Why the world needs a Renaissance of Small Farming

Poster for Colin Tudge
Poster for Colin Tudge

The February 2014 talk will be given by Colin Tudge, author and campaigner. He has written the books Good food for everyone forever and Why Genes are not selfish and people are nice. With his wife, Ruth West, he co-founded The Campaign for Real Farming.

This movement is described by the co-founders on their website as:

THE CAMPAIGN FOR REAL FARMING

and

THE COLLEGE FOR ENLIGHTENED AGRICULTURE

A Declaration of Intent

The Campaign promotes Enlightened Agriculture – aka “Real Farming”: “Farming that is expressly designed to feed people without wrecking the rest of the world”.

If this was truly the world’s intent, then we could feed everyone who is ever liable to be born to the highest standards both of nutrition and gastronomy; and we, humanity, could be looking forward to the next million years.

But we won’t get anywhere near all this if we rely on present-day governance – big governments, corporates, and banks, supported by their paid intellectuals and experts. We – humanity — have to take our own affairs into our own hands. So the Campaign aims for nothing less than

“A people’s takeover of the world’s food supply”.

To achieve this, we need to re-think the world’s agriculture from first principles – husbandry, technology, science, economics, governance, morality. This is the role of The College. We aim to attract the world’s most accomplished thinkers – but even more important is the genius of the people. Agriculture and the world’s cuisines were devised over tens of thousands of years by people at large. The College must be a people’s forum.

If enough people get involved, we can surely build the critical mass that could rescue us all, and the world at large, even at this late hour.

Colin and Ruth Tudge, January 8 2011

The February talk is described as follows:

Farming the world over needs re-thinking and re-building. The high-tech, high-input, industrial kind, geared to wealth and power, is not fit for purpose – but the industrialized kind is what our leaders are promoting: our governments, the corporates, and their chosen advisers. So we, all of us, must take matters into our own hands – and create a people-led “Agrarian Renaissance”. The good news is that this is already happening — here and in many other countries. So come and discuss what needs doing and why – and how to get involved!!

 


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