Martin is an inspiration

I haven't been down to Martin myself, but really would like to. I think it's a fantastic effort. It's so what's needed, and exactly where everybody should be going with food.

I think it's nourishing in so many ways - literally - when a community can grow its own food. As we found with the Bristol gang I worked with in the last series (River Cottage Spring), it changes people's lives.

Becoming involved raising your own food - whether it's fruit and vegetables or even, as it were, going the whole hog, and raising livestock - transforms people's lives in every way. It changes not only what you eat, but also the way you live. And, in my experience, it always transforms people's lives for the better.

We've heard from getting on for 300 groups who are getting similar things to happen to the Bristol collective. We are looking to help them, and we have some support from a group called The Plunkett Foundation (an educational charity which supports the development of rural group enterprise) to try and get some of these projects off the ground.