The will to live life differently can start in some of the most unusual places. This is where I come from, Todmorden. It's a market town in the north of England, 15,000 people, between Leeds and Manchester, fairly normal market town. It used to look like this, and now it's more like this, with fruit and veg and herbs sprouting up all over the place. We call it propaganda gardening. (Laughter)
Volja do drugačnega življenja se lahko začne na nekaterih najbolj nenavadnih mestih. To je Todmorden, od koder prihajam. Je trgovsko mesto na severu Anglije, s 15.000 prebivalci, med Leedsom in Manchestrom, precej normalno trgovsko mesto. Nekoč je bilo videti takole, zdaj pa izgleda nekako tako: sadje, zelenjava in zelišča rastejo vsepovsod po mestu. Temu pravimo propagandno vrtnarjenje. (Smeh)
Corner row railway, station car park, front of a health center, people's front gardens, and even in front of the police station. (Laughter) We've got edible canal towpaths, and we've got sprouting cemeteries. The soil is extremely good. (Laughter)
Železniški podhodi, parkirišča, pred bolnišnico, vrtovi pred hišami, celo pred policijsko postajo. (Smeh) Imamo užitne poti ob kanalu in imamo bujno cvetoče pokopališče. Zemlja je izredno kakovostna. (Smeh)
We've even invented a new form of tourism. It's called vegetable tourism, and believe it or not, people come from all over the world to poke around in our raised beds, even when there's not much growing. (Laughter) But it starts a conversation. (Laughter)
Izumili smo novo obliko turizma. Imenujemo ga zelenjavni turizem, in verjemite ali ne, ljudje prihajajo z vseh koncev sveta brkljat po naših visokih gredicah, tudi ko nič kaj ne raste… (Smeh) Vendar sproža pogovore. (Smeh)
And, you know, we're not doing it because we're bored. (Laughter) We're doing it because we want to start a revolution.
Veste, tega ne delamo zato, ker bi nam bilo dolgčas. To delamo zato, ker hočemo sprožiti revolucijo.
We tried to answer this simple question: Can you find a unifying language that cuts across age and income and culture that will help people themselves find a new way of living, see spaces around them differently, think about the resources they use differently, interact differently? Can we find that language? And then, can we replicate those actions? And the answer would appear to be yes, and the language would appear to be food.
Želimo odgovor na vprašanje, ali lahko najdemo enoten jezik, ki presega meje starosti, prihodka in kulture ter bo pomagal ljudem samim najti nov način življenja, videti prostor okoli sebe drugače, drugače razmišljati o virih, ki jih uporabljajo, komunicirati drugače? Ali lahko najdemo tak jezik? In nato, ali lahko ponovimo ta dejanja? Kot kaže, je odgovor da, in ta jezik je hrana.
So, three and a half years ago, a few of us sat around a kitchen table and we just invented the whole thing. (Laughter) (Applause) We came up with a really simple game plan that we put to a public meeting. We did not consult. We did not write a report. Enough of all that. (Laughter) And we said to that public meeting in Todmorden, look, let's imagine that our town is focused around three plates: a community plate, the way we live our everyday lives; a learning plate, what we teach our kids in school and what new skills we share amongst ourselves; and business, what we do with the pound in our pocket and which businesses we choose to support.
Torej, pred tremi in pol leti nas je nekaj sedelo za mizo in izumili smo celotno zadevo. (Smeh) (Aplavz) Na javni razpravi smo dali na plano enostaven načrt. Nismo se posvetovali. Nismo pisali poročil. Zadosti je bilo tega. (Smeh) Na tej javni razpravi smo naš načrt razložili takole: Predstavljajte si, da je naše mesto osredotočeno okrog treh krožnikov: krožnik skupnosti - naša vsakdanja življenja; krožnik vzgoje – tisto, kar učimo naše otroke v šoli in katere nove veščine delimo med sabo; in poslovni krožnik – kaj naredimo z denarjem v žepu in katere ponudnike bomo podprli.
Now, let's imagine those plates agitated with community actions around food. If we start one of those community plates spinning, that's really great, that really starts to empower people, but if we can then spin that community plate with the learning plate, and then spin it with the business plate, we've got a real show there, we've got some action theater. We're starting to build resilience ourselves. We're starting to reinvent community ourselves, and we've done it all without a flipping strategy document. (Applause)
Zdaj pa si predstavljajmo, da so ti krožniki vznemirjeni z obilico družbenih dejavnosti okrog hrane. Ko začnemo vrteti katerega izmed teh krožnikov, je to zelo dobro,saj s tem začnemo opolnomočevati ljudi. Če pa lahko potem krožnik skupnosti povežemo še s krožnikom vzgoje, in ta dva še s poslovnim krožnikom, se s tem sproži prava, pravcata akcija. Sami razvijamo odpornost, sami ponovno obujamo skupnosti, in to smo naredili brez slehernega strateškega dokumenta. (Aplavz)
And here's the thing as well. We've not asked anybody's permission to do this, we're just doing it. (Laughter) And we are certainly not waiting for that check to drop through the letterbox before we start, and most importantly of all, we are not daunted by the sophisticated arguments that say, "These small actions are meaningless in the face of tomorrow's problems," because I have seen the power of small actions, and it is awesome.
In še nekaj. Nikogar nismo prosili za dovoljenje, ampak preprosto delamo to, kar delamo. (Smeh) In zagotovo ne čakamo na nakazilo na tekočem računu, da začnemo z delom. In najpombnejše je, da nas ne prestrašijo prefinjeni argumenti, ki pravijo: "Ta majhna dejanja so nepomembna v luči jutrišnjih problemov", kajti videla sem moč teh majhnih dejanj, ki je čudovita.
So, back to the public meeting. (Laughter) We put that proposition to the meeting, two seconds, and then the room exploded. I have never, ever experienced anything like that in my life. And it's been the same in every single room, in every town that we've ever told our story. People are ready and respond to the story of food. They want positive actions they can engage in, and in their bones, they know it's time to take personal responsibility and invest in more kindness to each other and to the environment.
Pa se vrnimo nazaj k javni razpravi. (Smeh) Predstavili smo predlog in le trenutek zatem je dvorana eksplodirala. Še nikdar v življenju nisem občutila kaj takega. In enako je bilo v vsaki dvorani in vsaki sobi in v vsakem kraju, kjer smo predstavili svojo zgodbo. Ljudje so pripravljeni in odgovarjajo klicu hrane. Želijo se vključiti v pozitivne akcije. V sebi čutijo, da je prišel čas, da osebno prevzamejo odgovornost in začnejo vlagati v več prijaznosti do drugih in do okolja.
And since we had that meeting three and a half years ago, it's been a heck of a roller coaster. We started with a seed swap, really simple stuff, and then we took an area of land, a strip on the side of our main road, which was a dog toilet, basically, and we turned it into a really lovely herb garden. We took the corner of the car park in the station that you saw, and we made vegetable beds for everybody to share and pick from themselves. We went to the doctors. We've just had a 6-million-pound health center built in Todmorden, and for some reason that I cannot comprehend, it has been surrounded by prickly plants. (Laughter) So we went to the doctors, said, "Would you mind us taking them up?" They said, "Absolutely fine, provided you get planning permission and you do it in Latin and you do it in triplicate," so we did — (Laughter) — and now there are fruit trees and bushes and herbs and vegetables around that doctor's surgery. And there's been lots of other examples, like the corn that was in front of the police station, and the old people's home that we've planted it with food that they can pick and grow.
In odkar smo pred tremi in pol leti imeli ta sestanek, vlada pravi vihar. Začeli smo z izmenjavo semen – nadvse preprosta reč – in nato smo vzeli del zemlje ob cesti, ki je do tedaj služil zgolj kot pasje stranišče, in ga spremenili v zelo prijeten zeliščni vrt. Vzeli smo rob parkirišča na postaji in postavili zelenjavne grede, ki so vsem na voljo. Obiskali smo zdravnike. Zgradili smo 6-milijinoski zdravstveni center, in preprosto mi ni jasno zakaj so naokoli posadili samo bodičaste rastline. (Smeh) Rekli smozdravnikom: "Lahko prevzamemo urejanje teh površin?" Rekli so: "Seveda, a potrebujete dovoljenje, biti mora v latinici in v treh izvodih". To smo storili--(Smeh)-- in zdaj okoli medicinskega centra raste sadno drevje, grmičevje, zelišča in zelenjava, In še mnogo je takih primerov, kot denimo koruza pred policijsko postajo, pri domu za ostarele smo zasadili hrano, ki jo obirajo in gojijo.
But it isn't just about growing, because we all are part of this jigsaw. It's about taking those artistic people in your community and doing some fabulous designs in those raised beds to explain to people what's growing there, because there's so many people that don't really recognize a vegetable unless it's in a bit of plastic with a bit of an instruction packet on the top. (Laughter) So we have some people who designed these things, "If it looks like this, please don't pick it, but if it looks like this, help yourself." This is about sharing and investing in kindness.
Vendar ne gre se samo za gojenje, ker smo vsi del te velike sestavljanke. Umetniki iz skupnosti oblikujejo čudovite vzorce na visokih gredah, ki pomagajo ljudem razložiti, kaj tam raste. Zato ker veliko ljudi ne prepozna zelenjave, če ta ni zapakirana v plastično embalažo z odtisnjenimi navodili na vrhu. (Smeh) Imamo nekaj ljudi, ki so oblikovali te stvari. Če izgleda kot prepovedano nabiranje, pravzaprav pomeni, postrezite si. Gre se za medsebojno sodelovanje in vlaganje v prijaznost.
And for those people that don't want to do either of those things, maybe they can cook, so we pick them seasonally and then we go on the street, or in the pub, or in the church, or wherever people are living their lives. This is about us going to the people and saying, "We are all part of the local food jigsaw, we are all part of a solution."
Za tiste, ki nočejo početi nič takega, morda pa znajo kuhati, v sezoni oberemo plodove in gremo na ulice, v gostilno, v cerkev, ali kjerkoli so ljudje. Mi gremo do ljudi s sporočilom: "Vsi smo del prehranske verige, vsi smo del rešitve."
And then, because we know we've got vegetable tourists and we love them to bits and they're absolutely fantastic, we thought, what could we do to give them an even better experience? So we invented, without asking, of course, the Incredible Edible Green Route. And this is a route of exhibition gardens, and edible towpaths, and bee-friendly sites, and the story of pollinators, and it's a route that we designed that takes people through the whole of our town, past our cafes and our small shops, through our market, not just to and fro from the supermarket, and we're hoping that, in changing people's footfall around our town, we're also changing their behavior.
Zavedajoč se, da imamo zelenjavne turiste, ki jih brezmejno ljubimo in so absolutno čudoviti, smo razmišljali, kako lahko izkušnjo še izboljšamo. Izumili smo, seveda, ne da bi vprašali, "Neverjetno užitno zeleno pot". To je pot po promocijskih vrtovih in užitnih mestnih prehodih, čebelam prijaznem okolju, in zgodba opraševalcih. Pot je zasnovana tako , da pelje mimo vseh znamenitosti našega mesta, mimo naših prodajaln, kavarn, skozi našo tržnico, ne samo do supermarketa in nazaj. Upamo, da s spremembo ustaljenih poti skozi naše mesto spreminjamo tudi obnašanje ljudi.
And then there's the second plate, the learning plate. Well, we're in partnership with a high school. We've created a company. We are designing and building an aquaponics unit in some land that was spare at the back of the high school, like you do, and now we're going to be growing fish and vegetables in an orchard with bees, and the kids are helping us build that, and the kids are on the board, and because the community was really keen on working with the high school, the high school is now teaching agriculture, and because it's teaching agriculture, we started to think, how could we then get those kids that never had a qualification before in their lives but are really excited about growing, how can we give them some more experience?
Nato nastopi drugi krožnik, izobraževalni krožnik. Sodelujemo s srednjimi šolami. Ustvarili smo podjetje. Načrtujemo in gradimo akvaponičen sistem na zemlji za srednjo šolo, ki ni bila v rabi. Zdaj bomo tam gojili ribe in sadili zelenjavo, v sadovnjaku s čebelami. Pri tem nam pomagajo otroci, ki so tudi v odboru in ker je skupnost želela sodelovati s srednjo šolo, na tej šoli zdaj poučujejo kmetijstvo. Zato ker poučujejo kmetijstvo, smo začeli razmišljati, kako bi otrokom brez vsakršnih tovrstnih izkušenj, ki pa so vendarle navdušeni nad vrtnarjenjem, dali nekaj več izkušenj?
So we got some land that was donated by a local garden center. It was really quite muddy, but in a truly incredible way, totally voluntary-led, we have turned that into a market garden training center, and that is polytunnels and raised beds and all the things you need to get the soil under your fingers and think maybe there's a job in this for me in the future. And because we were doing that, some local academics said, "You know, we could help design a commercial horticulture course for you. There's not one that we know of." So they're doing that, and we're going to launch it later this year, and it's all an experiment, and it's all voluntary.
Lokalni vrtni center je podaril nekaj zemlje. Bilo je res blatno, ampak na povsem neverjeten način nam je na popolnoma prostovoljni bazi uspelo to zemljišče spremeniti v vrtni učni center. Tu so gomilne grede in dvignjene grede in vse ostale stvari, da dobiš zemljo med prste in pomisliš, da je tu zate služba v prihodnosti. Ker smo to počeli, je nekaj akademikov reklo: “Lahko bi pomagali zasnovati komercialni kmetijski tečaj. Česa takega še ni." To počnejo oni in prvič ga bomo izvedli enkrat letos. Vse to je samo eksperiment in vse je prostovoljno.
And then there's the third plate, because if you walk through an edible landscape, and if you're learning new skills, and if you start to get interested in what's growing seasonally, you might just want to spend more of your own money in support of local producers, not just veg, but meat and cheese and beer and whatever else it might be.
In potem je tukaj tretji krožnik. Če torej hodiš skozi užitno pokrajino, če začneš pridobivati nove veščine, in če te začne zanimati, kaj raste sezonsko, bi morda želel porabiti več denarja za podporo lokalnim proizvajalcem, poleg zelenjave za meso, sir in pivo, ali karkoli drugega.
But then, we're just a community group, you know. We're just all volunteers. What could we actually do? So we did some really simple things. We fundraised, we got some blackboards, we put "Incredible Edible" on the top, we gave it every market trader that was selling locally, and they scribbled on what they were selling in any one week. Really popular. People congregated around it. Sales were up.
Toda veste, mi smo vendarle samo lokalna skupnost. Smo samo prostovoljci. Kaj lahko storimo? Storili smo nekaj preprostih reči. Zbrali smo denar, dobili nekaj tabel, napisali "Neverjetno užitno". Dali smo jih v trgovine z lokalno hrano. Te so nanje zapisale ponudbo tekočega tedna. Zelo priljubljeno. Ljudje so se zbirali okrog njih. Prodaja se je povečevala.
And then, we had a chat with the farmers, and we said, "We're really serious about this," but they didn't actually believe us, so we thought, okay, what should we do? I know. If we can create a campaign around one product and show them there is local loyalty to that product, maybe they'll change their mind and see we're serious.
Nato smo imeli pogovor s kmeti in jim rekli: "Resni smo!” Vendar nam niso verjeli. Zato smo pomislili: “V redu, kaj naj storimo? Že vem! Če lahko zaženemo kampanjo z enim izdelkom in jim pokažemo, da obstaja lokalna zvestoba temu izdelku, si bodo morda premislili in videli da smo resni.
So we launched a campaign -- because it just amuses me -- called Every Egg Matters. (Laughter) And what we did was we put people on our egg map. It's a stylized map of Togmorden. Anybody that's selling their excess eggs at the garden gate, perfectly legally, to their neighbors, we've stuck on there. We started with four, and we've now got 64 on, and the result of that was that people were then going into shops asking for a local Todmorden egg, and the result of that was, some farmers upped the amount of flocks they got of free range birds, and then they went on to meat birds, and although these are really, really small steps, that increasing local economic confidence is starting to play out in a number of ways, and we now have farmers doing cheese and they've upped their flocks and rare breed pigs, they're doing pasties and pies and things that they would have never done before. We've got increasing market stalls selling local food, and in a survey that local students did for us, 49 percent of all food traders in that town said that their bottom line had increased because of what we were actually doing. And we're just volunteers and it's only an experiment. (Laughter)
Zato smo zagnali kampanjo, -- ki se mi zdi zabavna -- z imenom "Vsako jajce šteje". [Smeh] Vse, kar smo storili je, da smo dali ljudi na naš zemljevid jajc. To je stiliziran zemljevid Todmordena. Vsakega, ki popolnoma legalno pri svojih vrtnih vratih prodaja presežek svojih jajc, smo dali nanj. Začeli smo s štirimi. Sedaj jih imamo 64. Rezultat tega je, da so ljudje začeli v trgovinah spraševati za lokalna todmordenska jajca. In rezultat je, da so nekateri kmetje povečali število jat ptic v prosti reji, nato še število mesne perutnine. Čeprav so to zelo zelo majhni koraki, se to povečano zaupanje lokalni ekonomiji začenja odražati na številne načine. Imamo kmete, ki pridelujejo sir, gojijo stare pasme svinj, delajo paštete, pite in stvari, ki jih drugače nikoli ne bi. Več je stojnic, ki prodajajo lokalno hrano. V raziskavi, ki so jo za nas izvedli lokalni študenti, je 49 odstotkov vseh lokalnih trgovcev s prehrano reklo, da se je prodaja povečala zaradi tega, kar smo počeli. Ampak mi smo samo prostovoljci in to je samo eksperiment. (Smeh)
Now, none of this is rocket science. It certainly is not clever, and it's not original. But it is joined up, and it is inclusive. This is not a movement for those people that are going to sort themselves out anyway. This is a movement for everyone. We have a motto: If you eat, you're in. (Laughter) (Applause) Across age, across income, across culture.
Nič od tega ni težko razumljivo. Zagotovo ni niti posebno bistro, niti originalno. A združuje in vključuje. To ni gibanje za tiste ljudi, ki se bodo tako ali tako sami izključili. To je gibanje za vse. Naš moto je: Če ješ, si zraven. (Smeh) (Aplavz) Vaša starost, prihodek ali kultura niso pomembni.
It's been really quite a roller coaster experience, but going back to that first question that we asked, is it replicable? Yeah. It most certainly is replicable.
To je bila zelo razburljiva izkušnja, a vrnimo se na prvo vprašanje, Je ponovljivo? Da. Zagotovo je ponovljivo.
More than 30 towns in England now are spinning the Incredible Edible plate. Whichever way they want to do it, of their own volition, they're trying to make their own lives differently, and worldwide, we've got communities across America and Japan -- it's incredible, isn't it? I mean, America and Japan and New Zealand. People after the earthquake in New Zealand visited us in order to incorporate some of this public spiritedness around local growing into the heart of Christchurch.
Več kot 30 mest v Angliji vrti krožnike “Neverjetno užitno”. Lahko delajo po lastni volji, na kateri koli način, z željo po spremembi svojih življenj. Širom sveta imamo skupnosti v Ameriki in na Japonskem – neverjetno, kajne? Amerika, Japonska in Nova Zelandija. Po potresu na Novi Zelandiji so nas obiskali ljudje z namenom, da vključijo nekaj tega skupnostnega duha lokalnega gojenja v srce Kristusove cerkve.
And none of this takes more money and none of this demands a bureaucracy, but it does demand that you think things differently and you are prepared to bend budgets and work programs in order to create that supportive framework that communities can bounce off.
Nič od tega ne zahteva več denarja, nič od tega ne zahteva več birokracije, zahteva pa, da misliš drugače, ter da si pripravljen prirejati proračun in delovne programe, z namenom, da se ustvari podporno okolje, ki skupnostim omogoča viharjenje.
And there's some great ideas already in our patch. Our local authority has decided to make everywhere Incredible Edible, and in support of that have decided to do two things.
Zbranih imamo že skupek odličnih idej. Lokalne oblasti so se odločile, da bodo povsod vzpostavile “Neverjetno užitno” in v podporo temu so storili dve stvari:
First, they're going to create an asset register of spare land that they've got, put it in a food bank so that communities can use that wherever they live, and they're going to underpin that with a license.
Prvič, uredili bodo register proste razpoložljive zemlje, jo vstavili v banko hrane, tako da jo lahko skupnosti uporabljajo kjerkoli živijo. To bodo podkrepili z licenco.
And then they've said to every single one of their workforce, if you can, help those communities grow, and help them to maintain their spaces.
Nato bodo slehernemu od zaposlenih rekli, če lahko, naj pomagajo tem skupnostim gojiti in vzdrževati njihove površine.
Suddenly, we're seeing actions on the ground from local government. We're seeing this mainstreamed. We are responding creatively at last to what Rio demanded of us, and there's lots more you could do. I mean, just to list a few. One, please stop putting prickly plants around public buildings. It's a waste of space. (Laughter) Secondly, please create -- please, please create edible landscapes so that our children start to walk past their food day in, day out, on our high streets, in our parks, wherever that might be. Inspire local planners to put the food sites at the heart of the town and the city plan, not relegate them to the edges of the settlements that nobody can see. Encourage all our schools to take this seriously. This isn't a second class exercise. If we want to inspire the farmers of tomorrow, then please let us say to every school, create a sense of purpose around the importance to the environment, local food and soils. Put that at the heart of your school culture, and you will create a different generation.
Nenadoma opažamo spremembe s strani lokalnih oblasti. Postali smo popularni. Kreativno se odzivamo na zahteve Ria, a še vedno bi lahko storili več. Naj navedem le nekaj: Prvič: prosim, nehajte postavljati bodičaste rastline okoli javnih zgradb. To je potrata prostora. Drugič: prosim, ustvarjajte užitne površine, da bodo naši otroci začeli dnevno hoditi mimo svoje hrane, ob cestah, v parku ali kjerkoli že. Navdihujte lokalne prostorske načrtovalce, da postavijo užitna območja v srca mest in prostorskih načrtov. Ne odpravite jih na obrobja mest, kjer jih nihče ne vidi. Spodbujajte vse naše šole, da to vzamejo resno. To ni drugorazredna vaja. Če želimo navdušiti kmete prihodnosti, potem, prosim, povejmo vsaki šoli, naj ustvari občutek pomembnosti do okolja, lokalne hrane in zemlje. Vstavite to v srce šolske kulture in ustvarili boste drugačno generacijo.
There are so many things you can do, but ultimately this is about something really simple. Through an organic process, through an increasing recognition of the power of small actions, we are starting, at last, to believe in ourselves again, and to believe in our capacity, each and every one of us, to build a different and a kinder future, and in my book, that's incredible. Thank you. (Applause) (Applause) Thank you very much. (Applause)
Veliko stvari lahko naredite, a navsezadnje, gre za nekaj zelo preprostega. Skozi organski proces, skozi povečevanje priznavanja moči malih akcij, končno spet začenjamo verjeti vase. In verjeti v našo sposobnost, da sleherni posameznik lahko pomaga zgraditi drugačno in prijaznejšo prihodnost. Po mojem mnenju je to neverjetno. Hvala. (Aplavz) Najlepša hvala. (Aplavz)