Urban rurality and biodiversity
FROM THE COUNTRYSIDE TO THE CITY, FROM THE CITY TO THE COUNTRYSIDE: EATING WHAT WE GROW.
Urban and rural life have not always been so far apart; cities like Barcelona are surrounded by natural environments where agriculture currently faces multiple adversities. How do these foodstuffs from these farms bordering the city and their production and distribution chain benefit us? How can they do this while preserving local economies, strengthening local production and using a more sustainable and empowering food model? Eating is not just a cultural act, it is also political; seen from a conscious perspective, it is possible to understand where what we eat is from and make decisions as a result.
Activities description: What is a seed bank and why is it important? Discovering the wild plants that surround us and understanding how to use them. Discovering the changes that the ruralisation of metropolitan, and in particular, urban environments requires, are just a few of the pieces of knowledge you can discover as part of these activities.
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Urbanoruralitat i biodiversitat
- October 14th - 19.30 HPlaça de Sant JaumeShow
The start off the week will be a chorus, musical, and participative. Having their say will be the real heroes of sustainable food, those involved in the food cycle: the fishermen, drivers, chefs, farmers, ranchers, market vendors. The speech will be intertwined with the large mechanical orchestra of Cabo San Roque, distributed in the form of a sound mural in front of the City Hall, along with the active participation of the public, in a collective musical creation composed especially for the occasion. A show that highlights all the participants behind the food supply network and gives them a voice.
- Scenography and musical composition: Cabo San Roque
- Stage direction and coordination: Edi Pou
- Idea and concept: Virginia Angulo / Martín Garber
- October 16th - 10.00 HJardí dels TarongersWorkshop
What needs to be taken into account when creating and managing your own seed bank at home or in an allotment. How to carry out the natural selection of seeds, how to conserve them and manage them.
Creating a seed bank is an initiative that reinforces food sovereignty. Recovering seeds is an act of empowerment, in order to stop depending on agro-industrial lobbies.
A seed bank helps to recover traditional seeds and increase the biodiversity which is being lost year after year. This is an educational activity to highlight the great work being done by farmers and how this contributes to a healthy, sustainable diet in our homes. - October 16th from 10.00 to 12.00 HPlaça ReialWorkshop
We begin the workshop by presenting a suitcase with a wide-ranging biodiversity of seeds, some of which are local varieties. We then introduce the clay bomb technique for regenerating areas and helping life to grow.
Participants can make their own seed bombs, which they take home after the workshop.
The activity runs from 10 am to 12 noon, in sessions that begin every half hour and last 20-25 minutes. - October 16th - 12.00 HJardí dels TarongersTalk
Interdependence, symbiosis and antagonism. An approach to food production from the rural and city perspectives.
Making the urban setting rural in three ways: production, environment and values. Understanding urbanised spaces as producers of biodiversity, health and food, as well as natural spaces. Understanding the rural setting as a live space and one which gives life, not a space which consumes nor which is consumed, without us feeling linked in some real way to its values and rhythms.
- October 16th - 13.00 HJardí dels TarongersTalk
“Repoblem” [Repopulating] is a social network initiative to connect towns and villages suffering from depopulation with people who are keen to live in those villages.
“Repoblem” disseminates campaigns and offers from town councils who wish to attract new inhabitants, offers of housing, the transfer of businesses and jobs in towns or regions which are suffering from depopulation. It also disseminates pleas from people who are looking for a place in the rural world to begin or modify their life projects. In short, it makes social media act as such: networks that connect people and towns to help reverse depopulation and rebalance the country, in terms of people, services, activities, infrastructures and political clout. - October 16th from 13.00 to 14.00 HPlaça ReialShow
Agroecology and family circus show.
“The land is full of plastic and GMOs and agrochemicals are threatening us. Luckily, we have an endangered species called Pagès… ” - October 16th - 13.20 HJardí dels TarongersTalk
Want to discover how to build a community allotment as opposed to the conventional model of individual plots?
Based on the experience of the PiA allotment, the aim is to encourage a debate on ruralising the city.
Includes image projection. - October 16 at 13:40 hJardí dels TarongersTalk
Bees are one of the most important, and unknown, groups of pollinators. The aim of this talk is to showcase the life of bees, and also serve as an opportunity to understand the role that these insects play, together with the hosts, the plants, in the ecological balance of the planet. The reality is that humanity is facing a disturbing problem: the decline of bees. It is a subject that is being talked about more and more, and that we cannot overlook, as the Museum of Natural Sciences. The causes are numerous, and closely linked to the long litany of changes to the environment prompted by human activity. Now is the time for us to understand what we have done wrong and prepare a guide of best practices that can be used to recover the biodiversity that has been lost.
- October 16 at 14:30hJardí dels TarongersCulinary experience
A guided meal to discover how cooking based on local produce and edible wild plants is good, fun and also essential. We explain the story behind each of these dishes, how they were made, the characteristics of their ingredients, how the species used were traditionally employed, and their potential in the kitchen (and the countryside) today.
The wild plants are the stars of each dish. We begin by explaining the plants hidden in the wild-plant salad with pine syrup, followed by a tasting session of savoury coca cakes using vegetables of traditional agricultural varieties (pumpkins, spinach, onions, etc.), wild plants (purslane, white goosefoot, sow thistles, etc.) and locally-produced cheese. We will end with a tasting session of sweet coca cakes (carob brownie with wood calamint, almond cake with satureja and apple crumble with lemon verbena), accompanied by a home-made ratafia wine or elder and blackberry syrup for the younger participants.
The meal is suitable for vegetarians.
We hereby inform you that we cannot guarantee that the meals served during this event are free of substances that may cause some type of allergy or food intolerance.
- October 16th - 16.30 HPlaça ReialTalk
The dynamics of this activity involve a mandala. We draw conclusions on how urban agriculture has fared this year, where we have made progress and where not, where we are headed and the importance of agriculture within the city, with the participation of various people connected to urban agriculture and others who will help us to connect with our bodies.
This is an open, participative activity where the audience can contribute their wishes and materials to the mandala. Ritual for closing and opening the year, as it has been a busy one in urban agriculture. - October 16th - 17.30 HJardí dels TarongersRound table
The Metropolitan agricultural belt is the on-site embodiment of the need (exacerbated by climate change and the biodiversity crisis) for healthy, wholesome and sustainable local supplies. It starts in the Metropolitan Area and includes the entire Metropolitan Region: it has a bottom-up structure, based on the view, already accepted by some city councils, that we need to preserve or create an agricultural belt around every municipality. We are therefore talking about a belt of belts.
To make this possible, the two main challenges we face are access to production resources and guaranteed fair prices. And in addition to this demand for “minimum prices for food and maximum prices for land”, there is the vital importance of adopting large-scale healthy, mitigating and regenerative agronomic practices. This means that financial aid for farmers has to involve cross compliance, but also has to be available to everyone, not just the big producers.
- October 16th - 20.00 HTeatre del CCCB, Jardí dels Tarongers, Plaça del Rei, Parc de la BarcelonetaShow
A unique musical group, the Vegetable Orchestra, plays instruments made from fresh vegetables. The use of various vegetable instruments makes for a unique musical and aesthetic universe. The Vegetable Orchestra covers the most diverse musical styles, combining genres from electronic music to jazz. The newly created instruments determine the resulting sound. A Vegetable Orchestra concert appeals to all five senses.
- October 17th from 10.00 to 12.00 H. The activity starts every 25 minutes, lasting 15-20 minutes per shift.Plaça ReialWorkshop
Transplant varieties of recovered local vegetables, take them home and plant the seeds from the Can Soler store there too!
In addition, you will learn about the agro-ecological and social inclusion project of the Fundació Els Tres Turons.
The activity will take place from 10:00 to 12:00 every 25 minutes. Each turn will last between 15 and 20 minutes. Not to be missed! - October 17th - 16.30 HPlaça ReialTalk, Exhibition
Performance exhibition of a politico-poetic gastrosophical manifesto which includes some of the most high-impact themes which are consolidated through contributions from the network of experts and leading authorities involved in the research.
- October 17th - 17.00 HParc de la BarcelonetaShow
Transhumance is the seasonal migration of herds in search of pasture land wherever it may be depending on the time of year: pasture land in the mountains in summer and on the plain in winter.
And so are our shepherds, they lead the flock where the public is gathered to enjoy the street theatre. Shepherds, goats and our dog are the main characters. But maybe you will also end up being a protagonist. Do you know how to milk? And how do you do as a wolf?
- October 17th - 20.00 HPlaça ReialShow
At the improshow we play with knowledge about food, sustainability and the climate emergency. We’ll be improvising everyday situations connected with sustainable food and local organisations, through humour and based on audience suggestions.
An innovative experience in which the audience will become the authors of stories that are surprising, exciting and fun. - October 18th - 17.30 HParc de la Ciutadella - Passeig de Pujades amb Passeig Lluís CompanysVisit / Tour
A walk for discovering the many wild plants we have close to home that we were unfamiliar with and the varied possible uses of which we could never have imagined. We’ll learn how to identify them, we’ll smell and taste them and discover the uses each of the species has inside and outside the kitchen.
- October 19th - 17.30 HJardins Pla i ArmengolVisit / Tour
A walk for discovering the many wild plants we have close to home that we were unfamiliar with and the varied possible uses of which we could never have imagined. We’ll learn how to identify them, we’ll smell and taste them and discover the uses each of the species has inside and outside the kitchen.
- October 19th - 19.00 HVideoconferenceWorkshop, Online
Virtual session offering advice and answering questions about the value of seasonality: food production and distribution models, urban garden planning, and strategies for preserving and extending the availability of products.
Not sure what to do with all the tomatoes you pick from the garden in the summer? Wondering how come you can buy tomatoes from the market all year round? In this session, we will look at the calendar and highlight the seasonal nature of horticultural produce. We will analyse the models of production and distribution of products in the agri-food industry and, at the same time, learn how to make a good plan for starting seeds and planting in our gardens, while discovering strategies for conserving and extending the availability of the products we grow throughout the whole year.This session relates to the following informational clip
- October 19th - 22.00 HBetevé broadcastingDocumentary film season
Seeds of Freedom (Llavors de llibertat) charts the story of seed, from its roots at the heart of traditional, diversity-rich farming systems across the world, to its transformation into a powerful commodity, used to monopolise the global food system.
The film explores the ways in which the industrial agricultural system, and genetically modified (GM) seeds in particular, have impacted upon the agro-biodiversity evolved by farmers and communities around the world over millennia.
The film challenges the mantra that large-scale, industrial agriculture is the only means by which we can feed the world, promoted by the pro-GM lobby. In tracking the story of seed it becomes clear how the corporate agenda has driven the take over of seed in order to make vast profit and take control of the global food system.
- October 20th - 17.30 HJardins de PedralbesVisit / Tour
A walk for discovering the many wild plants we have close to home that we were unfamiliar with and the varied possible uses of which we could never have imagined. We’ll learn how to identify them, we’ll smell and taste them and discover the uses each of the species has inside and outside the kitchen.
- October 21st - 17.30 HBiblioteca Joan MiróVisit / Tour
A walk for discovering the many wild plants we have close to home that we were unfamiliar with and the varied possible uses of which we could never have imagined. We’ll learn how to identify them, we’ll smell and taste them and discover the uses each of the species has inside and outside the kitchen.
- October 22nd - 17.30 HPlaça Lesseps (sortida metro)Visit / Tour
A walk for discovering the many wild plants we have close to home that we were unfamiliar with and the varied possible uses of which we could never have imagined. We’ll learn how to identify them, we’ll smell and taste them and discover the uses each of the species has inside and outside the kitchen.
- October 23th - 10.00 HEstació Carretera de les Aigües- Funicular de VallvidreraVisit / Tour
A walk for discovering the many wild plants we have close to home that we were unfamiliar with and the varied possible uses of which we could never have imagined. We’ll learn how to identify them, we’ll smell and taste them and discover the uses each of the species has inside and outside the kitchen.