Incredible Edible has one simple aim to grow as much food as it can in as many spaces as possible throughout the town of Todmorden.

The organisation was founded in 2008 by Pam Warhurst, it began with a meeting where 60 interested locals turned up, Pam convinced everyone that that they “should start doing things differently” and so Incredible Edible was born. Around the town food growing gardens and planting beds began to appear, with the incredible edible logo and food to share signs alongside. People became interested and now there are over 300 volunteers that help out however they can from planting and maintaining the food growing beds to organising the website and administration.

The school and health centre became involved and the school is now home to a full aquaponics system – where greens are grown alongside fish one fertilising the other – a number of growing beds and a poly-tunnel. While the health centres’ car-park has been planted with cherry trees, strawberry beds and an apothecary garden containing a wide variety of medicinal plants. The improvements in the public realm increase local pride in the town and visitors have come from all over the world to view the project according to Pam ‘vegetable tourism’ is not what they expected to occur but a welcome off shoot of the initiative.

The simplicity of the project is what I find most inspiring, its get-up and do-something attitude that has yielded direct results. According to Pam having something to ‘point at’ is far more valuable when trying to demonstrate what urban agriculture looks like than endless rhetoric. The success of this approach can be seen in the uptake of the project which has now spread to over 40 groups worldwide.

To find out more about Incredible Edible please visit their site.