Dig For the Victory?

The call is for the whole of humanity, to work for the victory of peace over war, of common sense over crass stupidity, of poverty amidst plenty, of healthy living over 'hapitalism', of local finance over the CBDC of global corporatism.

Inevitably, this call to arms will be answered as follows. I can't dig. I'm to old, I don't know how to. I don't want to. It's not necessary in this age of technological progress. And anyway, what's it got to do with you? Or anyone else for that matter? I'm busy leading my life as I see fit. You need to do the same.

Rather a long ramble? But it is now necessary to recognise that we all need to do a great deal more than a little green-washing as we wait to see which way the wind blows. A letter appeared in the March edition of the popular Kitchen Garden magazine under the heading Allotment Food Bank. It read as follows:

"Alisoun Gardner-Medwin's suggestion of allotment growers linking up with food banks (February issue) is a good one, but it takes some organising. Here at Thingwall Park Allotments, Bristol we have been growing and donating produce to a food bank for the last two years. This food bank called St Luke's Lunch is a project that, during the school holidays, provides food for families living in poverty.

"We now have a food bank plot on our site manned by volunteers and we rely on donations of plants and seeds. Obviously this one plot does not produce enough to feed a lot of people so allotment tenants are asked to donate spare produce once a week during the school summer holidays. This is collected and taken by bicycle trailer to the food bank. The vegetables have been welcomed but favourites for the children are raspberries, plums and apples.

"This connection with the food bank is leading us into other community projects where we can share. Irene Blessitt, Allotment Site Rep."

The letter raises several very discussable points. Not least is the question of why are some families living in poverty when there is so much plenty all around us? And what are "allotments", those plots of land allotted by local authorities for historical reasons? Which raises the whole history of the right to be able to grow one's own food if one so wishes. The allotment of land to families so that they could grow food first arose when small scale peasant farmers were deprived of their rights of access to land through enclosures. Today, many peasant farmers across the world continue to lose their land as cash crops are used to supply our urban supermarkets.

We all need our daily bread to stay alive. But until misfortune strikes, often in the form of mental or physical illness, most take it for granted that the supermarket shelves will supply us with the everyday basics we 'demand' from them when we produce cash or our plastic cards. However, every morsel we eat, every mouthful we take into our bodies, is produced because somebody, somewhere has done our digging for us. Not only the digging, put the harvesting, processing, packaging, transport, banking and administration necessary to move the food from soil to table.

I other words, we are totally dependent upon an economic system, a political rights system, and a cultural belief system that very few of us can understand, let alone take responsibility for. We may, of course, assume that the system will continue to supply us with our needs. But that does not stop us from investigating our role in supporting a crumbling social order.