Urban Guerrilla 7: Expand arable land to pack lunches for the city
Text/ Zheng Yanwei Gorilla Green Guerrilla
Eating out is very dangerous nowadays. Eat fast food or fried food and you might get cancer if you are not careful. Lunch boxes are too oily and too salty and can give you heart disease and high blood pressure. Even more terrifying, you might drink toxic milk or plasticizers.
Everyone also knows that if there is a way to squeeze out a tiny bit of time to cook some home-style dishes yourself and bring a lunch box, it is really safer and healthier for the body. If these vegetables are also grown by yourself, then it is even more popular!
The same principle applies to cities. Although urban populations are dense and must rely on trade and transportation networks to supply daily needs, relying too much on outside food is like handing out your own health in one bowl. If we can preserve some farmland in the city and provide local ingredients, that is like cooking for yourself, and it can also pack a lunch for the city.
In recent years a new concept has risen around the world, called "delicious landscapes," and the more technical term is "edible landscapes."
So-called landscapes can include everything from your balcony to metropolitan parks to wild woodlands in the suburbs. In the past, the public's imagination of the environment was often "ornamental" and "recreational," but people did not think that nature and plants are also very important "sources of food production," just like a candy house.
The more traditional edible landscape in Taiwan's cities is the citizen farm guided by farmers' associations. When you have free time, you can rent a plot in the suburbs, drive there yourself to plant, and get a feel for rural life. Actually, we do not need to go that far; we can start right around us in daily life! On the one hand, there are many idle vacant lots in the city that no one asks about. On the other hand, many so-called green spaces or parks in the city are actually just monotonous spaces covered with turf and planted with a few small flowers.
If we apply the concept of "delicious landscapes," these lands can actually all become herb gardens or wild vegetable nurseries rich in species, and can even adopt a biodiversity mixed style, growing vegetables and flowers at the same time!
If you observe carefully, you will find that from riverbank land to idle public/private land, many uncles and aunties in Taiwan have already gone in to plant crops, actively carrying out green guerrilla action. With the emergence of public land adoption regulations, civil groups concerned about the living environment have also begun to combine with local people to adopt land. Neighbors can plan together, participate in planting, and even set up herb bread kilns and public kitchens to cook up fragrant, fragrant, fragrant food.
In addition to large areas of land, small landscapes in daily life can also be very delicious. As long as the balcony at home is combined with the thick-soil planting method, fresh fruits and vegetables can be grown through the operation of natural ecology. If apartment residents invite friends and coordinate successfully, there is also a chance to build vegetable gardens and melon trellises in community courtyards.
Public land adopted by the Daan District Wenzhou Community Development Association
The green space area in Taiwan's cities is quite low. According to data from the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, Executive Yuan, at the end of 2009 Taipei had only 5.33 sq m of green space per person, one-fifth that of many major cities in Asia. And "delicious green space" is even more meager. Not to mention packing a lunch, it is not even enough to fill the gaps between your teeth!
As for the existing edible landscapes, citizen farms require deposits and rent, the land that can be used is very small, and you still have to drive there specially. Guerrilla occupation of public/private land is basically illegal, and no one knows when it will be removed, so after planting you are nervous all day. Although adopting public land has basic regulations, there is absolutely no substantive supporting mechanism. The government can take the land back unconditionally at any time, and there are still a bunch of problems with the related matching and funding laughing away there. If someone wants to develop it, do not even dream that the authorities will block it.
To change this situation, we must study the experience of those who have succeeded.
In the 1970s, New York garden activists successfully rented a community garden from the government for 1 USD per month (Bowery Houston Community Farm and Garden), stirring a broad response among citizens and prompting the rise of many gardens in New York City (Green Thumb program). In the 1980s, there were as many as more than 800 community gardens in New York City alone, and the value of crop output exceeded one million USD. Unfortunately, later, under pressure from land development, the government began to waver. Community residents had affection for the land they managed, and through litigation and long-term struggle, they pooled funds and bought 114 plots of land by way of land trusts, successfully saving more than 500 gardens to continue operating.
Seattle's community garden (P-Patch) program also began in 1973. It not only connected people interested in participating in planting and management with land, but also established a complete system integrating community building and operating funds. In order to avoid development pressure from builders, the government also adjusted land zoning regulations as a supporting measure. These gardens are not only land for cultivation; they are also leisure parks where local residents take walks and tend flowers and plants, markets where neighbors buy and sell fresh seasonal fruits and vegetables, and public spaces that strengthen human warmth and increase interaction among nearby residents.
Gorilla's "Mr. Curry" guerrilla case
Whether it is land trusts or appealing to the government to amend laws and establish an overall adoption support mechanism, what is ultimately involved is people's hearts. Without thoughtfulness, without care, not to mention packing lunches, no one will care whether you live or die. Next time you walk past your living room balcony, or take a walk past a vacant lot surrounded by sheet metal, remember to imagine that it is very delicious.
It can be very, very delicious.