Global warming, peak oil, climate change; GM seeds of the bio-giants BAYER and MONSANTO are ruining our biosphere; 40% of greenhouse gas emissions comes from the industrialized agriculture sector; – how to get from where we are now to an abundant, pleasurable and resilient future? The 65-minute long documentary film “Voices of Transition”gives us a concrete answer to this powerful question. Leigh Court Farm in England “Reintroducing fields into our cities” In Tropentag it's the first time to launch a mini film festival on urban and peri-urban agriculture. One of the selected films is Voices of Transition (2012). The documentary was filmed in 4 years across 3 countries based on different topics. http://www.tropentag.de/conference/Filmfestival.php Is your home town undergoing "transition"? The basics behind the transition town movement are - fair share of ideas and to localize money and food production within a community to achieve local resilience and to link up with neighbors who can supply you with goods and services that are produced in better practices or ecologically friendly than you do. “You don’t even need a car when you use public transport”. “We can bring food production back to the place we live and grow our own food to meet our own needs”, said a campaigner of the transition town movement initiated in Totnes, England. The movement has been spread and experimented in over 1000 cities around the world, including highly urban and compacted cities like Hong Kong – my home town. “Reintroducing life (“trees”) into our fields” The second part of the film is about how a French farmer and his son introduced agroforestry system (AFS) in their farms and can AFS actually feed the nation? In France, every 23 minutes a small scale farm closes down and younger farmers find it difficult to take over their parents’ in-debt farms. AFS or forest gardening can be regarded as a more resilient farm practice. Not only diversifying perennial or annual crops production, but also enriching the soil with nutrient-enhancing plants, which means the farm has a closed nutrient cycle without imported fertilizers, and nutrients and organic matter can generate themselves. Every plant has its plant system function, such as mint is healthy for human beings and it also chases away pests. Forest or fruit trees for example, can benefit to local wood producing activities. “Reintroducing urban gardening into our neighborhoods” In Havana, Cuba over 70% of food is produced organically; around 500,000 Cuban citizens are engaged in organic farming or gardening. Their traditional farming system is basically chemical free, and the Cuban government gives its citizen food sovereignty with supportive policies such as decentralization of land and subsidies on doing gardening in the city. Surprisingly, urban farmers can earn 2 times higher income than average salary in Cuba. A Cuban urban farmer talks about organic gardening in Havana The documentary was on tour in Germany this spring and summer, and it will continue its tour around Europe. Stay tuned on: http://www.voicesoftransition.org/ www.facebook.com/voicesoftransition More reading about transition town movement, Cuba and agroforestry http://www.milpafilms.org/milpa.php/making-of/litterature/