Thrifty Thursdays Colin Tudge – Why We Must Re-Think Food and Farming From First Principles

Join author and co-founder of the College for Real Farming and Food Culture, Colin Tudge, for our final Thrifty Thursdays event. ‘Technically, it should be almost easy to ensure that everyone who is born on to this planet has access to food of the highest quality, by the standards both of nutrition and of gastronomy – and to do this furthermore without destroying the biosphere and driving our fellow creatures to extinction, as we are doing now. We simply need to re-design agriculture as if this was our intention – what Colin Tudge calls “Enlightened Agriculture”, aka “Real Farming” – and to couple real farming with true Food Culture, rooted in traditional cooking. But we cannot re-design food and farming ad hoc. To be successful we also need to re-think the economy (a simple desire to maximize wealth will not do) and install appropriate governance; and underpin all that we do with a new worldview guided by principles of morality on the one hand (what is it right to do?) and science, particularly ecology, on the other (what is it necessary and possible to do?). Finally, we need to re-convene the discipline of metaphysics, which underlies all thought and values. In all this re-shaping, the free spirit of the arts, in all its forms, has key roles to play.’ About Colin Tudge Colin Tudge is a biologist by education and a writer by trade, with a lifelong interest in food, farming, and all things metaphysical. In 2008 he and his wife Ruth (née West) began the Campaign for Real Farming in 2010 they co-founded the Oxford Real Farming Conferenceand Colin is now seeking to establish the College for Real Farming and Food Culture. This is a free event, however booking is required. This event is part of Thrifty Thursdays – a series of free events running alongside the current exhibition ‘The Land We Live In – The Land We Left Behind’. Taking the exhibition as a starting point to explore themes relating to the rural, each week a different artist, writer, gardener, land-worker, academic or performer will join us. The bar will be open before the event from 5.45 pm until 6.30 pm. Please note, the main exhibition will be closed, however the Bourgeois Gallery, which is the final room in the exhibition, will be open.

Image courtesy Colin Tudge