Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Between the rocks and sands of the desert, where water is scarce, the fortified villages, called “ksar,” were more than just villages. They embodied the integration of habitat into its environment, fortresses of resilience, guardians of ancient wisdom.
Ongoing research finds that trashcans can feed and boost crow populations, which comes with a potentially deadly cost for some other bird species.
If I only had one wish, it would be to spend more time with my sheep and less with my computer… because you can eat a leg of lamb with onions and cooked carrots… you can’t feed a nation on paper and computer components.
That in this blighted landscape there are still places of settled beauty is a comfort: a chance to glimpse what went before and could be again.
Deep winter has given me enough time to take a long pause to appreciate what I have. At this moment. Whatever I have right in front of me.
The anger of Europe’s farmers is largely justified, but it is heading for dangerous territory. A transition to agroecology is urgently needed in the interests of all farmers.
Again and again it is demonstrated that grass based ruminant farming, in most cases, despite a very high feed use and land use, is simply one of the most sustainable farming systems there are.
What would our world look like if we, as humans, learn to adapt to plants instead of making plants adapt to us?
We won’t be able to really assert food sovereignty until we acknowledge and recognise caste oppression in India. Anti-caste is at the very core of building food sovereignty.
Yes, we are in rough weather. We are in a world of war and deep crises. But we are also in a world of people organising themselves in solidarity with farming, local food systems, organic, regenerative and permaculture farming, urban gardening and many more encouraging projects.
With more farmers today than at almost any point in history, humanity’s future will likely be agrarian. We must imagine that world into being.
The issue is no longer our individual consumption choices within an existing global commodity food system, if it ever was. Like it or not, that system is unravelling, and I think the result is going to be the widespread adoption of low-energy local food systems.
