Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
– Quinoa’s Global Success Creates Quandary at Home (Bolivia)
– Ethiopia at centre of global farmland rush
– Perennial Crops, Sustainable Agriculture: A 21st Century Green Revolution (Wes Jackson)
– Can poor Kenyan fishermen can improve themselves without destroying local coral reefs? (audio)
– Nunavut plans to promote local foods
Food is at the core of so many of our global problems, including hunger, obesity, energy, climate change, economic disparity, and on and on. But it’s also something that unites us— everyone eats.
FGU follows a cooperative working model, although it is not formally registered as one. FGU has an ‘each voice counts’ membership, inviting all members to participate in decisions. We operate within the Transition Town umbrella but are autonomous in the pursuit of our objectives. We aim to become a source of information on the benefits of healthy eating and responsible farming and are sharing ideas and best practices with other like-minded initiatives, starting with participating in a mentoring scheme with Stroudco. And, most importantly we aim to engender a spirit of community with designated meeting and working locations.
What we eat is destroying both our bodies and the planet, according to author Lierre Keith, a recovering twenty-year vegan. While she passionately opposes factory farming of animals, she maintains that humans require nutrient-dense animal foods for good health. A grain-based diet is the basis for degenerative diseases we take for granted (diabetes, cancer, heart disease) – diseases of civilization. Annual grain production is destroying topsoil and creating deserts on a planetary scale. Lierre urges the restoration of perennial polycultures for longterm sustainability.
Still in their infancy, sustainable fisheries trusts were born of the mounting need for new ways to aid community-based fishermen who stand as frontline stewards of the fisheries they have depended on for generations. Trusts now emerging in selected U.S. ports provide footholds for transforming the act of buying fish into a direct investment in the health of the fisheries where they are caught and the livelihoods of the fishermen who catch them.
First of all, I care because I think many small churches are closing for the same reason small farms are closing, that is, false notions about economics. The general thinking is that it is more profitable to cram more people into fewer, bigger churches just like it is more profitable to cram more hogs into fewer, bigger barns.
Reduce your consumption. Increase your awareness. Use berms/swales/mulch. Use infiltration as well as storage techniques. Build healthy soil. Change your plant palette. Bucket in the shower. Greywater-plumb your laundry (and consider guerilla greywater too). Use found materials as shade devices. And use rain barrels. Do all of the above in combination, and move into the gardens of the future.
In February, world food prices reached the highest level on record. Soaring food prices are already a source of spreading hunger and political unrest, and it appears likely that they will climb further in the months ahead.
That is a much bigger project even that conversion to small farms and agro-ecology. That requires that we care about other people enough to make changes and sacrifices, that we take the right to food seriously.
In addition to water, people need food for their very existence. Thus food is also essential to economic growth.
It is ironic that the Dervaes–homestead project originated long ago in a desire to access GMO-free food. Now they have become, in effect, the GMO of the L.A. Green Scene. They are attempting to patent the “seed,” so that no one else is allowed to touch it without paying royalties. Just like Monsanto, they are sic-ing their attorneys on people who are working publicly in good faith to do the right thing.
One could argue that the principles common in addiction recovery hold much wisdom for a transition process. To truly “recover” from an addiction one must go through the transition of recognizing first that one’s way of life is not working—the compulsion with the behavior or substance is getting in the way of one’s relationships, health, future well-being, and growth. In other words, one recognizes their desire to consume is insatiable and destructive, and a change is needed.
