Thanks to Jenny Slaughter for this news item
Six inches of Soil - update
Sunday, 17 March 2024
The film will be followed by a panel discussion and Q&A with six of Calderdale's inspiring food activists (see below) and moderated by Jenny Slaughter, co-worker at Pennine Cropshare.
The Panelists:
- Charlie Clutterbuck - Soil Scientist
- Aine Douglas - Calderdale Food Network
- Geoff Tansey - Food Ethics Council
- Ann Jones - Local Livestock Farmer
- Leonie Nimmo - Executive Director at GM Freeze
- Mike Smith - Grower at Incredible Farm
Six inches of Soil
Wednesday, 28 February 2024
On 24th March, Hebden Bridge Picture House in partnership with Pennine Cropshare will be screening Six Inches of Soil, a British full feature documentary telling the inspiring story of 3 young farmers standing up against the industrial food system and transforming the way they produce food - to heal the soil, benefit our health and provide for local communities.
The aims of the film are to sound the alarm on a broken system, but to also give hope that there is a way to fix it; to inspire farmers to adopt agroecological and regenerative farming practices; and to encourage consumers, food corporations and policymakers to support their efforts. (More info about the film)
A spokesperson for Pennine Cropshare said we are extremely grateful to Hebden Bridge Picture House for showing this important film. It is very timely as it coincides with the launch of Calderdale Ecological Land Trust, a new organisation set up to put more land into community ownership and/or management for the purpose of local agroecological food production alongside nature recovery.
Calderdale Ecological Land Trust evolved as a result of the Grow and Graze campaign (see Hebweb News 22 August 2022) with the help of Coop Culture. It is a partnership between Pennine Cropshare and Valley Organics Workers Cooperative together with other local food activists who are on a mission to grow more fruit and vegetables locally.
The partnership initially developed as a response to the Covid crisis when there were food shortages and local people were particularly concerned about access to fresh food and vegetables. Both Pennine Cropshare Veg Bag Scheme and Valley Organics Workers Cooperative were overwhelmed with requests for deliveries when the supermarket supply chains were failing.
Representatives from these two organisations came together with other interested individuals to form Calder Veg Collective with the primary focus of exploring way of increasing the availability of locally grown produce in order to future proof supplies. Both organisations were already sourcing some produce locally from small scale growers but supplies were very limited. With a small amount of funding from Sustain, the Grow and Graze campaign was launched to explore access to land and identify potential growers.
Calderdale Ecological Land Trust is now managing 3.5 acres of land in Hebden Bridge in order to develop market gardening and it aims to be an exemplar of what is possible in a local context. We remember that it was only last year that the supermarkets were unable to source salads and tomatoes due to weather conditions in Europe. It is clear that that in a climate crisis, we cannot continue to source food from Spain and Morocco where water shortages are critical and workers are exploited.
We hope that the screening of this film will highlight the difficulties faced with such determination and enthusiasm by those pioneers who are attempting to rear animals and grow food in sustainable ways that address both the climate crisis and the devastating biodiversity loss affecting the natural world.
We want to support our local growers in their new careers as food providers and guardians of the soil and we need you to use your buying power to help us in the transition to a more climate and nature friendly food system.
See also
Valley Organics Workers Cooperative
HebWeb News: Grow + Graze: Campaign to grow more veg in the Calder Valley (Aug 2022)
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