Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Imagine a tropical paradise alive with plants and animals, all living in perfect harmony and producing plentiful food for local people. You might be imagining somewhere like South America, but this story is actually set in Devon, England.
Where ponds are cleared, wildlife and biodiversity return rapidly to farmland. Plants recolonise within just 6 months, creating rustic oases amidst bland fields of monocrop.
Our crop of choice, hemp, stands to be a leading material in a transformation from fossil fuel dependence to renewable energy stability.
We are realising the true value of working on the land to grow food – an activity that has been the cornerstone of Ladakhi culture forever. A young farmers’ movement is emerging in Ladakh – a movement that we showcase and celebrate in our film.
We’re currently creating a model to match landowners who are wanting to retire with ranchers who are looking for grazing land. We think that this could be a model that could be adopted anywhere and help to keep grazing land as working lands, as well as bolstering opportunities for young producers.
But I don’t feel too guilty because, as I said above, I think Britain can feed itself well with low impact, low energy and low yield methods. The main problems lie elsewhere.
The establishment of parity pricing for farmers, coupled with supply management and food reserves, would eliminate the conditions for dumping and should smooth price spikes, whether caused by market conditions, or climate change, or shortsighted geopolitical posturing.
To make sure they can deliver enough water to California’s farms and cities going forward, water managers are focusing on shoring up local supplies.
But not everyone agrees on the best way to do that.
That an economic activity has to be profitable is considered a truism, something taken for granted and not reflected upon. But what if the opposite is the case?
So there is no virtue in having a labour-lean, capital-intensive agriculture when labour is abundant and capital is thin on the ground. It will not improve quality of life, which is a more powerful underlying aim than mere ‘efficiency’.
Welcome to Mother Earth – Móðir Jörð – an organic farm in Vallanes, East Iceland, where people have lived and farmed since the 12th century. Here, Eygló Björk Ólafsdóttir and Eymundur Magnússon grow grain and vegetables, and cultivate local food culture in their on-farm shop and café.
The recent release of Seaspiracy (see a review) has had a huge impact on what we think we can and cannot eat in terms of seafood.
