Feeding Ourselves as an event grew out of the Cloughjordan Community Farm (CCF). CCF had itself as a member owned and operated CSA – Community Supported Agriculture – initiative 13 years ago. Then, this farm, which itself emerged from a newly established ecovillage, wanted to tell the world about this new way to bring communities together around food, farming and environmental care.

This meeting many years back went very well (as you can read here) and Feeding Ourselves has since grown into an annual event.

In the early days it was all about food sovereignty, with technological sovereignty and more being added too. This was all done within a glocal framework: a cosmo local, globally engaged, solidarity economy paradigm. 

Ireland’s iteration of La Via Campesina – Talamh Beo  – emerged from this event. What’s more, in recent years, new elements and personnel have emerged. The Environmental Pillar – a representative group of Ireland’s environmental sector started to get involved in the policy discussions which were emerging as the event widened. Cultivate – a Cloughjordan based NGO focused on areas such as permaculture and rural resilience is a member of the IEN, and has been a co-organiser with CCF for some years. 

This led to some feisty, but well informed exchanges between people quite used to their own comfort zones. 

ARC2020 too started to get involved, creating a link between European rural and agri-food developments and Irish variations.