Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
At this year’s Oxford Real Farming Conference the Sustainable Food Trust will be convening a session delving into one of the most important issues for future farming policy in the UK – how do we measure on-farm sustainability and bring about convergence in the multitude of conflicting and overlapping assessment and certification systems currently being used?
With the average age of a UK farmer at 59, we have never been more in need of a new generation of farmers. How can we help support more new entrants? I met with James Odgers to find out about the exciting concept that Stream Farm is developing through their innovative ‘share farming’ model.
Wool, with its unique natural properties, is one of the most versatile and historically important materials, which can be used for everything from clothing to insulation.
Tis the seaso‘n when food is on most of our minds. What if next year or the year after some of that food was no longer available or even edible?
But farmers are not encouraged by market signals and mechanisms to be land stewards. On the contrary, modern day farming has removed much of the land husbandry and stewardship that was previously an integral part of a regenerative farming system.
International migration, then, is controversial every which way you choose to look at it. So let me take a deep breath and try to define a pragmatism of my own around the issue
Indigenous communities in the remote northern portion of Canada’s province of Ontario are expanding efforts to mitigate the impact of high food costs and a general lack of available nutritious fruit and vegetables in supermarkets by increasing crop production.
What could inclusiveness look like in providing sustainable diets to a multicultural population? This question drives my current research, in which I study Syrian migrants in the Netherlands.
Is there something distinctive about an agroecological approach to training and learning? How is learning a part of the struggle for food sovereignty, or other social movements for social justice and sustainability? What examples are there of this in Europe? And how can these projects be supported and developed?
But wasn’t life before farming miserable? Notoriously “nasty, brutish and short?” Weren’t hunters and gatherers always on the edge of starvation, constantly focused on survival, and never able to enjoy free time? According to experts who study history: No.
Agroecological approaches to agriculture improve rural livelihoods, regenerate ecologies and increase the resiliency of communities, while providing healthy and sustainable food.
The solution to these problems involves more than a commitment to ecological models of food production: it also requires a commitment to local food economies.
