Organising for Food Sovereignty

A Remedy for Recession?

Cork is biting back at the recession with a new web-started community which aims to get us outside working together to grow our own food. Cork Food Web imagines a network of community gardens, allotments, urban and rural farms and food parks all over Cork city and county run autonomously by local communities and linked by the shared need to feed ourselves and mind our environment. The website is a ‘social networking site’ so allows users to create their own profile, get to know each other and form groups. In just a few months of existence membership has grown to 154, with members from the city and all across Cork county forming online interest groups, exchanging information and skills and creating events together.

Current groups that have been set up include Allotments; Community Gardens; Foragers; DIY Health; Guerrilla Gardeners; and Poultry People – there are 19 groups so far and any member can set up a new group.

One of the site’s founders commented on what Cork Food Web means to her. "The idea that I am part of creating a vessel that allows people to meet, to create, to change, to do what they want - that is very exciting. Creating the web site, organizing events, doing all of that without a hierarchal structure, bottom up, not pushing an agenda but being attentive to where the energy of the people flows being part of a wave, something that I believe is needed in the world. To see the faces of people meeting for the first time and going through the barrier between the protected digital world to the physical world, taking a chance and putting their energy to mix with others, with people that they don't even know, that is simply magic."

Another member added, "I haven’t a clue about gardening though my family would have always grown fruit and vegetables and known how to preserve them – this is a great chance for me to learn how to be more independent and to work with the community to make Cork a lot more sustainable. As the world economy crashes I expect to see groups like this all over the place, I’m proud that Cork’s leading the way and to be a tiny part of that!"

The format for the website is freely available online and could be used by any group of people with a shared focus to organise themselves and their knowledge. Act now while the internet still exists!

The next event held by Cork Food Web will be a Valentine’s Day Seed Swap which will be held on February 14th at 5.45pm at Blackrock Castle Observatory. Members and anyone interested are invited to come and meet each other, bring food to share, discuss possibilities, exchange tips and swap seeds for sowing.