Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
There’s an old saying that I won’t spell out completely, but which most readers will certainly have heard at least once in their lives, to wit: “Don’t sh– where you eat.”
For at least the last century or so, the time around the autumn equinox has been called Harvest Home. It is a time of thanksgiving and gathering together.
It’s all so small, given everything we face, that it’s almost not worth mentioning. Still, that drying pond bed is at least a little cleaner, my community a little friendlier, and I am at least witnessing (and trying to alleviate) the suffering in Palestine. Shouldn’t that matter at least a little?
Facing habitat loss, climate change, and shifting livelihoods, Maasai women are leading a transformative program that links sustainable dairy farming with the preservation of the Serengeti’s iconic migrations and the resilience of local communities.
The Rural Resilience project brings together a small but highly committed team working to connect the dots – between farmers and funders, researchers and regional leaders. In the face of centralised decision-making and extractive business models, our work aims to ensure local realities inform European decisions.
A Wisconsin appeals court has ruled that the state’s Department of Natural Resources has the authority to regulate large-scale animal farms, a blow to big farm groups amid their decades-long fight to scale back environmental oversight.
Against this backdrop, the case of Marburg reminds us how local communities are building sustainable food systems for their regions, despite the obstacles. If EU agriculture and rural policies are mishandled in the next cycle, those obstacles will likely intensify – but the changemakers will keep moving.
When we begin to act with deep time in mind, perhaps future generations will remember us not for what we took, but for what we tended, protected, and passed on.
The gratitude I feel for the Earth and its endless wonders of regeneration returns to me and extends to people who are using whatever means they have to engage with the preservation of farmland and wild habitat, even in the face of the all-consuming, capitalist machine.
How can the necessary relocalisation of food systems be reconciled with a need for exchange based on mutual aid, complementarity, and reciprocity? Can local biodiversity (and its products) support territorially grounded agricultural economies while also nurturing the emergence of spaces for innovation and cooperation across diverse realities?
A national human ecology curriculum that begins with food education could help address our most pressing crises—from climate change to inequality—by teaching students how to live well and care for one another.
I have hauled a lot of buckets of water across the street, trying to make up for the less than 1.5″ of rain in my rain gauge for all of August. For comparison, my town’s August average is 3.5″, and in the last two years my gauge has seen over 9″ — both prior Augusts following on July floods, whereas this year July barely hit average precipitation.
