Food for Thought

This is a blog by Jasmine Black, a Newcastle University student  pursuing a PhD in soil biogeochemistry. She has been an active volunteer with SCAN's food-growing projects in Newcastle for over a year - harvesting vegetables, planting an orchard, and joining other students to learn skills together.

Produce harvested by Jasmine from the SCAN Allotment

Jasmine made contact with the organisers of the Thought for Food Global Summit in Lisbon, Portugal - an initiative that inspired in her a potential avenue to develop her engagement with food sustainability. SCAN and the Student Green Fund supported her attendance at this event, and in this blog she tells us about the issues and challenges they confronted. How do we feed a population of 9 billion in 2050?



In my PhD research at Newcastle University, I look at understanding soil biogeochemistry in tropical ecosystems. Promoting awareness of soil sustainability to ensure future food security and biodiversity is one of my greatest passions. I was encouraged to join the Thought For Food (TFF) Summit and become an Ambassador for soil sustainability through edible insects Ambassador Peter Bickerton and co-founder Christine Gould.

TFF is a competition designed to encourage some of the most forward-thinking international university students to create innovative, brave and revolutionary solutions to solving one of the world’s greatest challenges: feeding a population of 9 billion by 2050.

Two main issues of food security arose from the 10 finalist teams. These were the need to extend produce shelf life and to grow food in urban areas.

Produce shelf-life

Poor shelf life of fresh fruit, vegetables and grains leads to issues such as the use of dangerous chemicals in preservation and food shortages post-harvest. Producers also struggle to survive economically in winter. The 5 finalist teams that addressed this issue illuminated how widespread a problem it is, but also how many solutions there can be to solving it. These included using sustainable energy (solar) and locally sourced materials.

Urban food growth

Our globally expanding population is also putting a heavy strain on our agricultural resources; especially soil and water. With this comes the need for more sustainable farming practices. Some of the TFF finalists responded to this challenge by creating innovative systems in which fruit and vegetables can be grown within your own home. This will lessen the pressure upon our agricultural resources, as well as fulfilling an increasing demand for fresh, high quality produce. With rural space declining as urban areas expand, the need to use urban space food growth is ever more important.
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At the Summit, a talk given by a guest speaker resounded with me. This was to stop getting caught in a problem, and instead think ahead to the future solution. Too often we forget to look above problems, to the future we want, in order to solve them. Perspective is everything.

Another key point that struck me was the overwhelming feeling of unity amongst the participants; it is through effective, sustainable cooperation that we will succeed in overcoming the world’s biggest challenges. Personally, the Summit has enabled me to create an invaluable network of passionate international innovators, of whom I can connect with in my future work towards soil sustainability.

So, look positively towards the future, create your pathway to realising it, and make some lasting friendships along the way.
Jasmine Black
PhD Soil Biogeochemistry

The Top Three

This is part two of an interview with Saturday morning volunteers at the SCAN allotment, some of which is recorded on youtube here. Part one can be read here.

 

"What are the top three things about volunteering at the allotment?"



"The best thing I like about this place is meeting the people here. I meet so many people from different countries, it’s a very cultural place. Once we had people from all continents except for Australia. They’re all really nice and friendly and we enjoy what we do."

 

"Eating the fresh, organic, healthy, gorgeous, amazing, free vegetables!"

 

"Getting outdoors on a weekend is a really lovely thing. I spend a lot of time in lecture halls and in the library and things like that. And just getting out into the fresh air and into nature is actually quite rare I think at university, so that’s really nice."

 

"Learning about how they’re grown : it’s nice to know that it’s not too difficult to be in control of the type of food you put into your body... that you can grow it without any fancy equipment or machines. We live as a part of,  and using, so many different systems that most of us don’t see or understand - like the internet and planes that can fly and clothing and colours that we forget have beginnings (in nature). It’s demystifying."

 

"It’s a nice way to spend a Saturday morning. You can talk to friends and Jon and you’re doing something useful for the community that you’re living in. And it doesn’t cost anything – it costs your time but if it’s well spent, it’s well spent!"

 

"The vegetables and the fruit – we can see things grow from the ground and that’s very interesting and exciting. When you see the trees grow up or some plants grow you feel very happy." 
 

 

"And the [third] thing : I can improve my English because my English is very poor - I can talk with each other and I think it’s very useful."

 

"The people, that’s one thing. Meeting a very diverse group of people that I might not meet just on my course or through friends from my house or something. And I’ve got to shout out for Jon in particular because he’s just so friendly and so welcoming. He always makes everyone feel like they’re playing a very important role and makes everyone want to come back- that’s why everyone’s here. So I’ve got to give a lot of credit to him."

 

 

Jon supports student volunteers at the allotment every week : contact him on jon.pickering@ncl.ac.uk if you would like to take part.

 

Eating Purple Tomatoes & Digging up Trees : Part 1

Students from Newcastle University have been growing vegetables and eating flowers at the Student Eats Allotment since October 2012. (Yes, edible flowers). And they have encountered many other new and unexpected things along the way. 500 students in total have been involved.

I interviewed the current crop of volunteers on Saturday 31st January 2015, at a time when most of the hard work involved demolishing, retrieving salvagable things, and moving them to new sites. Snow was on the ground and one student talked wistfully about "Spring, when plants will grow again..."

Background:
The Freemen of Newcastle have decided to level the entire site, mix in the good with the bad soil, the toxins with the glass, and while there are hopes that they may then allow the allotment site to reopen in future, for now the volunteers are having to evacuate all they can. It's not the best recipe for happy thoughts but I discovered the volunteers in very good spirits, huddled in the last remaining shed where they were warming up by the stove.

A video recording their voices can be listened to here. This blog records their experiences in writing.

Reasons for first getting involved :


“A way to relax and get away from exams.”

“My major in University is agriculture so I’m interested in plants and vegetables, fruits.”

“I thought it would be nice to get involved with some organic food and get a change of scenery from exams and lectures, get out on a weekend - it was just a nice break from everything else.”

Two students were first told about SCAN by their tutor in the INTO department. One was told by her friends, one found it via the website and three first heard about the allotment after visiting the SCAN office. Stalls at freshers fair and refreshers fair sent three students our way.

Stuart said : “I knew that I wanted to volunteer in some capacity while in Newcastle so I went to the SCAN office and looked through the humungous file of potential options. It was difficult to choose but Student Eats immediately stood out as something that combined my interests and, on the plus side, it was an internal Newcastle Uni project."

Reasons for coming back :


“I guess I’d been looking to volunteer at the university for a while but I’m only really free at the weekends and I found about the Saturday sessions down here and thought I’d try it out and really enjoyed it so I kept coming.” (Jack)

The overwhelming reason identified was the fun and friendliness of the other volunteers at the allotment.

"I have been having fun here and I really like the environment and also people … peaceful and sociable."

"The place, the people are really nice. People come from different sectors so I can expand my social network."

"I found that everyone was really friendly and it was really fun and I just kept coming back."

"Everyone here is very friendly so I like to go here every week."

"And I found everyone really friendly and really nice"

Two also highlighted the novelty of the things they were up to : "I never did this kind of work in my country so I think I am still learning lots of things. And I like this because I never have this kind of experience – it’s interesting."

Examples of the tasks being worked on in cold January


"Helping to take apart the greenhouses, taking the doors off its hinges and taking the framework apart - really good fun I really enjoy DIY - so that was great. Using spanners and the odd hammer."

"Last week we moved a lot of pots to near the gate and we started to tidy some things: we threw lots of glass and we tidied some things in the small shed so it looked tidier when we left last week."

"I have been helping move stuff up there [to the entrance] – like the whiteboard that was in the greenhouse last time and the frames we had to carry out - they are so heavy though."

"Last week me and Folla dug out some trees and that’s quite physically demanding but so much fun as well. Coz we’re moving away so basically we’re just taking things down and moving stuff. Sometimes we pot plants so they will be ready to move with us. Apple trees, and some herbs and some other things – all those we value we move with us. And there are lots of those stuff so we have to move a lot of things!"

"Luckily the apple tree, I got told, flowered really well last summer and there were loads of apples so hopefully we’ll get that again this year."

Several comments recognised the value of group effort, and the efforts made to avoid waste:

“A good thing is that we have many people to help. At the beginning there were just two of us and then there were more and more people coming so we could take turns and it’s not that demanding." 

“The wood will be used again – recycled.”

“Because in our daily life we produce a lot of leftovers, including those vegetable parts that you don’t eat - or sometimes you’ve got spoiled fruits or something. So I can collect them at home and then bring them to the allotment to the compost so I feel better about it. Instead of just throwing them away I produce less rubbish.”

Finally, remembering back to the growing season, I asked what foods were planted, harvested and eaten before winter came?

"When I first came here there were so many different kinds of vegetables and fruits - I could get apples and I could get leeks and - what’s that - kales. So any kind of popular vegetables you can get it here from the allotment and they are all really nice and fresh and tasty!"

"The fresh produce was just fantastic –the tomatoes we had in autumn were some of the nicest things I’ve ever eaten they were absolutely incredible!"

“Sometimes we sell things from the allotment. In summer there were things on sale at the Students’ Union.”

"Sometimes people from other allotments also offer us vegetables. I remember last time [an allotment holder] got flowers and he just gave me some and that’s really nice. It’s really nice to get that fresh vegetables and you know where they come from and there’s no pesticides and that’s very important as well. Because if you have any artificial stuff on your vegetables I don’t think it’s very healthy for our body. So I’m really glad that I can work at the allotment and benefit from it both materially and in terms of experience, and also psychological health [laughs] so that’s very good!"

"Coming into the Autumn I discovered kale for the first time - I don’t think I’d ever tried kale before I came here - but I absolutely loved it and was having some every week and cooking some lovely dishes with it. It’s really satisfying to grow something yourself and see it bear fruit and eat it, it’s brilliant."

"I think one of the best things about it is eating seasonally as well. I think people really don’t have much of an idea of seasonality in their food because they can get everything from abroad in supermarkets and being forced to eat stuff that’s actually growing at the time and fresh is a really great thing. And it’s probably better for the environment and it forces you to cook with some foods that I think you might not buy necessarily. I’ve cooked with a lot of cabbages and things like that which I might not buy myself from the supermarket  but when it’s here and it’s seasonal - it makes you a better cook!"

A second blog post will review the top 3 things that these students have got out of their experience volunteering at the allotment.