ConnectedRoots

Connected Roots is a project that aims to create a trading connection between communities and to allow those who don't grow to learn how and to put a meal on the table for less.

Connected Roots is about growing locally and sharing what you don't want/need.

We want to make food social, cheap and fresh,
and we want you there with us.

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May 26th, 2012
How do you feed a city? It’s one of the great questions of our time, yet one that is rarely asked. We take it for granted that, if we walk into a restaurant or supermarket, food will be there, having arrived magically from somewhere else. But when you consider that in a city the size of London enough food for 30 million meals per day must be produced, transported, bought and sold, cooked, eaten, and disposed of — and that something similar must happen every day for every city on Earth — it is a miracle that we get fed at all. (via Sitopia | design mind)

How do you feed a city? It’s one of the great questions of our time, yet one that is rarely asked. We take it for granted that, if we walk into a restaurant or supermarket, food will be there, having arrived magically from somewhere else. But when you consider that in a city the size of London enough food for 30 million meals per day must be produced, transported, bought and sold, cooked, eaten, and disposed of — and that something similar must happen every day for every city on Earth — it is a miracle that we get fed at all.

(via Sitopia | design mind)

March 18th, 2012

A job for young people that really pays

                              

Connected Roots is a new enterprise that aims to get young people employed. We know you’ve all heard this before and we’re sorry about the imitators: this is for real.

We want to take you and train you with skills to become urban agriculturalists. Once trained, you’ll be able to go out and gain commissions for your skills. We’ll help every step of the way, and yes this means with the commissions too. 

                             

Why Urban agriculture?

  • Well, you heard about the food crisis? - people not having enough money to eat? - that is happening right here in the UK, and you have the power to change this.
  • Over 50% of the world’s population live in cities now - these people need to know how to feed themselves because farmers can’t provide enough food for everyone, they need you.
  • People pay seriously good money for skilled crafts-people - that’s what you’ll be when fully trained - and with a growing population, your skills will be in more demand than ever.
  • There are big waiting lists for growing spaces (Allotments) in the UK - people overlook what they can grow at home, many don’t know what, how and when they can grow - this is where you come in.

          

What we’re looking for:

  1. Young people aged 16-24 years of age
  2. You should be able to legally work in the UK
  3. We want you to succeed and bring in a decent wage for yourself; you should want this too.

We are beginning training now in East London and want to hear from you if you think this is something you would like to do. Get in touch at matt@connectedroots.co.uk or @connectedroots on Twitter. 
Seriously, no question is too small, we’ll tell you everything you need to know and how the process will work.
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Anyone reading this, please share it with others. If you know anyone who you think might like to take it up, tell them - you could change their life.
June 6th, 2011

The food crisis - is urban gardening the solution?

A statement of intent and a declaration of potential; there is a way out of this increasing problem of food shortages.

The current situation has never called louder for each person to do things for themselves. Putting together a few small pots and sticking them on windowsills around your flat or house will make a difference, that difference will mount if everyone in your street does the same - building a food resource that is very local, increasingly social and actually working as a carbon positive; what people do on this micro-agricultural level will reduce their carbon by locking in carbon as their plants grow. How can we stress how much this will do for the whole cause? We could put statistics up about carbon reduction, or we could quote climate change advocates but instead we just want to see the face of those that take these steps and taste their first exceedingly fresh Tomato/Beetroot/Strawberry/Courgette. This is where it matters. All the rest just falls into line beyond this.

The perfect situation of people being truly digitally enabled in a mass way, with the pressing necessity of self-provision combined with the social fragmentation that exists in developed nations (Alone Together, http://econ.st/lpAeMu) demands that now is the ideal time to actually do something, and do it on a mass scale. 

The food crisis is surely a cause of individualistic western society: the inability to wait, the ignorance of seasonality and the lack to consideration beyond the 4 walls in which people reside. Can Connected Roots be the answer to this?

You look around and continually ask whether this will happen, whether people will accept this approach or be lost to consumerism because they have been breed on it. The constant refusal is put down to choice, quality and time required - all these elements are things that Connected Roots is set to begin eroding. The idea came from ways in which a facility could be created to speed up the homegrown movement but also make it accessible to even those with minute space to grow food. As people partake, they set their own choice and quality - time is something that Connected Roots will bring down considerably, allowing people to source food within their neighbourhood and build meals in a very short time.

I’m not going to bumble on about the reasons why we have food problems, suffice to say that there are problems and things need to change - bringing the ability to learn how to grow things in small, tight and often limited light, coupled with the ability to share anything you grow to be able to create entire meals - will change things drastically to taken up by the masses, hopefully CR can make this a reality.

Connected Roots will soon bring the growing opportunity to thousands of people who were unable to previously - each person will effectively have their own small section of a local community garden, working with their streets and postcodes to provide for themselves and each other.

This could get really exciting.

The link from this article talks about what we need to implement to achieve a sustainable food system, read more here