Community Harvest

• Increase the supply of locally produced food available to communities
• Help individuals and groups to grow or access healthy, sustainable, affordable, locally produced food.

• Connect individuals and groups with the skills, knowledge and resources to help them create a vibrant, cooperative and resilient community.

• Help individuals and communities deal with climate change, peak oil and the rising cost of living.
• Develop appropriate tools and strategies to empower people in taking the next step.
  

• Provide an environment in which individuals and communities can reflect on and review the worldviews out of which we create our lives and societies, and where appropriate, develop new approaches and responses to meet the changing needs of our world.
  

Where are we coming from?

At Community Harvest we believe that:

• Access to healthy, sustainably produced local food, a healthy natural environment, strong, connected and resilient communites and vibrant and equitable local economies, for everyone, are a right and not a privelige.

• Most people, in all walks of life, in their hearts, want these things for themselves, their families, communities and the wider society.

• One of the key challenges of our time, as individuals and communities, is to bring our actions and choices, and the impacts these have in the world, into line with our most loving ideals and our deepest hopes for humanity, and the planet.

• Food is central in our lives - our food-related choices give each of us a great deal of power to do good in the world. How food is produced and distributed, and by whom, has critical implications for individuals and communities the world over, and for the environment.

• Individuals, communities, society and economies do not exist separately to the environment. Individuals, communities, society and economies cannot exist without the environment. Therefore, extending ourselves in every way possible - in every choice, action and law - to ensure the wellbeing of the planet and all that we share it with, is not something we can opt into or out of. Rather, it must become our guiding thought in everything we do.
  

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How can we make a difference?

• By ensuring that the food we eat is grown in a manner that takes care of the health and well-being of the environment, the community in which it is grown, the farmer and the consumer, we can contribute to healing many of the issues faced in the environment, the wider society, our communities and families.
• By sourcing locally grown food and/or distributing food locally, we can reduce or elimate food miles - the distance food travels before it reaches the table. In reducing food miles we reduce the use of fossil fuels, thereby conserving non-renewable resources, cutting pollution and helping combat climate change.
• By growing and processing some of our own food, in a sustainable manner, we can empower ourselves and others in enjoying a more self-reliant and self-assured way of life.
• By supporting growers and producers in our area, we can help to increase the amount of food that is readily accessible to us, even in difficult times and build our local economies.
• By working with others to produce food, we can help to build the food-related knowledge and skills-base, and in doing so help make our communities resilient in the face of economic challenge, climage change and peak oil.
• By actively connecting with and working with others in our community, to grow food or to share, barter or sell the food we produce, we can help enrich our community's connectedness and the well-being of all its members.
• By encouraging and supporting local food production and distribution, we can more readily observe, embrace responsibility for and take positive action to ensure, a healthy environment and healthy communities, economies and individuals.