User:Everythingmustgrow/Incredible Edible Todmorden

Incredible Edible Todmorden is an iniative of "investing in kindness" that formed in 2008 originally as an idea between Pamela Warhurst and Mary Clear. The concept would "try to change the future" and in another way was related to the local food movement and was reactionary "to climate change and the absurdities and dangers of a globalised food system." It used these ideas intending to give "important clues about how we can rethink the places we live in."

Highlighting volunteerism and community organising a team from the community of Todmorden became known as 'Incredible Edible Todmorden' or 'IET' and promoted themselves in order to spread concepts and start conversations at first by using urban gardening techniques to grow what they called 'propaganda gardens' (free food in public spaces.) However, co-founder Mary Clear explained "It's not all about free food," and Pam Warhurst explained that "the simple idea of engaging with local food helps everyone irrespective of age, income or culture find positive things to do to improve where and how we live our lives." So this group of passionate people started the project of Incredible Edible, which encouraged other communities to do the same by replacing the word 'Todmorden' with the name of their own community. This was in order to replicate the actions of the IET group and form a grass roots movement using a model that focused on 'Community', 'Business', and 'Learning' to share responsibility for well being. Those that formed groups were sometimes known collectively as the Incredible Edible Movement. The use of open source and crowdsourcing methods expanded the initiative by replicating the voluntary community work of IET globally. This further led to the development of a variety of initial groups all working in their own way to achieve similar goals based around the original iniative. The community group that was known as 'Incredible Edible Todmorden' then founded a community benefit society now known as 'Incredible Edible Todmorden Community Team.'

Subsequent Groups
From the work of the original Incredible Edible Todmorden group of volunteers there were subsequent groups, projects and companies formed at various times.

The Incredible Farm
Originally a project of Incredible Edible Todmorden, the farm teaches small scale commercial food growing and marketing skills to young people. Chaired by Nick Green the Incredible Farm is now a stand-alone not-for-profit company.

The Incredible Aquagarden
Chaired by Pam Warhurst, a co-founder of Incredible Edible Todmorden, the Incredible Aquagarden “evolved from Incredible Edible Todmorden’s success… It is now a stand-alone company. Supported by its partner, Todmorden High School, its aim is to provide access to good locally produced food, for all … Combining state-of-the-art growing systems, such as aquaponics and hydroponics with more traditional techniques, indoors and outdoors.

The Incredible Edible Network
Chaired by one of the co-founders of Incredible Edible Todmorden, Pamela Warhurst, the Incredible Edible Network was set up in 2012 in response to the huge popularity of the original group in Todmorden and the flood of enquiries from those who wanted to embrace its aims. It was set up to inspire new groups across the UK and to provide more people with information about food activism and community resilience.

Incredible Edible Ltd
A not-for-profit company chaired by one of the co-founders of Incredible Edible Todmorden, Pamela Warhurst, it protects and licences the use of the Incredible Edible brand and logo.

Incredible Edible Todmorden Community Team
Chaired by one of the co-founders of Incredible Edible Todmorden, Mary Clear, a Community Benefit Society maintaining the community spirit and ethos of Incredible Edible. Growing food to share, running festivals and cooking demos, and supporting businesses and other local groups. All with no paid staff, no buildings, no public funding: radical community building in action.