The Jersey Organic Association Campaigns
PEAK OIL
The Soil Association is settign up a new campaign around Peak Oil. This is likely to concentrate on localising food supplies and reducing air mailes. We will post more info as it arrives
ALLOTMENTS
We are looking into a new campaign to provide organic allotments in the Island. In part this ties in with the Soil Association's new campaign on Peak Oil. In part it is also because we believe there are too few opportunities for local people to be in contact with the soil. Waitrose, the UK supermarket, issued figures earlier this year showing there are 300,000 allotment holders in England, with a further 35,000 on waiting lists. Scaled down to Jersey's population that would suggest we should have around 600 allotments.
A précis of info from a 1977 Lawrence Hills book:|
In 1918 we finished a war with 1.5 million allotments producing £15million pounds worth of vegetables a year at 1918 prices.
The legislation concerning allotments dates from the 1920’s. Under the allotments act of 1922 an allotment garden must not exceed 40 poles (300 square yards) in area, and most be wholly or mainly cultivated by the occupier for the production of vegetables and fruits for consumption by himself and his family. Borough and parish councils are under a statutory obligation to provide allotment gardens for all suitable persons, providing the application is made by 6 registered parliamentary electors or ratepayers residing in their districts.
That legislation is of course UK and not Jersey and it could well be that it was repealed, but it shows just how significant allotments were in the 1920’s. Perhaps they will become that important again.
There will be a national allotment week in the UK 13-19 August 2007, so we may well tie into that.
UPDATE January 2007. We have received some information from the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners which sould prove useful.
UPDATE July 2008. The RJAHS are supporting the campaign. From the BBC website|: The society’s president Stephen Le Feuvre explained he would back proposals made by Jersey’s Organic Association to provide allotments for those who didn’t have garden space.“It’s one of our embryonic policies at the moment, we’re just looking into it,” he said, “but it does fall in very neatly and nicely with the way we want to proceed forward.” He said it would be important for any sort of allotment scheme to be tightly controlled, but initial feedback suggests the take-up would be quite high.