‘Don't expect those in power to make the right decisions for people or planet. Empower yourself to take your own action to better your little corner of the world, wherever that is’
Leyla Kazim spends lots of time on adventures into different foods, locations, and cultures. But she's always returned to London.
That is all about to change.
What happens when the only place you've called home is unable to support the kind of life you dream of?
In this personal and passionate debut, Leyla reveals why she has decided to uproot everything and permanently relocate to a three-acre plot with a ruin in Portugal. And the tough choices she has made to get to this point.
Words on Pathways:
"Empower yourself to take your own action to better your little corner of the world, wherever that is. What you do doesn't need to be huge to make a real and significant difference in your own life and the lives of others, if you localise your efforts. If everyone tended to their immediate surroundings and community, rather than expelling their precious time and energy trying to shift unmovable boulders high up the chain, imagine what on-the-ground transformation could occur and how quickly this could happen.
"Pursuing a more empowered, self-reliant and land-based way of living does not have to involve tending to a big old field in a different country. Deep senses of this can be achieved in any kind of outside space, for example a garden or even a window box of salads.
"Our globalised food system relies almost exclusively on fossil fuels. These fuels are used to synthesise fertilisers and pesticides – inputs without which large-scale industrial farming cannot exist. They also power all the machinery as well as the vast network of trucks, planes and infrastructure that transport food across continents, from farms, to warehouses, to supermarket shelves on the other side of the world.
"It’s a system that is killing us. Contaminating ecosystems with chemical runoff, driving species to extinction and producing food stripped of the essential nutrients and minerals that make it nourishing in the first place. So, understanding the work that goes into the food we consume, reducing our reliance on these systems, producing nutritious and un-meddled food that regenerates soil and biodiversity (rather than stripping it away) and upskilling our lives, are big drivers for wanting to live off the land.
