Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The Green New Deal’s success depends on refashioning this common sense. To rewrite common sense is to unpick the alliances that the current bloc works to maintain, to find the fault lines that can pry that bloc apart, and to develop the organizational links that can build a counter-hegemonic bloc.
For nearly a decade, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy has been engaged in Farm to Early Care and Education (ECE) initiatives, helping connect young children with locally grown foods while fostering an awareness of the importance of healthy food for children, families, farmers and communities.
Mushrooms have helped remove petroleum from soil everywhere from Orleans, California, where they cleaned up a small motor-oil-and-diesel-fuel spill at a community center, to the Ecuadorian Amazon, where they’re being used to clean up the largest land-based oil spill in history.
Out in the field, Jon supports a farmer-led approach. “The fields here are full of worms and the soil is healthy and aerobic. Mike’s really showing what can be done, and the government should go with that. Here on the farm, this is where the action is, and this is where the decisions should be made.”
Right now, farming with toxic pesticides is the norm. But, for the health of all people from farm to table, we need to create a food system where organic is for all. The solution is here—we just have to grow it.
Waterford farmer and self-sufficiency expert John Seymour called coppicing and pollarding “the most fundamental of woodland crafts.”
What’s the future of Parramore Farmers Market? To become a one-stop shop for the community. With the expanded outdoor space and access to indoor space at the Department of Health, Barrera aims to have food trucks, cooking classes, and educational workshops.
In the language of public policy – which determines how governments spend our taxes – social food projects create ‘public goods’ in the form of social cohesion, public health, territorial development, food sovereignty, farmer livelihoods, learning, innovation, and biodiversity.
Alison is equally dedicated to breeding preservation, quality wool production, pasture management, community building, agricultural education, and being a business owner. She manages to attend to each priority with grace and aplomb.
So when combined with probable future food and energy crisis, there’s a chance that we may yet wrest the phoenix of an outward-looking small farm future from the ashes of Brexit. But the stakes are high, and the obstacles many.
Learning to know each other (the cows and us) and see how we together shape the farm made us think more about cows and cow-man interaction and dependency.
Climate change is threatening coffee in Central America. Temperatures are rising, making it harder to grow high-quality Coffea arabica in the altitudes where it is currently grown.
