The experience of Wye Community Farm, the UK's first self-sufficient village, just a two hour drive from London.
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves himFrom London it takes only two hours by car to reach the thriving and lush Kent countryside, known for its presence the UK's first self-sufficient village: the Wye Community Farm. It all began in 2006 when theImperial College of London bought 800 hectares of the historian Wye Agricultural College to build a modern science park and corporate campus.
The reaction of the inhabitants was immediate, afraid of being taken away the green "lung" of Kent so they decided to open negotiations with the company as long as thegold themselves took care of the maintenance grazing cows, sheep, horses so as not to devastate the microhabitat. In a short time the residents started an enthusiastic project based on the reduction of packaging waste, the safeguarding of the biodiversity and the installation of systems renewable energy.
Today out of 2000 residents of the village more than 1200 have become volunteers of the a cooperative "Wye Community farm", Transforming themselves into farmers and breeders moved by a common goal: to return to atraditional agriculture and to produce local food, ea to use alternative energy sources like leftover vegetable oil from pubs and fish & chips to make it bio-petrol for tractors.
Every single farmer connects to the local community to find one food distribution system that it depends more on cooperation than on oil. One of the founders of Wye, the forty year old ground runs one of the largest companies in eco-recycling. His office has become a point of collection of discarded items which are then resold in the village while on Saturday morning Boden meets with the other volunteers to organize the working week.
The strength of the Wye community is careful work, measured and managed with the utmost caution and respect for nature. A work that bears fruit. Just think that alone 50 acres of land produce vegetables and greens for more than 100 families who find healthy and fresh food on their tables without having to worry about how many and which pesticides or fertilizers have been used. Maybe that's why the fruit is a bit bruised. Also with minimal food transport and avoiding unnecessary plastic packaging, contribute to relocate the food supply chain itself, calculating that the transport of food accounts for one third of (negative) climate changes. In short, seeing the food produced a few blocks from your home is worth more than any DOC label.
How can we not remember, then, Steve Williams founder of the non-profit enterprise WyeCycle since 1989, one of the UK's leading recycling projects. In a recent interview Steve states: “Every Monday morning we go around the houses to collect the garden waste, then we recycle them in compost to be reused in the same lawns, so everything returns exactly to where it was ". Furthermore, an innovative and profitable system is the boxsheme, or crates containing nine seasonal vegetables shipped weekly.
In terms of materials and the forest sector, clean fuel is obtained from chopped wood which is sold at prices below market prices. Each member of the cooperative does what he can in his own small way to safeguard the environmental treasure, as he testifies Furey, new mother with a master in sustainable tourism, always sensitive to the issue of global warming. Furey buys only local food and feeds his old Land Rover with vegetable oil, not bad considering that on average an English family consumes 4,2 tons of Co2 in one year. It must not seem small!
We are often led to think that the action of one alone is not enough to change the reality of things. And as Gandhi said: “Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it. We have to become the change we want to see ”.
Federica De Angelis
