Food & Water

Homegrown Life: The farmer goes fishing

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It seems that when it’s time to go about reflecting on life as a farmer and modern-day homesteader, my mind wonders to the dreamy romanticism of the things on the farm that have very little to do with planting, hoeing, harvesting and washing. Instead, I get caught up in that all-consuming thought that so much of our toil and digging is wasted. Rather than worrying about pesky thoughts of debt and drought and diseases on the tomato vine, it might be easier (and superior) to spend my time letting the land feed us with what it already produces.

Food & agriculture – Dec 7

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•Supporting Climate-Friendly Food Production
•When a Green Revolution Runs Out of Water
•Can Permaculture Transform Industrial Agriculture?
•A Genius Investor Thinks Billions Of People Are Going To Starve To Death — Here’s Why
•How one nonprofit pub is giving back, one pint at a time
•Are We Heading Toward Peak Fertilizer?

Fossil Food & Agriculture – Richard Heinberg Q&A

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While researching the topic of sustainable agriculture for a paper, high school junior Rhian Moore came across the work of PCI Senior Fellow Richard Heinberg. Rhian reached out to Richard for more information on the topic. Below are Rhian’s questions and Richard’s brief responses. We think they make for a nice primer of sorts.

Garden contingency planning

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I should say I’m looking forward to a much better garden this year, and I am. I am also, however, looking forward to one that doesn’t work out so well. By which I mean that I’m doing what I should have done all along – contingency planning to optimize my garden for non-optimal conditions, in this case, a non-optimal gardener.

Why fracking may ruin your Thanksgiving

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My, how things have changed since the Pilgrims tasted their first cranberries in their Plymouth colony! Until 1816, cranberries were a thoroughly wild food; something gathered, not grown. But the discovery that allowed us to cultivate cranberries – adding a thick layer of sand on the soil where they grow – is now creating trouble in cranberry country. As it turns out, hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, requires the same sort of sand as cranberries.

 

Dust Bowl revisited

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On October 18, 2012, the Associated Press reported that "a massive dust storm swirling reddish-brown clouds over northern Oklahoma triggered a multi-vehicle accident along a major interstate…forcing police to shut down the heavily traveled roadway amid near blackout conditions."