• History and Ideas
  • Prehistory to Middle Ages
  • Renaissance, Baroque, Enlightenment
  • 19th Century
  • 20th Century
  • From Millennium to Olympics
• The Genius of Place
  • Design and Vision
  • Planning the Landscape
  • Management and Conservation
  • Historic Conservation
  • The Science of Landscape
  • Cities and Towns
  • Gardens and Parks
• The Power to Change
  • Climate Change
  • Sustainable Communities
  • Environment
  • Housing
  • Hunger
  • Transportation

Tackling Hunger

Tackling hunger is not just about helping people in times of famine.  It involves planning ahead, thinking about possible hard times in the future, and making sure that landscape can support populations in times of crisis. At the simplest level, this means planting trees and shrubs that will provide food such as fruit and nuts for people and wildlife, but at the broadest level it means planning for large stretches of landscape to remain productive and fertile. Landscape architects work at both ends of this scale.

Food security is an issue of increasing importance, and planning how we use land is a crucial part of this. We need to grow more food in the UK including in our towns and cities.  In the Summer and Autumn 2007, thousands of people living and working in the town of Middlesbrough, Tees Valley participated in a project to increase local food production and reduce food miles.

The project which was called Dott 07 (Designs of the Times) encouraged people to work together, growing food and realising new relationships with local food producers and existing growers in the town and its surrounding area. Their goal has been to pioneer a new sustainable future - not just for Middlesbrough but also other post-industrial communities across the U.K.