Local food

17th-25th June 2006, Krtiny, Czech Republic

One-week seminar lectured by Helena Norberg-Hodge should motivate a core group of activists, that would start a campaign for promotion of local food solutions to globalization of food supply. The trend of globalization of food imposes stress on local communities, small farmers and the environment. Consumers are key group that influences the future shape of food supply chain. They make routine decisions where and what to buy in everyday shopping that have far-reaching impacts. There have been an increase in organic food awarness in recent years in the Czech republic. However, the spatial aspect of sustainable food supply remains neglected.

The Upper Mill made the first step and invited Helena Norberg-Hodge to hold a high level seminar. Helena is distinguished personality in the British local food movement. She is director of ISEC – International Society for Economy and Culture (www.isec.org.uk). She is known to the Czech public thanks to her book “Ancient Futures” about sustainable development solutions in Ladakh, India.

On the seminar, Helena would talk about various aspects of globalizations of food supply and possible solutions of its caveats. The seminar is mainly aimed at potential activists. Its closing session will be dedicated to designing a national local food campaing. This seminar should give a strong momentum for further efforts in this field. We expect that 20-25 participants will take part.

There will be several press releases and the presence of foreign lecturer will be used for wide media presentation. Apart from that, Helena Norberg-Hodge will hold a public lecture at the Faculty of Social Sciences of Masaryk University in Brno.

About The Upper Mill

The Civic Association “The Upper Mill“ has been organising various public events since 2002. Our mission is to promote sustainable lifestyle. We aim to teach people how to protect the environment in their daily lives and to promote democracy and citizen participation in public decision making. The main focus of our activity is on organizing events like seminars, lectures and small conferences, advisory for public bodies, petition activities to protect the environment and publication. Currently The Upper Mill association comprises of ten highly motivated and skilled members together with cca 200 supporting people regularly taking part on our activities. All activities are done on voluntary basis - we have no employees.

We have been rebuilding former flour mill using traditional and less traditional technologies. We invite distinguished experts to teach us how to use traditional and natural materials to use in reconstruction. There have been workshops on straw bale insulation, traditional clay plastering, sheep fleece insulation. We plant trees regularly in the surroundings of our village and in the nearby forest. The Upper Mill has revived old municipal cherry tree orchard in nerby village of Habrůvka in past few years. The most multifarious events are weekend events at the Mill. These range from craft workshops to interesting lectures and dancing. Every summer we hold a summer camp for families with little children and one one-week residential seminar focused on the sustainable lifestyle, nature protection or environmental aspects of various branches science.

One of the most succesful events was The Summer School of Alternatives in Economics, held in July 2004. This one-week event was a substantial contribution to the iniciation of The Economy and Society Trust (www.thinktank.cz) – think tank that aims to challenge neoliberal concepts in current economy and policy making. More about The Summer School can be learned from website http://letniskola.hornimlyn.cz The proposed project „Local Food“ has been designed to make use of the best know how learned from previous summer school to motivate more people to get involved in the promoting of sustainable alternatives. In this sense the money put into our project is truly „seed“ money.