Food & Water

London Glades: Forest Garden Solutions For Urban Spaces

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Owning a garden like London Glades would certainly be an education, but it would be a gentle, life-affirming way to engage with the land and the sustainable, low-maintenance approach would allow the client to develop their stewardship of their garden. I like this soft approach to learning and have followed similar lines in my own hidden allotment front garden which uses similar plants to my neighbours’ gardens and appears to follow traditional ornamental design, but incorporates many edibles which forest gardener Stephen Barstow would call edimentals.

Soil that Connects Us

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Obviously, the main priority for each of these three communities is not cultivating land but creating connections among the people cultivating it. The goal is to strengthen the community and the land provides a way to achieve it. That’s something we can all relate to, can’t we?

Svalbard Global Seed Vault: Seed Saving-Cum-Taxidermy (part 2/3)

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As odd as it sounds, I can’t help but think that it’s so ridiculously easy to point fingers at the short-sightedness of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault that not only is it also all-too-easy to label it as the “Vault of Doom”, but that this can lead one to miss out on the much more dire issue of what the Vault represents in the present.

Partnership Aims to Train Needed Organic Seed Farmers

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A first-of-its-kind educational partnership between the Organic Seed Alliance (OSA) and the Multinational Exchange for Sustainable Agriculture (MESA) is training hundreds of new seed growers in organic production. Through an online certificate-granting educational platform and an accompanying structured internship program, the two groups hope to train enough farmers to help supply meet demand—and make a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) loophole irrelevant.

Growing Community: CUESA 2016-2017 Impact Report

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With support from visionaries like you, CUESA is cultivating a sustainable food system that strengthens local farms and builds healthy communities. Join us in looking back on our exciting year, spring 2016-spring 2017. Together, we expanded our farmers markets and educational programs, and widened our community.

Advanced Permaculture Planning and Design Process 2017: The Fourth Day

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My opinion that the design process at the core of permaculture currently lacks soundness and coherence. As a result, in spreading permaculture (which is above all else a design system), we are unintentionally spreading ideas that are unsound and incoherent. Ideas that will, if inadvertently, undermine the ability of permaculture to deliver real solutions in different domains. To deliver on its incredible promise.

Svalbard Global Seed Vault: Not the “Doomsday Seed Vault” But Rather the “Vault of Doom” (part 1/3)

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The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is “supposed to last for eternity”, yet didn’t take the effects of climate change into consideration in its design and construction. One might wonder which “unknown unknowns” it’s not quite ready for either.

Is the Future of Urban Agriculture Up in the Air?

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The 2009 report — which was sponsored by several organizations, including an urban agriculture organization called RUAF — helps me imagine how we could turn the gig economy into the subsistence-plus and self-reliance economy. Urban agriculture might just offer a pleasurable and affirming way to supplement incomes with sales or barter, or to offset the need to spend hard cash on food.

Advanced Permaculture Planning and Design Process 2017: The Third Day

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It was downright thrilling to see David uncovering, literally dusting off, and sharing the initial sequence of Melliodora design diagrams. David was putting design process on the table, when in my opinion it has been far too long hidden away in the cupboard (or in some cases swept under the rug!).

6 States Tapping Into the Benefits of Carbon Farming

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A handful of states around the country have begun to recognize the importance of carbon farming as an expedient tool to fight climate change. What’s carbon farming? Eric Toensmeier, author of The Carbon Farming Solution, describes it as “a suite of crops and agricultural practices that sequester carbon in the soil and in perennial vegetation like trees.”

Growing My Way out of Dystopia

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What would it be like to be mobilized by my government — and I emphasize “my” because as far as I’m concerned, Donald Trump’s version of it doesn’t qualify — into some collective effort to make this country a better place.