Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Bavaria’s remarkable campaign to save the bees can give us all cause for optimism. Where politicians failed to protect the environment and put corporate profits first, Bavarians stood up
Food has this unique power to connect us all, and the table is that magic field where we can look to each other, eye level, no matter our backgrounds, and allow the magic of dialogue to happen,” said Mariana Vilhena, Gastromotiva’s communication and marketing director. “Social gastronomy is all about this.”
Over 40% of insect species are at risk of extinction over the next few decades and 75% to 98% of insect biomass has already been lost, according to this review of the current state of knowledge about insect declines, with habitat loss through conversion to intensive agriculture being the main driver. Agro-chemical pollutants, invasive species and climate change are also driving insect declines.
This is one of the signal lessons of the inspiring work of Tosepan: that a culture of solidarity — fortified by cooperative(s) providing for material and cultural needs — deepens democracy, and that this in turn makes it very hard for predatory capital to enter.
We need stop focusing on what we eat, and start focusing on how the food we eat is produced. Then we can move towards a sustainable, healthy farming system that provides for all people and doesn’t destroy the planet and its inhabitants in the process.
As long as there have been humans, we have taken the parts of plants we don’t eat and thrown them back onto the soil again, knowing it would turn back into soil to create more plants. Until we modern people came along, that is.
While few people yet realise it, we actually need to encourage increased production of grass-fed meat, since the most effective way to restore our degraded arable soils and wild pollinators is to re-introduce grass and grazing animals into cropland rotations.
From the back streets of Jerusalem to the markets of Nablus we take a journey through some of the most iconic foods, learning how they connect people, offering comfort and community and making tangible years of culture and history.
Joel Salatin is an internationally known author, farmer and advocate for what he calls “emotionally, economically and environmentally enhancing agriculture.”
We focus here on two proposals for a Green New Deal that are politically viable today but also point us toward the deeper long-term change needed: (1) job training that could help repopulate the countryside and change how farmers work, and (2) research on perennial grain crops that could change how we farm.
A successful Saami-led, salmon rewilding project on the Näätämö river in Arctic Finland illustrates the success of partnership between Indigenous knowledge and western science on environmental questions, say the authors of a recent paper, but outdated perceptions and prejudices means these kinds of partnerships elsewhere still too often fail.
In both the commercial and health professional viewpoints, the social, emotional, environmental, economic and empowerment dimensions of food relationships are pushed aside.
