industry.
Alpha (Trinidad and Tobago): We created a
WhatsApp group to reach people. Plant Yuh
Plate became a big community in our WhatsApp
group. It was created for beginners, people with
an interest in planting but no clue how to do it.
We have one or two experts in the group, actual
agronomists, so they provide really good sound
information. We exchange knowledge, exchange
information, exchange produce - we barter.
Cherrie (Philippines): Ordering online was easy,
but bringing the food was difficult. We were hustling
to bring the produce in 12 hours to Metro Manila
to the customers who needed it, but with this
initiative we saved around 173,000 kilos of fruit
and vegetables, helping around 11,000 farmers,
and feeding around 68,000 households. If you
think the average household in the Philippines
is around seven people, then that’s almost half a
million people that we fed with fresh produce. We
also donated to community kitchens that cooked
for front liners, so we fed around 4,000 doctors,
nurses, guards, and hospital staffers.
Adriana (Colombia): As we continued visiting
communities every week, more families from
more communities joined, getting to the point
where around 1,000 families from around ten different
Indigenous communities were participating
in the barter every month. These interactions
created a beautiful bond of trust between us and
community members, as our only commitment
was to be there every week for each other, and
our only tie was our word.
Alpha (Trinidad and Tobago): With the Dash-een
Yuh Doorstep market, a lot of the elderly folks,
who are the clients, rated our delivery service, so
it was just an interaction, but I believe in giving
people more value. Sometimes you went to drop
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Previous page: Farmer
and primary school teacher
Mustapha Moigua harvesting
the kola nut from the Cola
nitida tree in the Kenema
District of Sierra Leone.
This page: Kola nuts being
prepared. After the nuts are
removed from the husks
they are soaked in water
for about 24 hours to
soften the skin, which is
then removed by hand.
Next page: St Raphael’s
Edible Garden.
off a bag of food to an elderly person and they
may just have been there, no one to talk to, and
while you might have been busy they may have
started conversations and you just put a smile on
their face. So we provided food, we provided a
smile, and I think that added more to their day.
What does the future hold for your community
and the world at large?
Fatmata: In Sierra Leone, countless people are
struggling to make it through the day. That has
always been true, and it remains true now; this
virus has categorically not affected all people
equally. The most vulnerable are those living in
poverty and those forced to leave their homes
because of conflict, disaster, or the lack of decent
work locally.
At the same time, the pandemic has shown us
that pathways to a better future do exist - a future
in which we can work together to build a different
kind of society and find ways of protecting our
planet instead of harming it.
Cherrie (Philippines): During the lockdown a lot
of our movers, who helped us sell fruit and vegetables
in their complexes, messaged us saying
it’s the first time they’ve got to know their
neighbours, so we are going back to the basics
of knowing each other, and taking care of our
neighbours, sharing with our neighbours what
our grandmother is cooking or selling.
The urban community is getting stronger, and
there is huge recognition of how valuable agriculture
is, that agriculture is the mother of all industries.
You cannot forget agriculture to grow your
own economy as a country. And to achieve food
security globally I would encourage everyone to
learn how to enjoy growing your own food.
Adriana (Colombia): I think the world has been
rapidly changing for decades now. This pandemic
is just another ring of the bell to make us wake up
and see all the damage human activities have cost
the environment - making us realise that everything
we do to our planet we do it to ourselves.
Food sovereignty is the only way to untangle
ourselves and our communities from that web.
If you cannot grow your own food then eat what
is locally produced, know where your food comes
from, support small famers even when their tomatoes
might not look as big, red and shiny as
the ones produced in laboratories. But, be assured,
they will be more delicious, healthier, and
your purchase will be helping to sustain a family.
Fatmata (Sierra Leone): At the heart of food
sovereignty lies radical egalitarianism. The attainment
of such an objective entails building a
society in which the equality-distorting effects of
sexism, patriarchy, racism and class power have
been eradicated and in which democracy can
truly operate.
Jim (UK): People in England need to realise that
getting mangetout from South Africa, for example,
cannot be taken for granted. It continues the
poverty cycle because the profit goes to whoever
is selling the product on the shelf, the fuel and
transport, and the people at source are probably
paid very little.
In that sense it’s criminal because people can
easily grow on a seasonal basis on their front
door. And people need to realise that to pick
something from a vine, give it a wipe and put it
in your mouth does not kill you. But people are
very reticent to get their hands dirty. We need to
change the perspective on that.
Alpha (Trinidad and Tobago): Every location,
every locality, should focus on their local farmers.
A local production would be way better for gaps
in food security in the world and, of course, another
aspect of food security that people often
forget is nutrition. We need to understand and go
back to making food our medicine, and not medicine
our food. It’s about changing those conversations
into action. Now is the time for less talk,
more walk.
Raúl (Mexico): The pandemic showed that farm
to table is pretty easy to do, because all those
factories with all that manufacturing that makes
your food live longer, they are all closed, so
there’s nowhere to go but from the farm straight
to your table.
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WHERE THE LEAVES FALL
WHERE THE LEAVES FALL
Cherrie (Philippines): Hopefully now we can consolidate
the system we developed in lockdown for
the farming communities to unite so we can serve
the demands of these growing urban communities.
So what I’m looking for after this, hopefully, is
that the rural community will also respond to that.
Samuel (US): New York City’s future is complicated,
as is the case for any coastal city or giant city
with little open land still available. The reality is that
cities in general have a drastic imbalance in pervious
to impervious land ratios. The historical act of
paving over large tracts of natural ground and creating
countless forms of barriers against natural
water and resource flow has led to the expensive
issues of flooding, urban heat island, pollution of
air, water, and soil, and great loss of biodiversity.
If cities want to achieve goals like New York
City’s zero waste by 2030, urban-heat island solutions
by 2040, or no more fossil fuels by 2050, it
is vital that they look to rezone to allow for more
access to land, go all-in with investing in urban
ecological re-integration in general, and rapidly
scale localised food systems.
Shishir (India): I think the way forward is a more
respectable public-private-partnership [between
government and civic society]. The need is for the
state to respect the role of the non-profit sector.
During our experiences distributing food through
the Covid-19 lockdown, we realised our goal to
im prove the crisis management infrastructure in
Mumbai, and that it could be achieved working
alongside the Municipal Corporation of Greater
Mumbai and the State Government of Maharashtra.
There is a lack of actionable data about the
severity of hunger in Mumbai. So we will be conducting
data analyses to generate a “hunger map”.
It is the first project of its kind in this country, and
we will design interventions based on our analyses,
to ensure an adequate level of nutrition in the
population and ensure effective implementation
of government policies aimed at reducing poverty
and vulnerability in urban poor households.
Adriana (Colombia): Many small changes are
feasible at a larger scale. For example, if the government
is already investing in large housing projects
for the most vulnerable families, why not try,
for instance, organising the available space so
that each family can have a small garden to plant
some of their food. This would have a huge impact
on the local food system.
Jim (UK): If more people took up gardening that
would be a step in the right direction. When you
get your hands dirty and work on a micro scale
you are going to see that it is making a difference.
Everybody needs to be inspired to take that first
step. Individuals making small differences that
impact their local community will help to bring
change over time.
Adriana (Colombia): I believe first individuals,
then families, neighbourhoods, schools, small
towns and communities can commit to a more
sustainable and harmonious way of inhabiting
their territories. Introducing changes in the way
we build our home, produce our food and energy,
nourish the soil, and treat our water and our
waste, to set an example that shows others that
these small changes are possible in our context
and with resources that are available locally for
everyone who wants to implement them.
Raúl (Mexico): In Mexico City, the three most rural
boroughs are really disconnected from the
centre. We need to bring the citizens together
so they can enjoy these city dynamics, and not
wait for the tomato that comes from the northern
states, because we have the tomato here. It’s a
clichéd statement, but I always think that it’s real:
act local, think global. Doing small changes in your
own place, we can go bigger out there.
Cherrie (Philippines): For me, during this “new
normal”, I want to say that we always focus on
sustainability, but I guess resilience is more powerful.
And to go to our resilience we need to be
resilient as individuals, and that is really going
back to the land, utilising our land properly, eating
healthily from our own produce. But at the same
time building that strong sense of community,
because that’s what makes us survive.
–
Full interviews will be available on our website.
PHOTOGRAPH BY ANGELES RODENAS.
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WHERE THE LEAVES FALL
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE
Also in
this issue:
In Favour of Life
Drawing inspiration from Brazil’s Landless Workers’
Movement, chef, author and food activist
Bela Gil believes agroecology is key to averting
climate change and ending food poverty.
My Garden My Kingdom
Syrian refugee Khadija Mura offers an account of
life as a refugee and how the community garden
became a vital source of nutritious food as the
Domiz 1 refugee camp in Iraq became isolated by
the approach of the virus.
Nature’s Agent
We consider the agricultural legacy of 19th century
agriculturalist George Washington Carver, a
man who took his daily instructions from nature,
and whose life and words remain relevant today.
And the rest…
This issue explores mutualist art practices, in
which artists form a reciprocal relationship with
non-humans. We also examine how colonial history
has left a broken ecosystem in the mountains of
Nilgiris in India, and how the same history has led
to ancestral philosophies travelling across the
continents. We find that connections we share
can reveal more commonality than difference.
Three of these stories have roots in India, and we
invite you to muse on the connections and relationships
between them.
Issue #5
The latest issue focuses on the themes of water,
technology, and cosmos. Features include how
ice, traditionally a symbol of eternity and stasis,
has become a metaphor for change and decay
in contemporary art; John Francis Serwanga, the
World Food Programme’s hydroponics expert,
tells us how hydroponics is transforming school
gardens in Zambia; and science writer Jo Marchant
describes the awe felt by astronauts looking
back at earth and how most of us don’t confront
our fear of the vast unknown in the same way.
It also examines how the micro-photography of
early 20th century naturalist and filmmaker F. Percy
Smith revealed new ways of seeing everything
from flowers to frogspawn.
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