Incredible Edible Loughborough spreading its food mission

This article was first published in the Loughborough Echo. Written by Susan Newcombe. Read it here.

SPRING is in the step of a grow­ing group as it sows its seeds more widely and digs in for closer com­munity con­nec­tions.

Incred­ible Edible Lough­bor­ough shared its exper­i­ence of reclaim­ing pub­lic spaces to grow food at a well­being event at Coalville CAN (com­munity and neigh­bours) as its shoots also reached Sileby where a new group formed in the approach to the equi­nox. The local reneg­ade garden­ers led by chair­man Julian Rees have also been in dis­cus­sions with the Mario Tin­enti Centre, the Fal­con Centre and New Springs Church about tak­ing over fur­ther dis­used urban areas to grow fresh pro­duce for the com­munity tack­ling food insec­ur­ity.

Mr Rees said the group is reach­ing out; “Through our pres­ence at sus­tain­ab­il­ity fairs, our open morn­ing and run­ning work­shops for the pub­lic, we’ve estab­lished a mail­ing list of over 115 sup­port­ers and a list of more than 22 grow­ers and donat­ors of plants,” he said.

But he emphas­ised there is still much to do. “Some of the volun­teers are con­sid­er­ing join­ing the Peter Le Marchant Trust in the upkeep of an allot­ment as a nurs­ery bed to feed into the eight other plots,” said Mr Rees.

The group also intends to hold a Cit­izens’ Food Assembly at Fearon Hall later in the year to look for solu­tions to the food and envir­on­ment crises.

“In the UK there are still 7.5 mil­lion people liv­ing in low or very low food secur­ity while the CEO of a major super­mar­ket takes home many mil­lions. The per­cent­age decline of wild­life is massive with more than 133 spe­cies of wild­life extinct since 1950,” said Mr Rees.

“Fif­teen per cent of the remain­ing wild­life spe­cies are close to extinc­tion largely due to food pro­duc­tion,” he added.

Upcom­ing work­shops include increas­ing soil fer­til­ity through the Korean Nat­ural Farm­ing method and dis­cov­er­ing the won­ders of food fer­ment­a­tion.