Imagine a city fed from within the city itself and surrounding countryside, so nearly all its food was fresh, local and delicious… A city in which everyone could learn how to grow their own food, on land that they could walk or cycle to… A ‘green capital’ that led by example, showing the world what a green city could look like!
To to do this we need soil. Lots of it and of high fertility. Soil that is accessible, and highly valued, and people who work with and on the soil to grow our food. However, currently our food growing land isn’t protected in the UK.
Bristol is an amazing Food City. We have some amazing agricultural land on the fringes of our city, a wealth of regional independent food producers giving us some of the best fruit, vegetables, meat and dairy products in the world, we have thriving farmers markets and the likes of Incredible Edible Bristol and many others transforming our relationship to fresh food, we have a brilliant Bristol Good Food Plan, a skilled Bristol Food Policy Council and we have The Blue Finger – a strip of the highest quality food-growing land so rare that less than 3% of ALL UK SOIL falls into that category. And yet, all is not rosy, as the West of England Strategic Transport Plan, which includes Bristol City Council, involves building roads and a Park & Ride over the Blue Finger, which is Bristol’s most fertile soil asset and used to be the city’s market garden quarter.
The Blue Finger Alliance formed to protect this precious resource by letting people know just how important this land is, how it affects you and why we all need to work together to persuade the council to urgently rethink their plans.
A short film about The Blue Finger
