Food-Fibre-Fashion #12 05/04/23.

Welcome to twelfth edition of this LinkedIn newsletter - Food-Fibre-Fashion. A collection of tips, recommendations, opinions, learnings and knowledge exchange regarding the intersection of the food, fibre and fashion sectors.

This edition considers how we can be stewards.

Opinion.

Repair as an act of healing. ? An object repair undeniably reduces overall resource use, yet it takes time to mend. So how can it be environmentally and emotionally beneficial?

It was recently London Repair Week (March 20th-26th 2023) and I wanted to consider the ways in which repair is beneficial. It's not just about saving stuff from landfill, but potentially also about saving yourself.

I've written about repair previously only as a follow up to visiting the Eternally Yours exhibition at Somerset House in 2022, where it was considered how repairing, caring for and healing everyday objects could help us repair, care and heal.

This post considers from my own perspective the 10 bountiful ways in which repair can support healing — of stuff and of ourselves.

Podcast.

Black Material Geographies on Whetstone Collective. ? This is a collection of conversations and stories led by Teju Adisa-Farrar — a Jamaican-American writer, geographer, facilitator, speaker, researcher and poet from Oakland. It projects “Blackness” into the past to understand textile material culture in exploration of how we could create more sustainable systems and processes amid global climate crises and lifestyles deeply entrenched in global capitalism.

Episodes cover cotton, redesigning the supply chain, upcycling, the indigenous lacebark tree, and regional fibre systems — all under the banner of the affect of colonial structures, yet how culture (and therefore materials and design) comes before colonialism. As with the series from Whetstone Radio previously shared — Weaving Voices — it brings together stories from scholars, artists and entrepreneurs to “connect the dots between agricultural systems, our environment and the cultural legacies surrounding us”.

And this is something I picked up from a session this week — April 4th 2023 — on The Colonial Climate Crisis, guided by Dominique Drakeford for Fibershed. Dominique presented her venn diagram for the causes (symptoms?) of the colonial climate crisis: culture, fashion-agro industry, and the anti-blackness system, encouraging us to reconsider what colonialism and the industrial revolution was/is, especially in reference to the current fashion system. Her own podcast Cotton, Compost and Corn Rows podcast is to come.

Find all the episodes here through Apple Podcasts.

Film.

Wild Isles by David Attenborough. ? This BBC docuseries has been controversial, and I’m yet to uncover what is so disastrous about episode 6 in terms of Tory upset as it has yet to be aired (will it be aired?), but so far (up to episode 4) I’m pleased about what the show has covered. It’s mesmerising and disgusting and marvellous, and though of course it can’t uncover everything about what Great Britain has to offer, it portrays stories of opportunity and challenges in the unique Attenborough way; the way that says, this is all well and interesting, but we really do have to pay attention.

If you’ve seen it, then you’ll appreciate why I say mesmerising and disgusting in one sentence (slug sex! leech predation!)

In terms of stewardship, this programme pinpoints various areas — literally — where we could be stewards, from the woods to the rivers, from the grasslands to the sea. I guess for editing it needed to be portrayed in this separate way, but obviously it is all one big ecosystem, where the woods affect the rivers, and vice versa. Yet again, however, his team excel at picking out cool things that highlight bigger issues.

Actions you can take:

1. The “emergency pesticide” clause came into effect again this year for use on sugar beet. Pesticides enter soil and rivers through runoff, but also kill off pollinators. Read up on how pesticides harm our bees and insect pollinators via Pesticide Action Network.
2. In 2021, sewage was discharged into rivers and seas 370,000 times for a total of 2.7 million hours from water companies who have failed to invest to protect the coastal and river environment. Read up on water quality issues via Surfers Against Sewage and take action to end sewage pollution.
3. There are 114 billion pieces of single use plastic passing through UK supermarkets each year. Switching to “bioplastic” such as “compostable” cups does nothing to make reparations for fossil fuel use and landfills, as these materials cause land use switches and deforestation. Learn about making refills a habit from City to Sea, and join the Choose Loose campaign from Everyday Plastic calling on supermarkets to ditch plastic packaging on the top five fruit and veg items.

Book.

Books about stewardship. ?

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer — this holistically considers stewardship, though if you want something more intimate, take a read of her first book, Gathering Moss. Otherwise, the five volumes of the Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations highlight our deepest evolutionary and planetary connections, and profound longing for kinship.

Wilding by Isabella tree — an understanding that stewardship isn’t about control, but recognising when and where to intervene.

Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Martin Sheldrake — a look into the hidden kingdom that shows fungi are key to understanding the planet on which we live. Haven’t actually finished this one because I ran out of time before the library book had to be returned (did a sneaky photograph of each page…)

Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard — not yet personally read but always randomly recommended. It brings us into the intimate world of trees to recognise that they’re not simply the source of timber or pulp, but are a complex, interdependent circle of life; “trees communicate their vitality and vulnerabilities with communal lives not that different from our own”.

Healing Earth: An Ecologist's Journey of Innovation and Environmental Stewardship by John Todd — chosen because it offers practical insight into environmental stewardship solutions. “Each chapter offers a workable engineering solution to an existing environmental problem: healing the aftermath of mountain-top removal and valley-fill coal mining in Appalachia, using windmills and injections of bacteria to restore the health of a polluted New England pond, working with community members in a South African village to protect an important river.”

You might also like to read my Rooted Beings exhibition review as it considers indigenous knowledge, self-care and repair of nature.

Campaign.

Unpicking food prices: Where does your food pound go, and why do farmers get so little? ? Sustain looked at five everyday food stuffs - apples, cheese, beefburgers, carrots and bread - and found that, after intermediaries and retailers take their cut, farmers are sometimes left with less than 1% of the profit. The report details the typical costs and profits allocated to each part of the chain from farmer/grower, through the intermediaries and processors to the retailers.

Recognising firstly that there is a discrepancy in profits, and then secondly understanding why, is one way to engender respect for farming. During the farmers’ strikes of October 2022, I was running Amsterdam marathon, and along the river was farmland where a tractor had a sign attached to it for all to see — “without farmers you would not eat”. This rhetoric is necessary to consider when we’re looking at empty supermarket shelves; farmers are still producing crops, yet the supermarkets are controlling the quantities.

Unfortunately, if the market doesn’t pay fairly, and supermarkets suddenly shift their orders, then how can farmers afford to change their farming systems to ones that are more nature-beneficial, even if they recognise they want to?

Learning resources.

Creating a Sustainable Civilization. ? In this digitised version of a 1995 lecture from Allan Savory — founder of the Savory Institute and advocate for holistic management of land — you’re taken through an alternative way to make decisions in order to protect and restore land.

As mentioned above under the Wilding book recommendation, land stewardship involves understanding that your perspective may not be the answer, and that many truths can be held at any one time — or that you have to make compromises. Evidence creation from science-based experiments takes time, and so this land management framework is only recently coming to light as a successful and viable option.

You could alternatively watch the 22 minute TED talk from Savory, which is perhaps more palatable.

Scientists have countered Savory’s research, stating that any gains made in greening the land will be lost when animals are grazed on it. And indeed, with animals comes methane emissions. Maybe you’re not a farmer, and so wouldn’t ever need to put holistic land management into practice, though understanding of this framework could affect your decision making for the purchase of wool or meat or leather, and so on. Realistically, as you’re on this planet, anything that one farmer does to their land affects you as a citizen. It’s not so far fetched then to learn about these opposing statements so that you can figure out what sits with your values.

I’m mentioning this, because in recent days there has been news that UK cattle could be given “methane blockers” in an attempt to reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions — rather than, of course, finding solutions to the actual problems. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) ‘Tackling Climate Change Through Livestock’ report, cows and other farm animals are globally responsible for 14% of human-induced climate emissions. This potentially follows a UK government survey that shows 64% of farmers feel it important to reduce GHG on their farm. This report also shows that emissions have already reduced, perhaps due to consumer diet changes, and perhaps also to do with some land management shifts. It’s a frustrating move anyway, as it’s yet another unproven technology — like industrial Carbon Capture and Storage — that the UK government wants to implement rather than doing proper work, like actual carbon capture and storage through healthy soils.

Regenerative Food and Farming has some good resources too, particularly firsthand accounts from farmers.

Organisation.

Endangered Material Knowledge Programme [EMKP]. ? The Endangered Material Knowledge Programme gives grants to support the documentation of material knowledge systems that are under threat and in danger of disappearing. The Programme was established in 2018 with funding from Arcadia — a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin — and is hosted by the Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas at the British Museum.

The ongoing and completed projects are all so fascinating, but here are some personal highlights:

• Last of the Bemba Bark Cloth Makers, Zambia
• Indigenous women’s hand-spinning wool in the Ecuadorian Highlands
• The “real design” knowledge among Huni Kuin weavers from the Peruvian Amazonia
• Documenting the Lost Practices of Kurdish Felt and Felt-making in the Foothills of the Zagros Mountains
• Histories of Honey: Material Practices of Beekeeping in the Cherangani Hills, Kenya
• Dreams of yellow: Documenting the making and performance of Nuosu oil-cloth umbrellas

Event.

The Giving: What is food consciousness?. ? This seven week community course with weekly sessions from May 3rd - June 14th 2023 is guided by Vandana Shiva and Guardians Worldwide. It will look at seven key themes over that time including, food sovereignty, Ayurveda medicine, seed justice, forest food systems and wild beekeeping, indigenous science, women and food, and what food to buy to protect the environment.

“Food connects us to all places, and to the one and only earth that nourishes us.” ~ Vandana Shiva.

It’s a pay what you want course. Your contribution will cover teacher fees (Vandana + indigenous folk + director of Guardians Worldwide), Mighty Networks registration, zoom account costs, access to all pdf reading resources, and it will also support donations for Reserva Ecologica Fulkaxo and the Mau Forest project.

Nature connection.

Rock weaving. ? I came across this art form through an off-loom artwork business Lark and Bower — though it’s common if you do a search — and decided to have a go. I visited my family up in the North East of England where I was able to quickly select some rocks from the beach while the dog pulled me along.

The beauty of this nature connection activity is that you can do whatever you like. Selecting your yarns or threads, your rock (or flat piece of wood), and the warp style. It takes some patience and attention throughout, but gives you a reason to justify an hour (or whatever you can give) outside.

I have a bit of experience with weaving stuff, so I didn’t look at instructions and simply experimented, so I would say mine are messy, but you get the idea. The instructions below are not in-depth, yet should give you the jist of how to get going. I’d rather supply you with something that lets you explore than something definitive.

1. Select a yarn. Try chunkier to begin with. This could be string, twine, knitting yarn or thinner embroidery thread, darning thread…
2. Wrap one strand around the rock. Go close to centre to begin with so your yarns don’t fall off the end of the rock. Continue wrapping and tuck the “yarn tail” into the back, or you can knot. This is now your warp.
3. Warping an odd number of warp threads will show when you go back over yourself, as you’ll have alternate overs and unders. Try it with an even number of warp threads and you’ll see.
4. Now thread up your needle — a blunt darning needle or flat bodkin is most useful as sharp ones could get caught in the yarn, and generally select one as thick as your yarn.
5. Start weaving! Now you’ll create your weft. Go under the first warp thread, then over the second, then under, then over… and so on. Reverse for your second line. It’s ok if you need to pull your yarn thread after each under or over rather than traversing the whole way — this will help you keep the line straight.
6. You’ll notice that if you have a tight warp like mine, your weft won’t necessarily be tight in lines. This is the exploration of the materials you’re using.
7. If you want to switch weft colours, then go for it.
8. If you want to go again and wrap your rock with multiple warp colours, then go for it.
9. If you want to try 3 x under and 3 x over (or whatever) then go for it, as you’ll create different weave structures.
10. Finish each weft section by weaving the yarn tail into the back as you did with the front. You could also try knot but it is fiddly.

I’m contemplating using this as the basis for one of my nature connection workshops in London. A little walk with a sit down in a green space, some herbal tea and chance to chat. Find out more about my nature connection workshops here and sign up to my newsletter to stay updated with new dates.

I’ve found the changing light — due to daylight savings — tricky to navigate. The sudden shift between darkness at 6.30pm to darkness at 7.30pm left me unable to plan my day. I always find that the summer has a go-go-go vibe, and often that’s lovely because you have more safe time to be out, and especially for me as a runner and open water swimmer it means I can fit in more. But this year I wasn’t ready for the shift.

The weather has been frustrating, particularly as a gardener; being outside in damp pouring rain just days after a frost, or hailstones when it’s still sunny, or 40mph winds, has meant that I haven’t been able to ground myself into the spring. I’ve tried, with seed sowing and new colourful plants. Yet my body is waking with pressure headaches each day, I’ve just today slept through my alarm by 2 hours, and I’m still wearing layers of wool jumpers because my temperature fluctuates. It’s all a sign really that my nervous system is in flux and I can’t get a grip on it.

Perhaps that’s why I was naturally drawn to the theme of stewardship this month. How can we be stewards for other things — especially the great big catastrophy of the climate crisis and all its challenges — if we can’t even steward ourselves?

Hit reply if you have any comments, suggestions, recommendations, feedback, or to give some words of encouragement, maybe. Or simply comment.

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