Crops Not Shops: For Health and Food Security,

from ainfos

The pandemic has caused many people to question how food is grown and who controls its production and distribution. Capitalist agricultural practices are a major cause of climate change and food insecurity around the world, including the UK. Good quality food, like housing, is a basic necessity and should be available to all. Given that the current food industry is about profits rather than needs, many people have begun to take control over both food production and consumption. Already pre-lockdown there were a number of alternative food projects including community gardens, organic city farms and community kitchens, but with the inadequacies of the supermarket system and the hardship endured by many people, the concept of DIY food has taken off even more. This article showcases Crops NOT Shops and is based on information from the blog, Alternative Estuary: https://alternativeestuary.home.blog/2020/06/23/crops-not-shops-dig-for-....

Crops NOT Shops is a guerrilla gardening project that is made up of a fast growing community of people stepping away from the unsatisfactory and unreliable retail food supply supermarket cash removal machines to taking control of their own living spaces, food and diet, by investing in growing and managing their own food supply. They recognise that: "a huge foundation of system change lies in what we eat, where we get it, how to ensure it is in permanent supply, and, costs as little financially as possible".

Mission Statement and Introduction: https://youtu.be/03ZyOHMw3eQ

"The project has been running just a couple of months but has already unified 800 active community members and is growing by the day. They have just started their 14th community site since January 2020, there is a vibrant seed, seedling, knowledge and work team sharing group that are also establishing contacts with other similar and related groups such as "Food Communities" , "Foraging UK" and "Grow Cheshunt". Their principles are:

Shared Food
Ethical growing
Chemical and cruelty free
Shared Knowledge
Community Support Network
The more free food available in the community also means less cash clogging up checkout registers in your supermarkets. In line with the obvious we can take from this being that food, power, fuel, shelter are the core components to life that tie us to work , school, education, taxation slavery has not gone unnoticed by the powers that be".

The Covid 19 pandemic motivated many people to get involved because clearly the government and supermarkets were not coping. Not only were shelves empty but with many people losing jobs and income the high prices of supermarkets made it difficult for people to feed themselves.

"We hit Brexit in January, traffic through the ports slowed and failed to complete their journeys, port delays, Dover and Calais were on full stop from January 16th doe to port blockages even and still we are experiencing delays into mid-May. Perishables were not making their delivery window, and, permit transport papers were not stamped. Highways England were tasked with managing the back log of traffic through the ports on this side of the channel. Yet the British press reported the reason for shelves running bare was due to pandemic hoarding and greed, seriously?, How many times did you see that same photo of the overweight guy with two trolleys of toilet roll at Costco be used in the papers up and down the country? The Government cannot be trusted manage retail food supply for the people. Here is a little more reading to check out:

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-04-20/anarchist-farm-a-revolutio....";
Growing food and finding ways to share this food among those who need it is a key form of mutual aid. It is a way of building united, resilient communities, the foundation for solidarity in other struggles.

Want to set up your own sister group driving the change in your area?

Here is the group page link for crops NOT shops: https://www.facebook.com/groups/824963631333587/

For more information on food, health and capitalism, see the new ACG pamphlet:

anarchistcommunism.org/2020/07/02/crops-not-shops

There are 4 Comments

"Capitalist agricultural practices are a major cause of climate change..."

16 cargo ships produce the bulk of the world's pollution. Nice try though. Animal ag accounts for 2% of ghg in the US.

Are you referring to industrial mono-cropping? Even then, it's not a matter of air pollution, but: fertilizer processing and runoff, displacing and killing diverse species through pesticides and filling (something pasture raising animals restores, as well as provides a carbon sink for), and needing copious irrigation water (non-renewable sources) as well as commercialized honey bee operations for (83% of hives involved in almond growing die off due to a parasit). The Cavendish banana species is currently experiencing a worldwide parasite and will die off much the same way as the species it replaced for commercial use in the early 1900s.

The UN FAO projects 59 growing cycles left for industrial mono-cropping. Only 800 million hectares of land can be used to grow crops. Far less than what can be pastured (as the world wasn't all once forested but contains many grasslands). The soil has been depleted of magnesium, and the vital sulphuric compounds found in MSM for our joint health, and domesticated fruits and veg have been need for weight in indigestible fibre and sugar content.

The BULK of pollution comes from transportation. Why a species wants to keep its precious more recent cars and kill off its own food supply is beyond me.

Is everyone suicidal?

Do we really need to not eat and take care of the land so we can keep the ships and vehicles polluting? Sounds like a really inhuman and inhumane world.

This article is written by out of touch city folk.

Farmers in the US are committing suicide at an extraordinary rate. This is not good. And to continue to attack this way isn't helping us get food directly controlled by our own hands (and away from fucking corporation that consolidate so much of the process).

Nice tryyy, but that's just not what the claim from mainstream news is saying...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1229857/How-16-ships-cre...

"Last week it was revealed that 54 oil tankers are anchored off the coast of Britain, refusing to unload their fuel until prices have risen.

But that is not the only scandal in the shipping world. Today award-winning science writer Fred Pearce – environmental consultant to New Scientist and author of Confessions Of An Eco Sinner – reveals that the super-ships that keep the West in everything from Christmas gifts to computers pump out killer chemicals linked to thousands of deaths because of the filthy fuel they use.

We've all noticed it. The filthy black smoke kicked out by funnels on cross-Channel ferries, cruise liners, container ships, oil tankers and even tugboats.

It looks foul, and leaves a brown haze across ports and shipping lanes. But what hasn’t been clear until now is that it is also a major killer, probably causing thousands of deaths in Britain alone.

As ships get bigger, the pollution is getting worse. The most staggering statistic of all is that just 16 of the world’s largest ships can produce as much lung-clogging sulphur pollution as all the world’s cars.

Because of their colossal engines, each as heavy as a small ship, these super-vessels use as much fuel as small power stations. (and blablabla...)"

So yeah... totally badly-sourced claim on your part.

BUUUUT.... Here's for you 11 ways to improve your online reading skills!

https://resilienteducator.com/classroom-resources/ten-free-reading-compr...

"it's not a matter of air pollution, but: fertilizer processing and runoff, displacing and killing diverse species through pesticides ... copious irrigation water ..."

ALL POLLUTION MATTERS!

Add new comment