Taking the pulse of beans
The main argument for pulses is not from the consumption perspective. Their main feat is that they and other leguminous plants have a symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing Rhizobium bacteria.
Food & Water featured
Small farming, urbanisation and climate migration: beyond the stereotypes in Bangladesh
I want to tell a different but connected story about Bangladesh, urbanisation and the environment. One that seeks to elevate the kind of conversations I have had with Bangladeshi people in years of travelling to and working in Bangladesh.
Animal Agriculture Conference Asks: What’s the Future of Our Food System?
Iowa’s environmental crisis has policy leaders and farmers challenging corporate agriculture.
Thoughts on Thanksgiving
So to wrap up a rather rambling accounting for this holiday, eat what you feel represents your ties to your people and your traditions. In none of these stories is there any requirement to eat green bean casserole… The goal is being grateful together whatever is on the table before us.
Empowering Cities: The Missing Link in Europe’s Sustainable Food Future
By harnessing the collective power of cities, rural communities and European policymakers, we can build a food system that benefits everyone.
Ocean
What happens when you leave your ordinary life behind and put your attention on the vast mysterious being that surrounds our homelands in a time of disruption and loss?
From the Ground Up: Excerpt
Erin’s work with Fertile Ground, and Carrie’s with Black Family Land Trust, are part of the multidimensional aspect of regenerative agriculture. Regenerative agriculture renews both urban and rural communities, and it nourishes both human bodies and the planet.
The Plant Pamphlets
From 1999-2024, Dark Mountain’s Mark Watson taught and demonstrated the art of holding a dialogue with (mostly) wild plants. Part-manual, part-memoir, this small book is a distillation of his hands-on practice, ‘hanging out’ with twelve flowers and a tree over a year: from a conversation with burdock in a community garden, to lying alongside sea kale on the Suffolk shore, to foraging for mallow leaf fritters and flower teas.
Newsflash No.3 – Lights in a Dark Age
Anyway, as I’ve often said here, I don’t think renewal is going to come from the centre. So while I genuinely mourn the misery to come for people who, unlike me, are going to be in the frontline, I guess I’m finding it hard to get invested in the politics of the centre.
Bringing the Deep Sea to Seattle
Ocean enthusiasts and random passersby alike came together in Seattle this past August to explore and celebrate their connection to the deep sea.
‘Praying for rain’: How New York farmers are dealing with drought — and unexpected brush fires
This year, the especially dry conditions also mean that the Hudson Valley faces a heightened risk of wildfires — something typically unheard of in the area. Parts of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut have all seen wildfires in early November, with a massive fire on the New Jersey-New York state border still raging as of Monday.
The Regenerative Agriculture Solution
The Flores González brothers’ revolutionary innovation has been to turn a heretofore indigestible, but massive and accessible, source of fiber, biomass, water, and protein—the agave leaves or pencas—into a valuable animal feed, utilizing the natural process of anaerobic fermentation to transform the plant leaves’ relatively indigestible saponin compounds into digestible carbohydrates and sugar.
