ATP meets Occupy London

Last Thursday (3rd Nov. 2011) Christopher Jones MBE and John Martin from ATP ran a seminar at the Tent City University part of the Occupy London protest encamped around St. Paul’s Cathedral, London. The Tent City University organizers are casting their net widely to link upwith networks which can address some of their concerns.  It’s a good example of how ATP, which seeks to bring biblical perspectives to problems besetting world agriculture, has a growing number of opportunites to join in public discourse. Around 30 people showed up, a combination of occupiers, curious visitors and city types. They had serious questions. Occupy London is essentially an urban movement but many had a keen interest in issues of food and farming: unfair trade systems, speculation in food futures, commodification of food staples, feeding an exploding world population in future decades. They wanted to know more about whether GM or hydroponic cultivation could feed the world. Was there a legitimate place of meat in the human food chain? What of the ethics of factory farming? Was it right for a multinational company to patent Basmati rice to insert a non-repeater gene so every year the farmer is compelled to buy seed from that company? Farming and the debate about the environment. Like a lot of church people they seem to share a common view that the systemwe have isn’t working and is failing people who are the poorest and weakest. Media research is tracking a shift from preoccupation with deficit to wider issues of justice, fairness and sustainability that is down to these Occupy movements springing up all over the world, particularly in North America. We can stand back and chide the protesters because their views are hardly coherent. Or like Paul in Athens (Acts 13) we can to engage in the conversation.
John Martin