Seeding the future, bringing back some hope from The COP

 Well where do you start, with the future ??

With some seeds I suppose.

Brought home carefully, and contained within a surprisingly unsquished - yellow tomato.

This tomato, is of a variety unknown to me.

But grown by Xavier from our sister union in Spain.

Brought by him, along with several other varieties, to our hosting venue in Glasgow.

I already have a whiff of nostalgia for the breezy underpasses, the slightly uncertain wanderings around the peripheries of it all, getting a little bit lost, on early dark evenings, but still rarely really feeling adrift.

 

And what was achieved there, are there signs of hope to bring home, and carry forward ?

Well in many ways, at the official event, there were predictably large amounts of hot air and not much else tangible.

But then the same cohorts of people , with the same mindsets that got us into this mess, aren't going to be best placed to navigate us out perhaps?

But still it didn't feel like a complete waste of time ..

Farming and land use got a peripheral mention, in the main event , a whole day in theory, although accessibility and organisation of these events , left a lot to be desired.

A fair bit talk of using land and nature as a 'carbon sink' - mainly to offset business as usual.

And some talk of protection of the forests and lands of indigenous peoples.

But not nearly enough.. 

Not enough recognition of what good land management, should be about.

To support life, to support nature, to support us too, not just there to be exploited and extracted from.

But there were some signs of a shift.

Not least in the co-opting of 'our' language. 

Which on some levels is 'annoying' but it also means, perhaps that some notice has been taken.

If only half understood.

'Agroecology' for instance.

Which is meant to be the bringing together of good land use practices, with social justice, food justice, land rights ..

It seems as if 'they' like the word , but don't quite get what it really means. 

As if its just a nice sounding 'Organic lite' 

A bit like 'sustainable - it can mean whatever you want it to mean..

But its far more than that - it has to be set in the context of climate justice, land and food justice.

That all people, who all need feeding, should have secure access to good food to nourish themselves, and each other.

And be able to carry on doing that without recourse to unsustainable inputs or damaging practices.

Land and ecosystems could carry on supporting humans and the rest of the ecosystem in a regenerative round of symbiosis, which doesn't add to the sum of greenhouse gases emitted.

And in best case scenarios, done well, those life and soil systems can help sequester carbon into soils, as they build up.

Reversing the decades of depletion that has happened under industrialised farming systems. 

Nourish people, and ecology, and the global commons.

It's not about extractivism, short termism, or endless capitalisation.

Nor is it about using land as a sink towards achieving 'Net Zero' that hollow promise which somehow tries to make equivalent extracting and burning fossil fuels, with the organic carbon found in living organisms and good soil now.

It just won't wash.

It's green wash.

Along with many of the other false solutions, such as gene editing, biotech, data harvesting from farms so corp's can then try to sell tech stuff back to us.

Or growing so called 'food' in laboratories.

Sending robots out to do work, and exploit lands, that should be under the stewardship of real people. 

But these 'saleable' ideas are backed by the big  agribusinesses, with the kind of mega scale , one size fits all mindsets that created this crisis in the first. 

Genuine solutions, that honour old and new knowledge and methodologies which are accessible to all - were far less evidenced at the main event - where's the money in peer to peer learning, and shared knowledge and tech via open sources? 

But still, again despite all this, it felt hopeful.

So many good people, from all walks of civil society, and activists of all flavours from so many parts of the world.

Some people had travelled at great cost, and no little difficulty to themselves to carry the message of urgent need for action, urgent need for change - but also that there is still some hope.. 

Ok not enough representation from those on the true front lines of climate change.

Kept away by covid restrictions, and other barriers such as finance and visa difficulty.

But farmers, foresters, union organisers, soil and seed specialists.

Workers for land justice, and food sovereignty, they were there, if still underrepresented..

Indigenous people working to preserve and protect their lands, and citizens of countries which did little, if anything, to contribute to the climate crisis -  however they're doing what they can to mitigate and prepare for it.

Carrying out very site specific, but also deeply vital work, around soils, landscape, food and ways of working to build resilience.

At last, industrialised nations are starting to acknowledge their debt for the damage they've caused, and have promised to help financially with reperations for loss and damage.

Its yet to translate into enough action on the ground, on the frontline, but we can only keep up the pressure - and raise awareness.

So this tomato, or its seeds has been passed around the network.

For production yes, but also as an act of solidarity, and movement building.

Passing on the genetics to be adapted, nurtured, and to create an abundance that no one actually owns - but is freely given.

The word and true concept of agroecology cannot be so easily co-opted because it requires coperation, and fairer sharing -  the antethisis of purely profit driven business.

The COP in Glasgow came for me personally with a whole  swathe of experiences and feelings.

I find it exciting to be in a new place, finding my way around and seeing new sights - i tried not to rely too hard on online mapping to get around.

Yes this does end up with you finding yourself in a dark alleyways on the 'wrong side' of the bus station from time to time, if you just try to follow your nose, and navigate by half remembered landmarks .

But then you have to ask a passing stranger for help - and most people were very happy to share their local knowledge.. 

The welcome everywhere felt warm - very warm in fact - Sort of surprising in a city that was obviously going to feel disrupted by the presence of tens of thousands of extra people.  

And it was all the more enjoyable to see the next generation get stuck into some grassroots action -

No2 Scion , here processing flax stems before having a go at spinning the fibre..

Theres some truth in the saying that

 'The apple rarely falls so far from the tree'