The grass is always greener on the other side; thanks to you! GIMBY – Grow it in My Back Yard Application Monica Pianosi De Montfort University, Leicester, UK
Anna Strzelecka De Montfort University, Leicester, UK
ABSTRACT: YOUR IDEA
At the same time it has been argued that social media can have a deep role in the democratisation of contemporary society, from the role they played in Obama’s election (Cohen 2008), to the Arab Spring (Orr 2011). Moreover, social media have been used by government and institutions to engage the public on various issues including sustainability, by activists to organise and mobilise protests (Gavin 2010), and are claimed to be able to reduce energy consumption in buildings (Bull et al. 2013). Many researchers have recognised the possibility of new media to allow greater democratic participation and to foster a new and more egalitarian participatory form of citizenship (Flew 2008).
Access to food is one of the most fundamental needs. However, people often do not think where the food is coming from and how many miles it had to travel to get to the store. Many people are at the same time concerned about the problem and would like to consume food produced locally. Nevertheless, many obstacles can be in the way: they have space to grow their own food, but have no time to do so; or have time, but no space to grow it, etc. A GIMBY “Grow it in My Back Yard” application is proposed as a solution. It helps to build and maintain neighbourly relationships, create a community for more sustainable food, and find people with similar aims and interest as your own. This application is designed to help build a community where people can help each other to grow food, offer a friendly advice, and a lot more.
Currently 28% of Italian population use a smartphones and this percentage is expected to rise in the next years (Google/MMA 2011). Smartphones are web-enabled and have access to social media, have a camera, and a global positioning (GPS) system. They are able to share data and to share it in an instant. Moreover countless applications (the ‘apps’) are available (Bull et al. 2013). Research also shows that smartphones are especially used in the search of local information, which lead in more than the 80% of cases to action (e.g. a purchase, a call) (Google/MMA 2011).
Categories and Subject Descriptors [Social and Behavioural Sciences]; [New technologies]
Keywords Sustainability, Urban Agriculture, Social Media, Food Production, Smart Phones.
The main aim of the project is to change the way in which people relate with food and to reduce the environmental impact of its production. This would be achieved through different objectives: - Reducing participants’ consumption of food coming from a long distance as well as food carbon footprint; - Reducing food waste and increasing the share of food, skills, and resources; - Enhancing the sense of community of participants; - Changing people’s attitudes and enhancing their sense of ecological citizenship through participation in the food network.
1. INTRODUCTION: AIMS AND BACKGROUND In contemporary society people increasingly depend on food from distant sources. The food we usually eat is being transported for long distance from producer to consumer (the ‘food miles’ concept (Paxton, 1994)) with increasing demand for ready and out-of-season produce. Cheap non-renewable fossil fuel makes intensive agriculture and long-distance transportation economically viable and has allowed food production and distribution to become global industries. Although, prices do not reflect the environmental and social cost of production and the food and agriculture systems account for 17-32% of total humaninduced greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) (Bellarby et al. 2008).
2. DESCRIPTION Grounding on the potentialities offered by social media we propose to design an app, Gimby (an acronym that recall the NIMBY groups, but wants to see positive action as opposed to unsupportive opposition), which creates a network of people who want to share their skills and resources for a more sustainable, local, and auto production of food based on crowdsourcing.
However, the function of food is more than just keeping us alive, hence cannot be only reduced to its technical aspects. Eating is not only the satisfaction of a need, but also about social, emotional, and economic expression (Garnett 2008). Often the social dimension of food production is neglected and people turn to supermarkets and quick-fix solutions for choices that have deeper than visible and obvious implications.
It is in fact frequent today that people who have the resources (e.g. garden space) do not have the skills and the time, but people who have the skills and the time do not have the physical resources. Therefore creating the connection between different actors can
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