Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Because there are many lessons to learn, one for every day of the rest of our lives, and for that reason we should look at today, and tomorrow, and the day after as opportunities to learn, to grow, to find each other, and to make change.
Hear what Danielle Nierenberg, Co-founder and President of Food Tank, Saru Jayaraman, President of One Fair Wage, and Melissa DeSa, Working Food Community Programs Director have to say about the failures of our global food system, how the largest segment of working America has been left without food and economic safety nets, and inspiring ideas for improving food security in our own communities.
We are called to an evolutionary leap – from divisiveness to connectedness, from separation to co-creation, from enmity and hate (or complacent apathy) to caring, love in action. We are all part of one human race, and the clock is ticking. It is either now or never.
George Floyd’s death was a flashpoint, erupting into the flame of truth, spreading over the world like wildfire. What is that truth, too long hidden, that needed to break through into the light of day, to break open our hearts?
Inspired by indigenous cosmologies and customary laws – which are derived from the laws of Nature – Earth Jurisprudence recognises that Nature’s laws are primary and non-negotiable and that humans are interdependent with all other life forms and accountable to the wider Earth community.
We must look at how we can push forwards to strengthen our local food system, increasing resilience and ensuring sustainability while continuing to support those struggling, fighting for food justice, and prioritise our local farmers and producers.
Permaculture — a fusion of indigenous knowledge with modern science and technology — offers ways for people to meet their essential needs for food, water, sanitation and other non-material needs, with autonomy and harmony with nature.
Today, danger confronts all of us on this Earth. “We were already facing climate change, and now there is the pandemic,” Skye says. The seeds will always be there, to provide both food and a spiritual connection to the Earth, he says. “They are how we will survive.”
The Woodland Community Land Trust was incorporated in 1979, making it one of the oldest Community Land Trusts (CLTs) established in the United States. Located in the Clearfork Valley of northeastern Tennessee, a low-income Appalachian community dominated by extractive industry and concentrated land holding, economic, and political power, Woodland recently marked its 40th year in operation.
Water is in the hands of large producers who have dried out our territory and compromised the lives of our communities. Ours is an extreme case: Chile has entirely privatised water, which means that theft is institutionalised. Chile has clearly prioritised extractive industries over the rights of communities to water.
So let’s walk our way out of this pandemic. Walk our way to mental, emotional and physical health. Walk our way back to social
cohesion. Walk our way back to a functional society where anger and suspicion aren’t the normal ways we interact with each other.
The lockdown and threat of a global pandemic has turned a lot of people who previously may have depended solely on supermarkets for their food into gardeners and would-be farmers overnight.
