[Scpg] ISIS Report 01/04/09 An Urban Dream Farm for London?

[Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture Network]

An Urban Dream Farm for London?
www.i-sis.org.uk/anUrbanDreamFarmForLondon.php

The first community project in the metropolis to recycle
food wastes into energy and fertilizer by anaerobic
digestion  written by Sam Burcher

The organic muesli producer who keeps making history

Alex Smith has been made a London Leader of Sustainability
for 2009 by the London Development Agency (LDA). This
appointment by the Mayor of London’s office is a far cry
from thirty years ago when Alex was a squatter and started
his food company Alara http://www.alara.co.uk/7,l2.html
with two £1 notes he found in the street.
Alara now produces up to one hundred tonnes of
organic muesli each week, some sixty percent of UK’s total
muesli production.

Alara was the first cereal business to be certified organic
in the world, the first cereal company to be Fair Trade
certified, and soon, if Alex has his way, he will be the
first food production company to be zero waste. Alex wants
to make his mark as London Leader by using anaerobic
digestion to recycle food wastes into energy and fertilizer
to support the first “Urban Dream Farm 2” in the world.
Dream Farm 2 (see final chapter in ISIS’ Report Food Futures
Now: *Organic *Sustainable *Fossil Fuel Free [1]) is based
on the circular economy of nature, in which organic wastes
are recycled into food and energy resources, thereby
maximising carbon sequestration and minimising greenhouse
emissions and environmental pollution.

Alara’s food factory is on an unusually green industrial
estate just north of King Cross-St Pancras train stations
and Camley Street Natural Park, a wildlife sanctuary on the
banks of the Regents Canal.  Across the road is the Elm
Village housing estate and further down Camley Street is St
Pancras Old Church, the oldest Anglican parish church in
London built on what was originally an Iron Age mound. The
church stands in a beautiful cemetery garden re-designed by
the author Thomas Hardy when he was a young architect and
where the poet Shelley is reputed to have first met Mary
Shelley visiting the grave of her mother Mary
Wollstonecraft.  Johann Christian Bach, the son of the
famous composer is also buried in St Pancras Gardens which
form the grounds of the Hospital of Tropical Diseases and St
Pancras Coroners Court.

A permaculture forest garden

Alex has already made a head start to the Urban Dream Farm.
Over the years, he has added to Alara’s eclectic environment
by planting a permaculture forest garden where delicious
looking lettuces, bee hives, broad beans and about one
hundred fruit trees can flourish. The garden runs parallel
with the railway tracks and is an urban green corridor
stocked with blueberries, raspberries, elderberries,
mulberries, passion fruit, pomegranate, kiwi, plums, pear
and apple trees that are starting to fruit.  Alex has also
constructed a large pergola made of sweet chestnut and
planted grapevines at each corner which will eventually
entwine and climb with blackberries up the wooden framework.
Beneath the pergola are stools and a table made of reclaimed
marble where outdoor meetings can be held. A large metal
cabin which is Alex’s garden shed is topped with a windmill
to generate enough “live” electricity to read by. He and
friends recently serenaded the trees with song, wine and
good wishes at a traditional wassailing party.


Read the rest of this article here
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/anUrbanDreamFarmForLondon.php

Or read other articles about sustainable agriculture here
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/susag.php
Or articles about energy generation here
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/scienergy.php
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