WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.000 How do you feed a city? 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:06.000 It's one of the great questions of our time. 00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:08.000 Yet it's one that's rarely asked. 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:11.000 We take it for granted that if we go into a shop 00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:15.000 or restaurant, or indeed into this theater's foyer in about an hour's time, 00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:18.000 there is going to be food there waiting for us, 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:20.000 having magically come from somewhere. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:25.000 But when you think that every day for a city the size of London, 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:28.000 enough food has to be produced, 00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:31.000 transported, bought and sold, 00:00:31.000 --> 00:00:35.000 cooked, eaten, disposed of, 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:37.000 and that something similar has to happen every day 00:00:37.000 --> 00:00:39.000 for every city on earth, 00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:42.000 it's remarkable that cities get fed at all. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:44.000 We live in places like this as if 00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:47.000 they're the most natural things in the world, 00:00:47.000 --> 00:00:49.000 forgetting that because we're animals 00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:51.000 and that we need to eat, 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:55.000 we're actually as dependent on the natural world 00:00:55.000 --> 00:00:57.000 as our ancient ancestors were. 00:00:57.000 --> 00:00:59.000 And as more of us move into cities, 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:02.000 more of that natural world is being 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:05.000 transformed into extraordinary landscapes like the one behind me -- 00:01:05.000 --> 00:01:08.000 it's soybean fields in Mato Grosso in Brazil -- 00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:11.000 in order to feed us. 00:01:11.000 --> 00:01:13.000 These are extraordinary landscapes, 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:15.000 but few of us ever get to see them. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:17.000 And increasingly these landscapes 00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:19.000 are not just feeding us either. 00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:21.000 As more of us move into cities, 00:01:21.000 --> 00:01:23.000 more of us are eating meat, 00:01:23.000 --> 00:01:26.000 so that a third of the annual grain crop globally 00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:28.000 now gets fed to animals 00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:30.000 rather than to us human animals. 00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:34.000 And given that it takes three times as much grain -- 00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:36.000 actually ten times as much grain -- 00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:39.000 to feed a human if it's passed through an animal first, 00:01:39.000 --> 00:01:44.000 that's not a very efficient way of feeding us. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:46.000 And it's an escalating problem too. 00:01:46.000 --> 00:01:49.000 By 2050, it's estimated that twice the number 00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:51.000 of us are going to be living in cities. 00:01:51.000 --> 00:01:53.000 And it's also estimated that there is going to be twice as much 00:01:53.000 --> 00:01:55.000 meat and dairy consumed. 00:01:55.000 --> 00:02:00.000 So meat and urbanism are rising hand in hand. 00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:02.000 And that's going to pose an enormous problem. 00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:05.000 Six billion hungry carnivores to feed, 00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:09.000 by 2050. 00:02:09.000 --> 00:02:11.000 That's a big problem. And actually if we carry on as we are, 00:02:11.000 --> 00:02:14.000 it's a problem we're very unlikely to be able to solve. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:18.000 Nineteen million hectares of rainforest are lost every year 00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:20.000 to create new arable land. 00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:23.000 Although at the same time we're losing an equivalent amount 00:02:23.000 --> 00:02:27.000 of existing arables to salinization and erosion. 00:02:27.000 --> 00:02:30.000 We're very hungry for fossil fuels too. 00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:33.000 It takes about 10 calories to produce every calorie 00:02:33.000 --> 00:02:37.000 of food that we consume in the West. 00:02:37.000 --> 00:02:41.000 And even though there is food that we are producing at great cost, 00:02:41.000 --> 00:02:43.000 we don't actually value it. 00:02:43.000 --> 00:02:47.000 Half the food produced in the USA is currently thrown away. 00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:50.000 And to end all of this, at the end of this long process, 00:02:50.000 --> 00:02:53.000 we're not even managing to feed the planet properly. 00:02:53.000 --> 00:02:58.000 A billion of us are obese, while a further billion starve. 00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:00.000 None of it makes very much sense. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:03.000 And when you think that 80 percent of global trade in food now 00:03:03.000 --> 00:03:08.000 is controlled by just five multinational corporations, 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:10.000 it's a grim picture. 00:03:10.000 --> 00:03:13.000 As we're moving into cities, the world is also embracing a Western diet. 00:03:13.000 --> 00:03:16.000 And if we look to the future, 00:03:16.000 --> 00:03:18.000 it's an unsustainable diet. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:20.000 So how did we get here? 00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:23.000 And more importantly, what are we going to do about it? 00:03:23.000 --> 00:03:27.000 Well, to answer the slightly easier question first, 00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:29.000 about 10,000 years ago, I would say, 00:03:29.000 --> 00:03:31.000 is the beginning of this process 00:03:31.000 --> 00:03:33.000 in the ancient Near East, 00:03:33.000 --> 00:03:35.000 known as the Fertile Crescent. 00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:37.000 Because, as you can see, it was crescent shaped. 00:03:37.000 --> 00:03:39.000 And it was also fertile. 00:03:39.000 --> 00:03:42.000 And it was here, about 10,000 years ago, 00:03:42.000 --> 00:03:44.000 that two extraordinary inventions, 00:03:44.000 --> 00:03:47.000 agriculture and urbanism, happened 00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:50.000 roughly in the same place and at the same time. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:52.000 This is no accident, 00:03:52.000 --> 00:03:56.000 because agriculture and cities are bound together. They need each other. 00:03:56.000 --> 00:03:58.000 Because it was discovery of grain 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:01.000 by our ancient ancestors for the first time 00:04:01.000 --> 00:04:04.000 that produced a food source that was large enough 00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:08.000 and stable enough to support permanent settlements. 00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:10.000 And if we look at what those settlements were like, 00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:12.000 we see they were compact. 00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:14.000 They were surrounded by productive farm land 00:04:14.000 --> 00:04:17.000 and dominated by large temple complexes 00:04:17.000 --> 00:04:19.000 like this one at Ur, 00:04:19.000 --> 00:04:21.000 that were, in fact, effectively, 00:04:21.000 --> 00:04:24.000 spiritualized, central food distribution centers. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:27.000 Because it was the temples that organized the harvest, 00:04:27.000 --> 00:04:29.000 gathered in the grain, offered it to the gods, 00:04:29.000 --> 00:04:33.000 and then offered the grain that the gods didn't eat back to the people. 00:04:33.000 --> 00:04:35.000 So, if you like, 00:04:35.000 --> 00:04:37.000 the whole spiritual and physical life of these cities 00:04:37.000 --> 00:04:40.000 was dominated by the grain and the harvest 00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:43.000 that sustained them. 00:04:43.000 --> 00:04:46.000 And in fact, that's true of every ancient city. 00:04:46.000 --> 00:04:48.000 But of course not all of them were that small. 00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:51.000 Famously, Rome had about a million citizens 00:04:51.000 --> 00:04:53.000 by the first century A.D. 00:04:53.000 --> 00:04:57.000 So how did a city like this feed itself? 00:04:57.000 --> 00:05:00.000 The answer is what I call "ancient food miles." NOTE Paragraph 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:03.000 Basically, Rome had access to the sea, 00:05:03.000 --> 00:05:06.000 which made it possible for it to import food from a very long way away. 00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:09.000 This is the only way it was possible to do this in the ancient world, 00:05:09.000 --> 00:05:12.000 because it was very difficult to transport food over roads, 00:05:12.000 --> 00:05:14.000 which were rough. 00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:16.000 And the food obviously went off very quickly. 00:05:16.000 --> 00:05:18.000 So Rome effectively waged war 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:21.000 on places like Carthage and Egypt 00:05:21.000 --> 00:05:23.000 just to get its paws on their grain reserves. 00:05:23.000 --> 00:05:26.000 And, in fact, you could say that the expansion of the Empire 00:05:26.000 --> 00:05:29.000 was really sort of one long, drawn out 00:05:29.000 --> 00:05:31.000 militarized shopping spree, really. 00:05:31.000 --> 00:05:33.000 (Laughter) 00:05:33.000 --> 00:05:35.000 In fact -- I love the fact, I just have to mention this: 00:05:35.000 --> 00:05:38.000 Rome in fact used to import oysters from London, 00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:40.000 at one stage. I think that's extraordinary. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:43.000 So Rome shaped its hinterland 00:05:43.000 --> 00:05:45.000 through its appetite. 00:05:45.000 --> 00:05:47.000 But the interesting thing is that the other thing also 00:05:47.000 --> 00:05:49.000 happened in the pre-industrial world. 00:05:49.000 --> 00:05:52.000 If we look at a map of London in the 17th century, 00:05:52.000 --> 00:05:55.000 we can see that its grain, which is coming in from the Thames, 00:05:55.000 --> 00:05:57.000 along the bottom of this map. 00:05:57.000 --> 00:06:00.000 So the grain markets were to the south of the city. 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:02.000 And the roads leading up from them 00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:04.000 to Cheapside, which was the main market, 00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:06.000 were also grain markets. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:06.000 --> 00:06:08.000 And if you look at the name of one of those streets, 00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:11.000 Bread Street, you can tell 00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:14.000 what was going on there 300 years ago. 00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:16.000 And the same of course was true for fish. 00:06:16.000 --> 00:06:19.000 Fish was, of course, coming in by river as well. Same thing. 00:06:19.000 --> 00:06:22.000 And of course Billingsgate, famously, was London's fish market, 00:06:22.000 --> 00:06:26.000 operating on-site here until the mid-1980s. 00:06:26.000 --> 00:06:28.000 Which is extraordinary, really, when you think about it. 00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:30.000 Everybody else was wandering around 00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:32.000 with mobile phones that looked like bricks 00:06:32.000 --> 00:06:35.000 and sort of smelly fish happening down on the port. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:38.000 This is another thing about food in cities: 00:06:38.000 --> 00:06:41.000 Once its roots into the city are established, 00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:43.000 they very rarely move. 00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:45.000 Meat is a very different story 00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:47.000 because, of course, animals could walk into the city. 00:06:47.000 --> 00:06:49.000 So much of London's meat 00:06:49.000 --> 00:06:51.000 was coming from the northwest, 00:06:51.000 --> 00:06:53.000 from Scotland and Wales. 00:06:53.000 --> 00:06:56.000 So it was coming in, and arriving at the city at the northwest, 00:06:56.000 --> 00:06:58.000 which is why Smithfield, 00:06:58.000 --> 00:07:01.000 London's very famous meat market, was located up there. 00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:05.000 Poultry was coming in from East Anglia and so on, to the northeast. 00:07:05.000 --> 00:07:06.000 I feel a bit like a weather woman doing this. Anyway, 00:07:06.000 --> 00:07:10.000 and so the birds were coming in 00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:13.000 with their feet protected with little canvas shoes. 00:07:13.000 --> 00:07:15.000 And then when they hit the eastern end 00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:17.000 of Cheapside, that's where they were sold, 00:07:17.000 --> 00:07:19.000 which is why it's called Poultry. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:19.000 --> 00:07:22.000 And, in fact, if you look at the map of any city 00:07:22.000 --> 00:07:26.000 built before the industrial age, 00:07:26.000 --> 00:07:28.000 you can trace food coming in to it. 00:07:28.000 --> 00:07:31.000 You can actually see how it was physically shaped by food, 00:07:31.000 --> 00:07:34.000 both by reading the names of the streets, which give you a lot of clues. 00:07:34.000 --> 00:07:36.000 Friday Street, in a previous life, 00:07:36.000 --> 00:07:38.000 is where you went to buy your fish on a Friday. 00:07:38.000 --> 00:07:40.000 But also you have to imagine it full of food. 00:07:40.000 --> 00:07:43.000 Because the streets and the public spaces 00:07:43.000 --> 00:07:46.000 were the only places where food was bought and sold. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:46.000 --> 00:07:49.000 And if we look at an image of Smithfield in 1830 00:07:49.000 --> 00:07:52.000 you can see that it would have been very difficult to live in a city like this 00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:54.000 and be unaware of where your food came from. 00:07:54.000 --> 00:07:56.000 In fact, if you were having Sunday lunch, 00:07:56.000 --> 00:07:58.000 the chances were it was mooing or bleating outside your window 00:07:58.000 --> 00:08:00.000 about three days earlier. 00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:03.000 So this was obviously an organic city, 00:08:03.000 --> 00:08:06.000 part of an organic cycle. 00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:09.000 And then 10 years later everything changed. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:09.000 --> 00:08:12.000 This is an image of the Great Western in 1840. 00:08:12.000 --> 00:08:14.000 And as you can see, some of the earliest train passengers 00:08:14.000 --> 00:08:16.000 were pigs and sheep. 00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:20.000 So all of a sudden, these animals are no longer walking into market. 00:08:20.000 --> 00:08:22.000 They're being slaughtered out of sight and mind, 00:08:22.000 --> 00:08:24.000 somewhere in the countryside. 00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:26.000 And they're coming into the city by rail. 00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:29.000 And this changes everything. 00:08:29.000 --> 00:08:31.000 To start off with, it makes it possible 00:08:31.000 --> 00:08:32.000 for the first time to grow cities, 00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:34.000 really any size and shape, in any place. 00:08:34.000 --> 00:08:38.000 Cities used to be constrained by geography; 00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:41.000 they used to have to get their food through very difficult physical means. 00:08:41.000 --> 00:08:45.000 All of a sudden they are effectively emancipated from geography. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:45.000 --> 00:08:48.000 And as you can see from these maps of London, 00:08:48.000 --> 00:08:50.000 in the 90 years after the trains came, 00:08:50.000 --> 00:08:54.000 it goes from being a little blob that was quite easy to feed 00:08:54.000 --> 00:08:56.000 by animals coming in on foot, and so on, 00:08:56.000 --> 00:08:58.000 to a large splurge, 00:08:58.000 --> 00:09:01.000 that would be very, very difficult to feed with anybody on foot, 00:09:01.000 --> 00:09:04.000 either animals or people. 00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:07.000 And of course that was just the beginning. After the trains came cars, 00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:11.000 and really this marks the end of this process. 00:09:11.000 --> 00:09:13.000 It's the final emancipation of the city 00:09:13.000 --> 00:09:16.000 from any apparent relationship with nature at all. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:19.000 And this is the kind of city that's devoid of smell, 00:09:19.000 --> 00:09:21.000 devoid of mess, certainly devoid of people, 00:09:21.000 --> 00:09:24.000 because nobody would have dreamed of walking in such a landscape. 00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:27.000 In fact, what they did to get food was they got in their cars, 00:09:27.000 --> 00:09:30.000 drove to a box somewhere on the outskirts, 00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:32.000 came back with a week's worth of shopping, 00:09:32.000 --> 00:09:34.000 and wondered what on earth to do with it. 00:09:34.000 --> 00:09:37.000 And this really is the moment when our relationship, 00:09:37.000 --> 00:09:40.000 both with food and cities, changes completely. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:43.000 Here we have food -- that used to be the center, 00:09:43.000 --> 00:09:46.000 the social core of the city -- at the periphery. 00:09:46.000 --> 00:09:48.000 It used to be a social event, buying and selling food. 00:09:48.000 --> 00:09:50.000 Now it's anonymous. 00:09:50.000 --> 00:09:52.000 We used to cook; now we just add water, 00:09:52.000 --> 00:09:57.000 or a little bit of an egg if you're making a cake or something. 00:09:57.000 --> 00:10:01.000 We don't smell food to see if it's okay to eat. 00:10:01.000 --> 00:10:04.000 We just read the back of a label on a packet. 00:10:04.000 --> 00:10:07.000 And we don't value food. We don't trust it. 00:10:07.000 --> 00:10:09.000 So instead of trusting it, we fear it. 00:10:09.000 --> 00:10:13.000 And instead of valuing it, we throw it away. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:13.000 --> 00:10:16.000 One of the great ironies of modern food systems 00:10:16.000 --> 00:10:18.000 is that they've made the very thing they promised 00:10:18.000 --> 00:10:20.000 to make easier much harder. 00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:24.000 By making it possible to build cities anywhere and any place, 00:10:24.000 --> 00:10:28.000 they've actually distanced us from our most important relationship, 00:10:28.000 --> 00:10:31.000 which is that of us and nature. 00:10:31.000 --> 00:10:34.000 And also they've made us dependent on systems that only they can deliver, 00:10:34.000 --> 00:10:36.000 that, as we've seen, are unsustainable. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:39.000 So what are we going to do about that? 00:10:39.000 --> 00:10:41.000 It's not a new question. 00:10:41.000 --> 00:10:45.000 500 years ago it's what Thomas More was asking himself. 00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:48.000 This is the frontispiece of his book "Utopia." 00:10:48.000 --> 00:10:51.000 And it was a series of semi-independent city-states, 00:10:51.000 --> 00:10:53.000 if that sounds remotely familiar, 00:10:53.000 --> 00:10:56.000 a day's walk from one another where everyone was basically farming-mad, 00:10:56.000 --> 00:10:58.000 and grew vegetables in their back gardens, 00:10:58.000 --> 00:11:00.000 and ate communal meals together, and so on. 00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:02.000 And I think you could argue that 00:11:02.000 --> 00:11:05.000 food is a fundamental ordering principle of Utopia, 00:11:05.000 --> 00:11:08.000 even though More never framed it that way. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:08.000 --> 00:11:11.000 And here is another very famous "Utopian" vision, 00:11:11.000 --> 00:11:13.000 that of Ebenezer Howard, "The Garden City." 00:11:13.000 --> 00:11:16.000 Same idea: series of semi-independent city-states, 00:11:16.000 --> 00:11:20.000 little blobs of metropolitan stuff with arable land around, 00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:22.000 joined to one another by railway. 00:11:22.000 --> 00:11:24.000 And again, food could be said to be 00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:27.000 the ordering principle of his vision. 00:11:27.000 --> 00:11:29.000 It even got built, but nothing to do with 00:11:29.000 --> 00:11:31.000 this vision that Howard had. 00:11:31.000 --> 00:11:34.000 And that is the problem with these Utopian ideas, 00:11:34.000 --> 00:11:36.000 that they are Utopian. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:36.000 --> 00:11:39.000 Utopia was actually a word that Thomas Moore used deliberately. 00:11:39.000 --> 00:11:43.000 It was a kind of joke, because it's got a double derivation from the Greek. 00:11:43.000 --> 00:11:45.000 It can either mean a good place, or no place. 00:11:45.000 --> 00:11:49.000 Because it's an ideal. It's an imaginary thing. We can't have it. 00:11:49.000 --> 00:11:51.000 And I think, as a conceptual tool 00:11:51.000 --> 00:11:54.000 for thinking about the very deep problem of human dwelling, 00:11:54.000 --> 00:11:56.000 that makes it not much use. 00:11:56.000 --> 00:11:59.000 So I've come up with an alternative, 00:11:59.000 --> 00:12:02.000 which is Sitopia, from the ancient Greek, 00:12:02.000 --> 00:12:04.000 "sitos" for food, and "topos" for place. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:06.000 I believe we already live in Sitopia. 00:12:06.000 --> 00:12:09.000 We live in a world shaped by food, 00:12:09.000 --> 00:12:12.000 and if we realize that, we can use food as a really powerful tool -- 00:12:12.000 --> 00:12:16.000 a conceptual tool, design tool, to shape the world differently. 00:12:16.000 --> 00:12:21.000 So if we were to do that, what might Sitopia look like? 00:12:21.000 --> 00:12:23.000 Well I think it looks a bit like this. 00:12:23.000 --> 00:12:25.000 I have to use this slide. It's just the look on the face of the dog. 00:12:25.000 --> 00:12:28.000 But anyway, this is -- (Laughter) 00:12:28.000 --> 00:12:30.000 it's food at the center of life, 00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:32.000 at the center of family life, being celebrated, 00:12:32.000 --> 00:12:34.000 being enjoyed, people taking time for it. 00:12:34.000 --> 00:12:37.000 This is where food should be in our society. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:37.000 --> 00:12:42.000 But you can't have scenes like this unless you have people like this. 00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:44.000 By the way, these can be men as well. 00:12:44.000 --> 00:12:47.000 It's people who think about food, 00:12:47.000 --> 00:12:49.000 who think ahead, who plan, 00:12:49.000 --> 00:12:51.000 who can stare at a pile of raw vegetables 00:12:51.000 --> 00:12:53.000 and actually recognize them. 00:12:53.000 --> 00:12:56.000 We need these people. We're part of a network. 00:12:56.000 --> 00:12:59.000 Because without these kinds of people we can't have places like this. 00:12:59.000 --> 00:13:02.000 Here, I deliberately chose this because it is a man buying a vegetable. 00:13:02.000 --> 00:13:06.000 But networks, markets where food is being grown locally. 00:13:06.000 --> 00:13:08.000 It's common. It's fresh. 00:13:08.000 --> 00:13:10.000 It's part of the social life of the city. 00:13:10.000 --> 00:13:13.000 Because without that, you can't have this kind of place, 00:13:13.000 --> 00:13:16.000 food that is grown locally and also is part of the landscape, 00:13:16.000 --> 00:13:18.000 and is not just a zero-sum commodity 00:13:18.000 --> 00:13:20.000 off in some unseen hell-hole. 00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:22.000 Cows with a view. 00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:24.000 Steaming piles of humus. 00:13:24.000 --> 00:13:27.000 This is basically bringing the whole thing together. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:27.000 --> 00:13:29.000 And this is a community project 00:13:29.000 --> 00:13:31.000 I visited recently in Toronto. 00:13:31.000 --> 00:13:33.000 It's a greenhouse, where kids get told 00:13:33.000 --> 00:13:36.000 all about food and growing their own food. 00:13:36.000 --> 00:13:39.000 Here is a plant called Kevin, or maybe it's a 00:13:39.000 --> 00:13:41.000 plant belonging to a kid called Kevin. I don't know. 00:13:41.000 --> 00:13:44.000 But anyway, these kinds of projects 00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:48.000 that are trying to reconnect us with nature is extremely important. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:48.000 --> 00:13:50.000 So Sitopia, for me, is really a way of seeing. 00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:54.000 It's basically recognizing that Sitopia 00:13:54.000 --> 00:13:56.000 already exists in little pockets everywhere. 00:13:56.000 --> 00:13:58.000 The trick is to join them up, 00:13:58.000 --> 00:14:01.000 to use food as a way of seeing. 00:14:01.000 --> 00:14:04.000 And if we do that, we're going to stop seeing cities 00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:07.000 as big, metropolitan, unproductive blobs, like this. 00:14:07.000 --> 00:14:09.000 We're going to see them more like this, 00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:12.000 as part of the productive, organic framework 00:14:12.000 --> 00:14:14.000 of which they are inevitably a part, 00:14:14.000 --> 00:14:16.000 symbiotically connected. 00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:18.000 But of course, that's not a great image either, 00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:21.000 because we need not to be producing food like this anymore. 00:14:21.000 --> 00:14:23.000 We need to be thinking more about permaculture, 00:14:23.000 --> 00:14:25.000 which is why I think this image just 00:14:25.000 --> 00:14:27.000 sums up for me the kind of thinking we need to be doing. 00:14:27.000 --> 00:14:29.000 It's a re-conceptualization 00:14:29.000 --> 00:14:32.000 of the way food shapes our lives. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:32.000 --> 00:14:35.000 The best image I know of this is from 650 years ago. 00:14:35.000 --> 00:14:38.000 It's Ambrogio Lorenzetti's "Allegory of Good Government." 00:14:38.000 --> 00:14:41.000 It's about the relationship between the city and the countryside. 00:14:41.000 --> 00:14:44.000 And I think the message of this is very clear. 00:14:44.000 --> 00:14:46.000 If the city looks after the country, 00:14:46.000 --> 00:14:48.000 the country will look after the city. 00:14:48.000 --> 00:14:50.000 And I want us to ask now, 00:14:50.000 --> 00:14:53.000 what would Ambrogio Lorenzetti paint 00:14:53.000 --> 00:14:55.000 if he painted this image today? 00:14:55.000 --> 00:14:58.000 What would an allegory of good government look like today? 00:14:58.000 --> 00:15:00.000 Because I think it's an urgent question. 00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:02.000 It's one we have to ask, 00:15:02.000 --> 00:15:04.000 and we have to start answering. 00:15:04.000 --> 00:15:07.000 We know we are what we eat. 00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:09.000 We need to realize that the world is also what we eat. 00:15:09.000 --> 00:15:11.000 But if we take that idea, we can use food 00:15:11.000 --> 00:15:15.000 as a really powerful tool to shape the world better. 00:15:15.000 --> 00:15:17.000 Thank you very much. 00:15:17.000 --> 00:15:20.000 (Applause)