Brainstorming action

I'm going to try to get this space flowing by rekindling an earlier discussion.

If the kaupapa here is action, both connecting people already in action, and bringing new actions into the food movement space, what are some of the things we could do?

Of course this list could be endless, but perhaps something that might come out of a discussion around the politics of food is some sort of pedagogy / propoganda campaign - counter hegemony.

I raised the idea earlier about postering which I know is a favourite medium of @Dan K .

The other thing I've been talking to @Tāne Feary about is public land / parks, and it's potential to be a site of contestation and dialogue around land access and public food resilience and decommodification.

I'm not sure how may of you are familiar with Michael Bauwens and the p2p network. They talk about networked connection and action in terms of what is light is global, what is heavy is local. Public walls and parks are both spheres in which the light (ideas, designs, seeds) can be distributed between us, to enact in our local spaces.

So, who would be up to some guerilla actions in the local park, or a poster campaign around food politics - conviviality / sharing / resilience... ?

Supportive of both of these in the main, maybe we can talk them through on the call tonight? My 2c is tending towards postering before guerrilla gardening, as my experiences is that planting up berms and parks can be a lot of work for no guaranteed future.. planting is fun and subversive if planned and executed well but less bang for time 'buck' than postering imo (and postering sits nicely with the political angle that is this alliance's point of difference from other gardening groups..)

Maybe we also need to talk timelines and figure out what is realistic and inclusive? Lots of long days for growers at this time of year plus the usual end of year admin etc etc, so likely to be a slow burner :)

Agree with all of the above. No hurry on anything, just seeds...

Tomorrow night (Thursday)?

Ah yep, sorry. Call is tomorrow, Thursday 17 Nov. Link in the hui thread and here again cause why not :) https://auckland.zoom.us/j/91246453237

I think a national-level poster campaign around food politics is a great idea. & I'm keen to do postering where I live.

Another option is to make stencils and spray-paint the stencil design on to walls and pavements. This method is best for short slogans or simple images, though.

I just wanted to share what is happening in the Southern Lakes District. Currently (yesterday and today) we are participating in a two day workshop with Robina McCurdy on food resilience and security for our district. The room is diverse including several people from various threads of the district council (climate action and biodiversity planning team, parks and rec, community connection & wellbeing etc.), community garden projects (Grow Wanaka and Hawea Food Forest), WAO Aotearoa, WAI, educators, market gardeners (Royal Burn Farm) and more. Some gaps of participation in the room but overall great representation for creating a plan and being able to put it into action. Yesterday we looked at our bioregion and maps exploring transport routes, water, microclimates, soil, historically what was grown here, what's currently being grown in small quantities but has potential to be grown at larger scale, what crops/products/facilities/wild & foraged foods/distribution centers/seed banks etc. do we currently have, what are our strengths, where are our weaknesses, where are the opportunities for collaboration/resource & knowledge sharing and so much more! Today we are coming together again to create a food security plan and put actions to it! I look forward to sharing more on our progress, plan and action strategy.

This sounds awesome, look forward to hearing more :)

Wow, That sounds epic! I've met Robina once before at a permaculture thing and I was just reading about her in Sophie Merken's beautiful new book, 'Grow'. She is so great at firing people up!

Continuing on the southern lakes district food resilience workshop journey.... Recap - Day 1 was mapping our landscape (transport routes, water, soil, distribution centers, commercial kitchens etc.) and creating a bioregional food inventory (noting what we are doing well and also where the gaps are). Day 2 we created a vision statement, and then we mapped the local food system players - categorized them into 3 tiers based on their alignment to the vision statement. We then drew colored lines connecting each to all the others, the line color representing a positive/direct relationship, a neutral/upcoming relationship, or a conflicting relationship. A few red/conflicting lines to NW/Food Stuffs and MPI but otherwise everyone was interwoven with direct relationships or upcoming relationships (many created from the workshop!). The fact that all these relationships already exists is a great strength for our collective. Continuing to build and strengthen these community scale relationships will be a great enabler for influencing change at the political level. The workshop was a great way to realize and then formalize what is already happening in the district, create a vision statement that is in alignment with the values of the collective and create actions for next steps. This currently looks like a hui to invite a slightly wider community sphere to the table for engagement and feedback with the ultimate goal for the Southern Lakes Collective Network to co-create a charter that the council will adopt. An exciting space to be in and look forward to sharing more of the journey with you.

Thanks for sharing all of this, Emberly. Great to know this is going on and to hear that the table will be opened up a bit more - looking forward to what action comes out it for our district at a collective level and community group level. Grow Wānaka is such a fine example of action at collective level.