Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Now is a great time to think ahead a little further than tonight’s meal, plan to leave something on the shelf for others, and support our local farmers. I’m making the trip to my favorite pastured farm tomorrow.
It is astonishing that so little of the food debate is enlightened by a proper understanding what the main driver of the food system is: Markets or even more precisely, capitalist markets (today, one can hardly find a market that is not capitalist).
No anarchist should be surprised that the government has failed us during this time of crisis. But every anarchist should be given hope by the selfless actions of individuals and communities in this time of need. The lesson is clear. We can, and should, provide for ourselves. Now, where did I put that spade?
These are simple things with only a few steps. The microbial communities are robust and resilient, so they can be neglected for days or weeks and then brought back to life. They yield more than one product we find useful. In short, perfect ferments for beginners.
In our work to build the Agrarian Commons, Agrarian Trust participates in this work: to confront systems and structures that have resulted in inequitable access to land, and thus impeded the most vulnerable and historically disadvantaged among us from having true control over their food supply.
As the coronavirus pandemic affects every area of the food supply chain, the ORFC team find out how Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), box schemes and others working with shorter supply chains are responding to the sudden huge demand for their supplies.
One can only hope that this wave of newbie gardeners carries on regardless, once we emerge from this crisis, blinking into the brave new greener world ahead of us.
In the article “Towards better representation of organic agriculture in life cycle assessments” in Nature sustainability, van der Werf, Knudsen and Cederberg, from France, Denmark and Sweden respectively demonstrate the inadequacy of LCA for comparisons between conventional production systems and agro-ecological and organic systems.
Planting spring gardens, harvesting late winter greens, grazing the flocks, working the bees — from time to time, when the light hit just right, I caught the merest glimmer of what a saner world could be.
As we learn to adapt to live in such uncertain and challenging times, perhaps we will begin to reconsider our relationship with the natural world, developing resilient, local ecosystems, re-connecting with where our food comes from, re-discovering lost skill-sets that can help us thrive in challenging times, and considering how we can all live alongside each other more sustainably.
The short term gains from this system that have been made on prices may come back to haunt us sooner rather than later. The best remedy right now is to help keep smaller food businesses afloat and markets, if run safely, are a vital part of this medicine.
The key point is this: at a time when there is an unparalleled threat to the future health and wellbeing of citizens throughout the world, we must turn this potential catastrophe into an opportunity manifesting as a renaissance in the production, distribution and consumption of healthy, seasonal and local food.
