– Replanting the Lutkemeer polder –

Opening

Once more, organizing the FAF in the Lutkemeer polder carries the main aim of keeping supporting the struggle and bring attention to the polder land issue  to make our statement that this area has to remain agricultural fertile land and that GEM, the SADC , the Gemeente  and AHOLD won’t get away with their dirty business plans.
The FAF#5 started with an initial online session on Friday July 4th late afternoon. After a short introduction about the goals of the FAF’s in general and a presentation of the different cities and locations, MAMA D took us on a path to the core of the festival: food. With a cozy movie night “Agroecology: Voices From Social Movements” and with a discussion afterwards the kick-off session ended.

Farming, listening, sharing knowledge

On Saturday Morning the camp at the Lutkemeer polder was set up again with our comrades from Theater Straat (impossible to imagine a Food Autonomy Festival without them). Together with them, the ASEED/FAF team and with a group of around 20 friends and volunteers the workshops spaces and the tents from We are Here, the Groenfront and other small info tents were builded quickly; everything was ready for the first workshop sessions and farming activities to start.

The whole Saturday program was focused on regenerative agriculture through practice topic mainly with farming activities, gardening workshops and discussions around agroecology and food sovereignty topics. All the activities were located around the Boterbloem fields, the Stadsgroenteboer and PLUK CSA fields and the Lutkemeer Polder area.
Some of the workshops we had where about Non Digging practices, Soil test, Milpa farming in Europe, a food forest circle, a CSA tour’s, a medicinal herbs and plants talk, discussions about water systems, agroecology and peasants struggles from Brazil and some “construction” workshops among other! 

Planting, dreaming, taking action

Sunday, with a much more clear sky and a great weather in advance, we started the 3rd FAF#5 Amsterdam day focusing on workshops and talks under the topics of decolonizing the food system and  fruits of resistance.
Everything started with a workshop from our friend from RE-PEAT, a talk about the History of Dutch Resistance against multinationals and the “Memories of the forgotten Memories” carried out again by our friend MamaD. The following workshops were about decolonial dialogues, a talk about the Dutch nitrogen discussion and a Kraaskpreekuur info session. In the afternoon we had some online sessions with some Danish friends running a CSA farm, a discussion with some Brazilian comrades about Agroecology and Transformation of social Relations and a life discussion in the polder about Ende Gelände and their upcoming mass action camp happening at the end of July. For the last workshop spot for the FAF Amsterdam sessions we had a friend from gastivist that together with A SEED organized a human map workshop about food and fossil fuels and another friend from Brazil had an online discussion about the Agroecological Loogbooks and Women in Brazil in semiarid regions.


Throughout the weekend about 100 people came to the Amsterdam FAF and participated in several workshops, came together to interact, shared knowledge, dreamed about a fair food system ah and yes… planted over 300 pumpkins in the Lutkemeer Polder terrain.

With grateful minds we think about the amazing food from Kitchen Surplus, a collective that uses skipped food to cook for homeless and paperless people in and around Amsterdam, the touching performance: “Footsteps Against Racism”, the band with the amazing jellyfish song and all the helping hands; without them the whole festival would not have been possible!
THANK YOU!

Find the report about the Wageningen FAF here.

Find the report about the Utrecht FAF here.

If you are interested to read more about the workshops that were given throughout both weekends, click here.

A huge thank you to ALERT youth fund for supporting us financially! You can support their important work here.

Thank you also to LUSH for their financial support!