Big Lunch puts the food we eat back high up the environmental menu

Our dependence on energy and food from overseas makes us vulnerable to political and climatic aggression

Tim Smit
guardian.co.uk, Monday 6 April 2009 12.07 BST

In just three short years, the environment has returned to the front pages with a vengeance, even if the G20 managed to relegate it to the end of their communique.
Near the top of the environmental agenda is food and its production. Whether it be at the macro level of food security or the micro, or the way in which we grow it or the health benefits of growing your own, today's focus on food is, for me, qualitatively different to previous lifestyle magazine exhortations to "grow our own". This is not about the "accessorisation" of life but about making a fundamental connection to where our food comes from, for without that connection we will find it difficult to make the compelling argument that we are dependent on the health of our planet for our very survival.
Robbed of the understanding and the skills to produce our own food leaves us at a huge disadvantage in a world where our dependency on energy and food from outside our shores renders us vulnerable to both political and climatic aggression.
Every child in school today will, within their working lives, live through a period in which we reduce our carbon footprint by 80% or more - and food production will be a key part of that. This is a challenge on a par with moving from a pre-industrial revolution model into the white-hot heat of it. The timescale for this revolution is the next forty years. Examples exist for showing what can be in short periods of time: the experience of Havana, having to deal with the withdrawal of Soviet energy support, thus leaving it impoverished and needing to grow its own food, shows what can be done in extremis.
Yet do we see any sign that Birmingham, London or Glasgow are seriously contemplating creating an urban architecture that can sustain urban horticulture on a grand scale? Every building and public space can become a garden and collectively this represents nearly industrial production, yet we don't consider such small-scale growing as anything other than a gimmick. Every balcony or windowsill, every wall and roof, every public space can be turned into a growing area. The recent initiatives on Grow Your Own, a collaboration between all the major horticultural institutions - The National Trust, Royal Horticultural Society, Garden Organics, the Eden Project and many others, and the excellent Landshare initiative to create allotments across the country - is testament to the real concern in all these organisations that the security and health benefits of growing are poorly understood and are vital for our survival.
Sharing and collaborating on food is also key to the success of The Big Lunch, an event championed by the Eden Project as an excuse to persuade every street and hamlet in the country to sit down and take traditional Sunday lunch together on 19 July. We want to demonstrate that we believe neighbourliness and community are important, that Britain isn't "broken" and that we can, just by scratching the surface, reveal a society that is prepared to embrace sharing and communal action. Eden is championing it because the preparing and growing of food reinforces the awareness of our connection and dependence on nature. Perhaps most importantly, it also illustrates the benefits and joy of doing things together.
Tim Smit is chief executive and co-founder of the Eden Project and a champion for The Big Lunch