DFC Hosts British Food Co-op Visitors

October 2008

Seven food co-ops, two community-supported agriculture projects, one representative from the Soil Association and a number of London-based organic allotment holders visited Dublin Food Co-op recently to check-out the food co-op and the urban food allotment scene in Dublin.

The visit was organized by SUSTAIN, an alliance of around 100 national organisations in Britain, working on food and agriculture policies and practices that enhance the health and welfare of people, animals and the environment. At a local level, SUSTAIN actively supports food co-ops and urban food growing projects.

Planning the Dublin itinerary for our visiting food co-ops were: Kathe Burt O’Dea (Sitric Community Composting Garden), Sarah Finlay (Healthy Food For All), Bruce Darrell (Dublin Growing from the Ground Up), and Pauric Cannon (Dublin Food Co-op)

On Friday 26th September, our visitors were welcomed to the Sitric Community Composting Garden by what seemed like half the local community. An alfresco style breakfast had been prepared under a billowing canvas canopy. The food was all home-made and home-grown, by members of the Sitric community.

Sitric's founders believed that composting offered a practical way of involving the local community in creating a garden. In fact, they viewed composting as a ‘social and environmental revolutionary tactic'. Their very first step was to place two composting bins on a scrap of railed-in wasteland at the end of the terrace of sixty two-up, two-down houses. From this modest beginning, they have grown over 40 varieties of herbs, two tomato plants, a number of organic vegetables including lettuce, cabbage and beetroot as well as both long neck sunflowers and passion flowers. The garden also has room for three composting devises, one of which has been generously supplied with rabbit poo, by an enthusiastic, local rabbit breeder!

The garden has engendered a wonderful sense of community cohesion in the area. Besides hosting visitors like our food co-op guests, Sitric hold an Annual Herb Harvest Festival and biannual street parties.

On Saturday, September 27th, the group visited Dublin Food Co-op and met with staff and CB members over a light lunch. A workshop was given by Bruce Darrell of Feasta on 'A Food Security Framework for Dublin'. Bruce’s workshop was followed by a talk and slide presentation, by Davie Philip of Cultivate, on sustainability and the Cloughjordan Eco Village project.

The visit was enormously successful and we hope it can be repeated in the future. In the meantime, we hope to keep all channels of communication open.

Pauric Cannon (Co-op Development Co-ordinator)