River Cottage, Fruit Share, and the Importance of Our Relationship to Creation

David Russell Mosley

19 October 2013

On the Edge of Elfland

Beeston, Nottinghamshire

Dear Friends and Family,

One of the many things about which I am really quite passionate is food. Specifically locally grown and reared food. I have to admit upfront, that I still don’t do enough considering my feelings on the subject, but I am trying.

Today we find ourselves in a culture of prepackaged, pre-cooked, reheated, food. We have no idea from whence it comes, who grew it (or reared it in the case of meat). Animals are being filled with steroids and cooped up in spaces far too small for a quality of life that is necessary for truly excellent tasting meat; seeds are being genetically modified and farmers are being sued for trying to use their own harvested, non-modified seeds (under the pretension that some of them might be over the patented, modified variety due to geographic proximity to modified crops). Even churches are giving mostly non-perishable food items in their food banks because its cheap and many people wouldn’t know what to do with fresh vegetables or fruit if you gave them to them.

There are probably a lot of ways to fix these problems. Stricter governmental regulations over food; buying more from local farms (the creation of more family or town owned farms); growing your own food; etc. As Christians, it is our duty to care for Creation, it is, after all, our sister. And I think churches everywhere should doing everything they can to ensure people are cooking and eating food that is good and wholesome for them. One of the ways to do this, however, is to start with the children and get them involved.

On that front, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall of River Cottage has begun a new project called Fruit Share. Several years ago, Hugh began a project called Land Share, connecting people who wanted to grow their own food with people who had land to spare (here in the UK that is). This new project, Fruit Share, has me very excited, albeit unable to do much about aside from get the word out about it. Fruit Share is program to give free fruit trees to British schools to begin small orchards so they can begin supplying their kitchens with fresh fruit. The kids get to help plant and care for the trees, and then enjoy their bounty. I currently have no children in school nor do I work at one, but I want to encourage everyone who does (teachers, parents, School Governors, etc.) to check out the Fruit Share project and sign up their schools. In the not too distant future I hope to do some more posts on the theological implications of growing food and buying and eating locally, but for now I just want this post to be an encouragement to join in the Fruit Share project. I talk all the time about the enchantment of Creation, well Creation can seem disenchanted if we don’t have a better relationship to it, if all we do is rape the land for industrial purposes. Let’s bring the Kingdom of God (insofar as we can this side of the resurrection) to Creation which is groaning for its own redemption.

Here is the link for the Fruit Share website as well as a brief video about it put out by the River Cottage team:

Fruit Share Website

Sincerely yours,

David Russell Mosley