Category: News

CFGN member Living Under One Sun hiring Head Gardener

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Living Under One Sun is a unique community-based, multi-award winning organisation committed to community leadership, creating health, well-being and positive neighbourhoods.
We want to recruit a highly motivated Head Gardener to manage and develop the next phase of our beautiful ‘Green Flag’ winning Community Allotment in Tottenham, Haringey.
This exciting part-time role offers the chance to join our dynamic team with leadership, development and career opportunities for the right candidate. For this position you will need at least 2 years experience of food growing in a leading role, a Level 2 qualification in Horticulture or equivalent experience, strong planning and management skills and an inclusive, partnership approach.

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Londoners’ own plan for London

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Re-posted from Just Space website

See pp 48 – 51 for policy proposals on ‘Community Food and Food Production’ that CFGN has worked with Sustain, Women’s Environmental Network and the Federation of City Farms and Gardens on.

Just Space Network launches Community-led Plan for London and calls for Sadiq Khan to encourage fair involvement in planning.

Just Space, an informal network of voluntary and community groups, has published a draft Community-led Plan for London to establish the need for public participation and new initiatives in planning the city.

Towards July thumb

Frustrated by the few gains resulting from community participation in successive Examinations in Public (EiPs) of the London Plan, and at too late a stage in the process, Just Space decided to use its combined knowledge and evidence built up over many years and write a set of London Plan policies from a community perspective. Eighty-five different organizations have contributed to the draft, from local community campaigns to pan-London interest groups.

Just Space calls for the new Mayor to analyse the current planning model and its detrimental impact on the majority of Londoners. They say there is an urgent need to re-balance a system in which developer-led planning dominates large areas of the city, for example across the ‘Opportunity Areas’. Just Space challenged Boris Johnson’s London Plan, saying it would increase the polarisation of London’s communities, continue to encourage inequality and not solve the housing crisis. They were also critical of the narrowness of his ‘World City’ focus.

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Feeding Cities from within

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Re-post from Sustainable Food Trust

Urban agriculture is sprouting up all over the world. Urbanites are taking the soil into their own hands and wrestling back control of food production – from community allotments driving regeneration in Detroit and guerrilla gardeners turning flower beds into cabbage patches across cities to temporary growing plots in meanwhile spaces like the Skip Garden in London and commercial rooftop greenhouse operations like Lufa Farms in Montreal.

Urban agriculture is much more prevalent in developing nations. This often comes about through necessity, in response to economic breakdown, civil unrest or institutional decline, when incomes and food distribution systems are disrupted. Urban farming becomes a household survival strategy in these situations. In Kampala, Uganda, over 35% of the city’s population are engaged in agriculture, and this has improved the nutritional status of children there. In Yaounde, Cameroon, almost all the leafy vegetables consumed by poor urban residents are grown in the valleys surrounding the city.

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‘Land for What?’ recruiting a Co-ordinator

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Background:

We live in a time of widening social inequality, various housing and health crises, and impending climate collapse. When fire fighting such important issues, it is hard to step back and make time to explore and challenge the roots of these systemic struggles. Land has been the elephant in the room of English politics for so long we have become accustomed to its absence during important discussions. However, if you begin to reframe common questions about housing, environment and health in terms of the role of land, its fundamental importance becomes clear. Land for What? aims to raise awareness, create dialogue and forge connections between affected groups, and inspire us to build long lasting solutions.

The Role:

Coordinator for ‘Land for What’ convergence on 12th-13th November 2016 in London. Managing the logistics leading up the event and on the day. Liaising with the steering group and with other collaborators. The role will be primarily administrative, aimed at coordinating all the elements needed to run a successful event and help build a movement.

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