Transition Belsize Veg Bag scheme: The role of ICTs in enabling new voices and community alliances around local food production and consumption

• ICTs creates opportunities for dialogue between previously isolated food chain actors.
• Urban “part-time farmers” create new hybrid livelihoods, partly through online experiences.
• Direct access to farming land is the key barrier to growth of local food movement.
• ICTs unlocks opportunities for collaborative alliances between farmers and consumers.

This paper explores an unusual community-supported agriculture pilot project in London, concentrating on the contribution of ICTs in its development and impact. The paper contextualises the project within wider waves of local food activism and reflects on the relevance of using ICTs to increase awareness and community participation in the production and consumption of locally-grown food. The results are also analysed in light of the author's parallel research on the use of ICT for agricultural development, or “e-agriculture”, in Kenya. The paper contributes to ongoing debates on ICTs and agricultural development, by highlighting community-building and the emergence of new voices and conversations as key roles played by ICTs, contributing to the development of more participatory, resilient and locally-centred food systems. The results of the pilot however also acknowledge the essential role played by activities in real life in building communal food growing practices, which can be enhanced but not substituted by online communities.