Food & Water

A master gardener and co-founder of the SEED association for the preservation and use of the region’s traditional seed varieties, Frank Adams has long been involved in the legislative battle waged by seed savers to gain recognition for the necessity and specific nature of their work.

Even if this isn’t the end of the harvest or the end of the year, it is the end of the season of growth. It is just on the cusp of the time of contraction and repose, the time of death for many short-lived beings. So this is a natural time to think on the cycles of life.

But for sure we’ve got to do something different to avert the present suicidal and ecocidal course of our food system. I’ve made the case in my two recent books for agrarian localism as the best something different option.

Feed Black Futures breathes life into Hamer’s words by training participants to start and nurture backyard, apartment, and community gardens — and to advocate for food sovereignty policies and practices that enable marginalized communities to gain access to fresh food production and equitable food distribution.

We need to foster balance even if that means that sometimes careless pet keepers will lose their cat to a hunting owl, even if we have to re-train ourselves to live with coyotes by not putting garbage outside where they can eat it rather than the rats, even if we have to hold regular deer hunts, rabbit culls and autumn feasts that feature large, fattened rodents — because we are predators also.

Claims that existing (or augmented) patterns of urbanism are more pro-social and pro-nature than rural alternatives appeal to people’s contrarian nature. And since most people live in urban areas, especially in the rich countries, it also tells them what they want to hear…