John Thackara

The not-so-secret ingredient in a healthy local food ecology is the embodied presence of those involved. Ecological agriculture cannot be practiced remotely. The only way to manage any landscape sustainably is by living in it long enough, and intimately enough, to learn how to manage it well.

A new course in Sweden poses the question, “what will a self-sufficient Hällefors Municipality taste like in 2030?”

Students on the course act like talent scouts. They search for unrealised food-growing potential across the region – people, unused land, forgotten traditions.

As a writer, my work involves a search for small islands of coherence – that I can later describe – in which social and ecological relationships thrive together.

Whether connecting schools to farms in France, daylighting rivers in Mexico, or rewilding grasslands in Patagonia, we’re learning how to ‘do’ biodiversity well.

Growth, in this new story, means soils, biodiversity and watersheds getting healthier, and communities more resilient.

The signals of transformation I talk about are not concepts, and they are not the fruits of a vivid imagination. They are happening now.

This book is not about pre-cooked solutions. It’s about building on what has already been done, in our various social and cultural histories, and on what’s being done, right now, in diverse contexts around the world.