Abundance Manchester

"Abundance Manchester is a project which picks surplus or unwanted fruit from gardens and public trees around South Manchester and distributes it to local groups and communities. We also collect and distribute surplus vegetables from allotments and we have started our own Abundance allotment to grow our own food to donate to groups who can make good use of it."

I saw this group featured on the local news last night. This is the sort of local, voluntary initiative that libertarians tend to be quite keen on promoting. It seems that the generally good weather this year has led to a bumper crop of fruit and veg, so it seems a good idea to help to distribute some of the surplus to those who can make use of it. And it's the kind of thing that has to be done by private citizens independently of the state - if someone had gone to Manchester City Council with a proposal for scheme like this, I'm pretty sure they would have spent weeks - or even months - debating what to do, while the fruit and veg rotted. Instead, these guys have used their initiative to set up a potentially useful service. Their politics seem to be coming from a "green" angle, but they are giving food to outfits like the Salvation Army, so who cares? Good luck to them. If you want to know more about them, click on this link to visit their blog. There also seem to be "Abundance" groups set up in a few other cities round the country, maybe it's an idea that will catch on.