Bristol Bites Back - Fruits & Roots of Radical Resilience in South-West England

"Every crisis has a silver lining. Last summer, as we reeled from the Covid crisis, Ursula Billington, a sustainability activist in Bristol (UK), reached out to ARC2020. Were we interested in stories about community-based food and farming projects in her corner of South-West England?

Ursula’s stories of the sustainability movement couldn’t have come at a better time. As we faced into a second wave of Covid and another

round of restrictions in the autumn, struggling to picture the new normal, Ursula regaled us with tales of agroecological transition in and around Bristol. A balm to our beleaguered spirits, these stories are tangible, practical proof that ecosystem-based approaches to food, farming and sustainability do indeed bear fruit for their patient protagonists – in some cases after decades of going against the grain of a

productivist mindset. It shows the importance of sticking together in the wake of another crisis – that of Brexit. Europe is, after all, more than the

institutions of the EU - it’s we the people."



ARC2020, June 2021