Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Soil is incredibly complex. Just as with the human microbiome project, there is so much we have yet to discover. If we want to fix climate change, the answer is literally right beneath our feet. Da Vinci had it right when he said we understand the movements of the heavens better than we understand what is happening underfoot. We understand the soil at an intuitive level but not at a practical level.
I started out with considerable sympathy towards carbon farming and regenerative agriculture, but with a degree of scepticism about some of the loftier claims made on its behalf by regenerative agriculture proponents (henceforth RAPs). And in fact that’s pretty much where I’ve ended up too, but with a somewhat clearer sense of where my grounds for scepticism lie.
For the last 4,000 years the commonest human occupation has been small-scale agriculture. Although it has been a few generations since that was the case in the United States, the image of the small family farm is still a powerful icon of our cultural identity.
I have always believed that wherever climate and conditions favor it, local food production on small farms, in backyards, community gardens, and empty urban lots will become an increasingly important source of fresh food. And if one uses season extension or poly covered tunnels and drip irrigation we can expand the growing area to much wider climate conditions.
So go ahead: Have a Guinness, wear a bit of green, and put on the Chieftains. But let’s honor the Irish with our curiosity. Let’s make sure that our schools show some respect, by studying the social forces that starved and uprooted over a million Irish — and that are starving and uprooting people today.
Guess how many commercial organic growers you can find within 10 miles of Manchester? A measly two, for a city of over a million people. That’s simply not good enough, you will agree.
Can food and food sovereignty be the catalyst for a Commons Transition? For over 30 years, FIAN International has been advocating for the right to food sovereignty. Their work unites bottom-up grassroots movements and local administrations, with a special focus on inclusivity and enfranchising those who are most often left out.
Some people wonder if youthful food movements spreading through cities across the Global North are half-full, half-empty — or maybe even half-baked. The timing for such questioning is perfect. Once a new trend gets over its first flush, people start to judge it as a movement that will be around for a while. That’s when tough questions crop up.
Americans do love their denim, so much so that the average consumer buys four pairs of jeans a year. In China’s Xintang province, a hub for denim, 300 million pairs are made annually. Just as staggering is the brew of toxic chemicals and hundreds of gallons of water it takes to dye and finish one pair of jeans.
After the food price hike in 2007-2008 and in a world that many feel is less secure, there is a renewed interest in food self-sufficiency. Food self-sufficiency is, however, widely critiqued by economists as a misguided approach to food security that places political priorities ahead of economic efficiency.
I am a farmer and that is where my world begins. What is an agriculture? I say it is a culture of cities, towns and villages, bridges, roads, canals, harbours – of trades’ people and the trades, which have been created by the specialised cultivation of fields. The industrial revolution was a revolution within agriculture – germinated by fossil fuels, so that today, nearly every culture on Earth is an agriculture.
Sandra sees her family’s five acre Northern California farmland and the privilege to work it as the greatest source of wealth. For Sandra and her family, wealth comes in the form of fruit trees, lambing season, biodynamic farming, mushroom hunting, growing the food her family eats, hosting farm dinners, wearing the clothes she makes from the farm’s fiber, and giving back to the community.
