Food & Water

Where’s the local wheat?

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In a state known for its agricultural bounty, commodity crops like wheat are a losing proposition for many farmers. California grows some 700,000 acres of wheat, much of it for livestock. The state is in a “wheat deficit,” according to the California Wheat Commission; in other words, we eat more wheat than we produce. Still, there is a slowly but steadily growing hunger for locally grown and milled whole-grain wheat, a natural extension of the locavore movement. Acme Bread Company owner Steve Sullivan has been interested in sourcing local organic wheat for years, but he hasn’t been able to make it work at his bakery’s scale of production. “We use more organic wheat than is grown in California,” he says.

The year of fruit

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Although 2012 was a dismal year for my garden, for some reason it was a fabulous year for fruit. The abundant success of our fruit and nut trees, which require much less watering and care than annual vegetables, has rewarded us for the years of faith and patience that it took for the trees to grow large enough to bear fruit. Now that they have, I’m just trying to keep up with them.

Programmable Permaculture

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How can we solve a problem (in a garden, say), with permaculture tools, by decomposing the problem and coming up with a set of interlocking pieces that solves it? Framing the problem in this way is very much applying an engineering mindset, something that might irk those who insist on thinking holistically about any and all ecological settings. (And I can relate to that sentiment, because too much has been done in engineering and science more broadly to stop holistic thinking and to employ scientific reductionism in its place.)

The sanctity of food: Conscious eating as a spiritual practice

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Throughout human history, particularly in indigenous cultures, food has been perceived as sacred. The word sacred is not a religious term but rather one that simply means “set apart” or not of the ordinary. It is also related to sacrifice which may mean that something is sacred because it derived from something sacrificed. For example, we speak of battlefields and military cemeteries as sacred. In ancient times, some temples, mountains, or forests were sacred because animals were sacrificed to a god in those places. All food is sacred in the sense that the life of a plant or animal has been sacrificed to feed another being.

Going Deep

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"Like our religious traditions, the agriculture we are accustomed to is a 5000-year-old relic that grew surpluses, but also bequeathed enormous and spreading deserts, centralized and hierarchical wealth systems, standing militaries, and a seemingly intractable global ecological crisis."

Saving the oysters

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“We’ve had so many people come up to us and say, ‘I heard you’re closing,’” says Terry Sawyer, co-owner of Hog Island Oyster Co. “There’s just a lot of misunderstanding about what’s going on.” Despite the rumors, Hog Island is alive and kicking, celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. With more than 100 employees, a thriving Tomales Bay oyster farm, two restaurants and a café, and additional projects in the works, Terry and his partner John Finger have turned what was once a modest dream into a Bay Area institution. But despite the farm’s success, Terry is worried about the oyster’s future, as are many farmers, marine biologists, ecologists, and bivalve lovers.

No guarantees

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In Agriculture: villain or boon companion, I argued that we sapiens have been cultivators since time immemorial, that a combination of foraging and cultivation is a sensible, durable way of life that has served us well, and that the “origin of agriculture” really is the intensification of cultivation that becomes visible in the archeological record.

Co-op Breweries: Craft beer in the new economy

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Fermented beverages of one sort or another have played a part in every civilization. The evolution of fermentation by human hands has been a diverse one, too. From what is arguably the first fermented beverage, mead, found in ancient Greek, Egyptian and even Sumerian records, all the way to today’s micro-brewed extreme barley-based ales like Imperial India Pale Ales and 21% abv Stouts. However, the next step in this evolution comes not in the changing of flavors or styles, but the organization behind its creation: behold the grand idea of Cooperative Breweries!