Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Lisa Kivirist is a bonafide Farmer Jane in Wisconsin where she runs her family farm with the help of her husband and son Liam. Off grid and creative, she and her husband have figured out how to make a living in a rural place — something that’s not really easy to do. Lisa is also a Kellogg Food and Society Policy Fellow specializing in the role of women in agriculture and speaks on the subject frequently.
The second of a two-part feature on the City of Vancouver’s multi-year process to approve backyard chickens. Because of the many similar debates underway within city councils across the country, this focus on Vancouver’s efforts looks back over the past few years to track just how this process first began and how it evolved from there. Perhaps other hopeful or illegal backyard chickeners can glean some pointers from Vancouver’s efforts. Among the many voices heard on this part II of our coverage is some of the opposition to the proposed bylaw change voiced to the city from local animal welfare organizations.
– Local food’s next step may be ‘innovation center’
– Rust in the bread basket
– Urbivore’s Dilemma: Getting by with a little help from my friends
Wes Jackson, the celebrated plant geneticist, author, farmer (and years ago a fairly good football player), has been experimenting for decades now with the bold idea that perennial grains can be developed to take the place of annual grains, thus revolutionizing agriculture by making it unnecessary for so many millions of acres to be cultivated annually. I raise my forkful of wheatgrass pancake and I salute you, Mr. Jackson.
Every year it happens to some folks – for whatever reason, the garden either doesn’t get in early enough or doesn’t do well. We get to the beginning of July and we’re left with a sense of frustration that it is too late to do anything about it. Or maybe you are having a good year, and what you mostly want is to keep that going as long as possible – sure, you are preserving and ready to root cellar, but your favorite foods are the ones that come fresh from the garden and you want to know how long you can keep that going.
– NYT: As Oil Industry Fights a Tax, It Reaps Billions From Subsidies
– Aleklett: Oil in the veins of sub-Saharan Africa
– SciAm: What happens when coal is gone?
– WaPo: Pigs in Takoma Park highlight rise in suburban livestock
– Titanic Syndrome
Last September I attended the Prairie Festival at The Land Institute in Salinas, Kansas. At the institute, Wes Jackson and his colleagues are undertaking one of the most important agricultural research projects in the world. They have gone back to first principles and are breeding new grain crops that are perennials rather than annuals…They have taken the long view.
I wonder if a book titled A Guide To Insane Farming would sell, especially when, upon opening the book, the reader would encounter descriptions of how farming is actually done today. But what I’m talking about at the moment are ideas that really are off the grid, outside the box, beyond normalcy, agronomic lunacy.
When I first released Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture, I was advised to make a list of “easy steps for becoming a radical homemaker” as part of my publicity outreach materials. My shoulders slumped at the very thought: Three years of research about the social, economic, and ecological significance of homemaking, and I had to reduce it to 10 easy tips? I didn’t see a to-do list as a viable route to a dramatic shift in thinking, beliefs, and behaviors.
Jan Spencer didn’t stop with a permaculture makeover of his suburban home in Eugene, Oregon. Now he’s taking on the neighborhood! Jan Spencer didn’t stop with a permaculture makeover of his suburban home in Eugene, Oregon. Now he’s taking on the neighborhood! As a result, his neighborhood association is teaming up with city programs like Neighborhood Watch and Emergency Response to empower neighbors to work together. They’re transforming lawns and abandoned lots into edible gardens, and sharing knowledge about energy efficiency, permaculture, and preparedness. These grass roots endeavors help people feel more secure in their homes, because they’re connected with neighbors they can rely on.
In this series’ previous post, we discussed making wine at home as a possible solution to wine availability in an age of declining cheap energy. In this the final post of this series, we will discuss in some detail the advantages of home grape growing and wine making. Along the way, we’ll mention organic viticulture methods and briefly discuss the advantages and disadvantages of specific grape varieties that might be considered for a home vineyard.
Gene Logsdon writes that his inspiration for home wine making is not the large industrial-scale wineries of California or the commercial cellars of Europe, both of which produce high-quality wines, but the back yards of German and Italian immigrants in American cities from the late 1800s through much of the 20th century. They would make wine out of “everything from rhubarb to dandelions, but especially Concord and Delaware grapes” (Logsdon 78). I believe Logsdon has observed something valuable and useful that will allow the production of quality wines to continue in eastern North America after cheap energy is no longer available. I want to explore this idea here in Part 3.
