Food & Water

Earthseed Land Collective: Farmers of Color Create Space for Collective Living & Liberation on the Land

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Members of Earthseed describe themselves as a group of “black and brown parents, activists, artists, educators, business owners, farmers, and researchers, who came together to remember our relationships to land, to livelihood and to each other,” and to cultivate a “transformational response to oppression and collective heartbreak: A model of community resilience through cooperative ownership of land and resources.”

Flour Power

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As Trevino highlights, the struggle to transform industrial grain is no small battle. If All Purpose Flour is a symptom of a sociopolitical logic determined to concentrate power and quash difference, then fixing the problem starts with reasserting the distinctive ecological and social fabric of diverse communities.

Solar Dehydrator: A Very Appropriate Technology

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There’s no substitute for a mattock and a couple of good shovels, which leverage human effort into great effects with a negligible environmental impact. I love the wood stove, the solar shower, the solar oven, the laundry rack, the ceiling fans and most especially, my new solar dehydrator.

A Living Countryside: The Land Politics Behind the Dutch Agroecology Movement

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Against the backdrop of an agrarian landscape that has become more homogenous, sterile and empty over the past 50 years, a new movement of Dutch farmers and citizens is emerging. They want to support a type of agriculture that does not damage the environment, enriches the life of farmers and citizens, and produces healthy food.

The Way Climate Change Unites Us

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While they may not agree on what has gotten them here, growers like Rosmann and Peterson are thinking beyond politicized climate change arguments to figure out solutions. They’re trying to adapt to the differences they’re experiencing, and even trying to mitigate them.

Along with fellow PFI members, they’re approaching agriculture more regeneratively: focusing on soil health, planting cover crops, reducing chemicals, and minimizing the runoff that contributes to the Gulf of Mexico’s fishless “dead zone.”

The Essential Element: Carbon is Key to Life and Hope

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Since all that carbon in the ground below our feet originated in the atmosphere, the potential exists for soils to ‘soak up’ lots and lots of the excess CO2 contributing to global warming. In fact, degraded and carbon-depleted soils – which describe the majority of agricultural lands in America – could be ‘recarbonized’ to their original, pre-tilled levels which could have a huge impact on climate change.

A Just Food Transition

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To combat climate change, we must shift how we produce, distribute, consume, and dispose of food. To adapt to climate change, we must build agricultural systems that are resilient to disruption. The timeliness of this move was evident recently as a national coalition of farmers and ranchers endorsed the Green New Deal.

What’s the Problem with Soil-Less Agriculture?

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Perhaps as we move forward in this turbulent century, there is a place for soil-less agriculture to provide more than just expensive micro-greens. But where is the ecology in soil-less agriculture? This is what concerns me. Soil is a breathing, squirming, thriving, living thing.

The Speech

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Literature is about the deep stories that we tell ourselves, about the paradigms by which we structure our understanding of the world we live in.  These deep stories are the framework by which we tell ourselves why we do what we do.

Agriculture is one of those deep stories that we live within,  It is a story that we make and a set of practices and a way of life. 

The Radical Center

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If problems are cyclical so are solutions. In an attempt to resolve the long-standing feud between ranchers and environmentalists, a small group of us decided in the late 1990s to find a ‘third way’ beyond the polarization. Our goal was to implement practical, on-the-ground goals through collaboration, not confrontation.