Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
There’s a difference between simply settling somewhere and finding a home. Refugees are faced with this reality every day — among new neighbors in a new city, building a sense of belonging is no small task. Working to create a place for oneself is a bold act of hope for a new life. So, what can public spaces do to help create a sense of place for refugees?
The goal of TEEBAgriFood is more comprehensively to determine the absolute costs, benefits, and dependencies of agriculture and food production. TEEBAgriFood is creating a framework for assessing all the impacts of food, from farm to fork to disposal, including effects on livelihoods, the environment, and human health.
One such organisation is OpenSourceSeeds (OSS). By equipping plant breeders and propagators with a free, open-source licence for the seeds they breed, they provide the necessary legal protection to prevent the patenting of the seed by other parties.
Over the last few years, with the rise in awareness of food waste and its environmental implications as well as emerging discourses around a “sharing economy”, there has been renewed interest in food sharing practices and particularly the role that information and communication technologies (ICT) can play in extending the spaces and sites in which food sharing can take place.
2017 was a year that didn’t go according to plan, and thus neither did this blog. However, I’m back to the blog now and intend to continue making posts on an irregular basis. And that means it’s time to report on what the garden told me in 2017.
Instead of retreating into urban eco-sanctuaries and buying industrial fare in hygienic and eco-friendly packaging, people need to grow, tend to animals, muck, dig, cook and bake. Only then can we expect people to become ecologically literate and realise that we are part of nature.
This year, across much of the West, particularly the Southwest, there’s little in the way of abundance. At Lake Powell, the second-largest reservoir in the West, runoff is predicted to be only 43 percent of average. Arizona is looking at one of its lowest runoff years in history. And in New Mexico, stretches of the Rio Grande have already run dry, months ahead of normal.
Tucked away along a country lane just outside Coventry is Ryton Organic Gardens and home of a charity, Garden Organic, which brings together thousands of people who share a common belief that organic growing is essential for a healthy and sustainable world. Open to the public, it’s a place more than worth a visit.
So here I want to take a critical look at the Breakthrough Institute’s line on the necessity of synthetic nitrogen in world agriculture, which is laid out in its agronomic aspects in this post by Dan Blaustein-Rejto and Linus Blomqvist (henceforth B&B), and in its historical aspects in this one by Marc Brazeau.
The sudden loss is a sign of ecosystem health, or should that be illness? A warning sign. So, why should we care? Plain and simply, as far as we know, this planet is the grand sum of life in the universe. We have a duty to cherish and nurture it.
The GREEN Foundation is working to slow the rate of farmer suicides in India and improve conditions for farmers—especially women—whose traditional agricultural methods were stripped away by the Green Revolution.
In the home, you have control over what your children eat and where it comes from. But when they go off to school, how much say do you have over their lunch? As a minimum, are their meals being made from scratch using fresh ingredients? And if they are, are the vegetables they are eating seasonal? Is the meat raised to high welfare standards?
