SAGE: Sow And Grow Everywhere

NVA announces SAGE (Sow And Grow Everywhere) Scheme

May 8, 2009

SAGE: Putting food production into the heart of urban life

SAGE (Sow and grow everywhere) is a visionary initiative hoping to generate a massive change in community food growing in the Glasgow Metropolitan region. A joint venture by NVA and ERZ landscape architects, SAGE will transform derelict and vacant land into vibrant, stimulating, visually attractive spaces for people to grow their own food. It will be designed as a mobile initiative – when any land is required for development- the infrastructure can move to a new site.

Central to SAGE will be the total growing ‘toolkit’, with a support programme for horticultural skills development. The growing toolkit will include high quality, durable, specially designed grow boxes/bags made from recycled materials. The kit will also offer community groups, schools and individuals a how-to-grow manual, internet based back-up resources and deliver a local support network linking each site to the nearest available expertise.

SAGE will allow people with no previous experience of growing their own food and herbs to both provide for their families, friends and potentially offer surplus to a wider area. It will complement, support and extend the existing network of community food initiatives, expand localised composting schemes and distribute locally grown vegetable plugs. SAGE also offers the potential for the larger initiatives to be developed into vibrant social enterprises.

SAGE News

A major scoping study is being carried out on behalf of the Glasgow and Clyde Valley (GCV) Green Network Partnership. This study will guide the development of a range of demonstration sites. These will be across Metropolitan Glasgow and within participating local authorities in the Clyde Valley. The study will be available in August 2009.

NVA has received three years funding from Culture and Sport Glasgow to develop SAGE demonstrations sites across the city, working in collaboration with the Area Arts Officers.

Get Involved

SAGE is looking to meet with anyone interested in hosting a demonstration project. Do you have a site within your community which you would like to transform, and a group wanting to grow their own food? If so, get in touch with NVA who can be contacted on 0141 332 9911 or send an email to robert@nva.org.uk

Some facts

  • Britain’s food travels 17 trillion miles every year to reach our plates
  • It costs four barrels of oil per person to feed us every year
  • More and more of us want to grow our own food - Vegetable seeds are out selling flower seeds
  • 80 per cent of Britain’s population live in towns and cities. Allotments are the only option for many to grow food
  • Allotment waiting lists are getting longer, and in some areas it might take 10 years before an allotment becomes available
  • In times of recession, the development of urban land has significantly slowed down, leaving barren gap sites across urban Scotland. These sites are draining communities, the local environment and local economies

    • GCV Green Network Culture and Sport Glasgow

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