Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Generally, populism and its personification in figures such as Donald Trump and Nigel Farage has been presented in mainstream circles as a dangerous political turn, a threat to the established order of things, and not without good reason. But for those who’d like to replace the present global neoliberal economy with a more local, more equitable and more land-based or agrarian society there are overlaps with populism that raise a few questions…
Headquartered at the Werkshack in uptown, Oakland, GDS Cloth Goods is the design and production studio by Geana Sieburger. A vibrant environment filled with makers of all types, it allows Geana to do her often solitary work in the company of a creative community and independent makers who share her principals and motivations.
Real farming holds the promise to restore lost biodiversity to the rural landscape, preserve critically endangered breeds, sequester carbon, reduce exposure of plants and animals to antimicrobials, pesticides and antibiotics, and secure the future health and vitality of the soil. But there was one important element missing, and for a conference all about better food production, it was particularly striking. Flavour was absent from the discussion.
I wanted to connect as many ‘honey peoples’ as possible because I felt that they had been forgotten. The ‘bee custodians’, as I like to call them as opposed to beekeepers, had held the space for bees throughout our previous generations. And yet the hunter-gatherer is pitched at the bottom of the strata of livelihoods.
For residents of Cape Town, “Day Zero” is getting closer. That’s the day when taps in the drought-stricken coastal South African city are projected run dry, and its residents would be forced to head to police-guarded distribution sites to obtain their daily ration of water.
Local governments need to deal with food through the window of people issues – jobs, neighbourhood cohesion, neighbourhood rejuvenation, public safety, mental health, conviviality, the need for “third places,” immigrant welcoming, multiculturalism and interculturalism, community gardens, walkable shopping, farmers markets, school gardens, … the whole nine yards of city life.
The main lesson for grass farmers to take from Grazed and Confused is that soil carbon sequestration is not on its own sufficient to defend ruminants against the charge of climate villain. What is also required is a robust critique of the GWP methodology and its CO2 equivalent; and clear explanation to policy makers why “methane is a sideshow”.
Perhaps I should essay a brief report here on things I heard and learned at the 2018 Oxford Real Farming Conference that I attended a couple of weeks back. If I try to lay it all out in connected prose I’ll probably come grinding to a halt after about 5,000 words, so I thought I’d present it mostly in the form either of little news snippets or of one-sentence assertions…the latter being things I heard people say, or thoughts I had while listening at the conference.
Early trade was about ecological adaptation, transporting essential food or other essential goods to a places where they were lacking. Very little in present international trade is based on that. Instead, trade in itself creates shortages.
The Lemon Tree Trust is a United Kingdom-based nonprofit organization which facilitates greening innovation and urban agriculture in refugee camps in Iraq, Uganda, and Jordan. “People are arriving with almost nothing and are literally making home, so the garden becomes representative of a space that people have control over, some ability to be creative, and a space to just be in after they’ve undergone this process of forced migration,” says co-founder Mikey Tomkins.
Highlights from the #ORFC18 conference – you guys are all so wonderful, what a great time we have with you every year! Plenty more resources and content from the ninth annual Oxford Real Farming Conference
But when it comes to food, we continue to believe that what you see, touch, hear, smell and taste is all that you get. Thankfully, food cannot be digitalized. But quite a bit short of that, I believe we need to do something to make ourselves more mindful about food’s unseen powers.
