Food & Water

Deconstructing Dinner: Joel Salatin and Judy Rebick on building new food systems

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Virginia farmer Joel Salatin has become one of the most well known names in the world of alternative farming…In February 2010, Joel was interviewed by Lauren Berlekamp of the Erie Wire. Joel spoke to Lauren about his unique and seemingly common-sense approach to farming…Also featured on the episode, a great talk delivered by Toronto’s Judy Rebick. Rebick is the Canadian Auto Workers-Sam Gindin Chair in Social Justice and Democracy at Ryerson University…In November 2008, Rebick spoke at the annual convention of Canada’s National Farmers Union and encouraged farmers there to take advantage of what she referred to as the ‘perfect storm’, whereby the dominant top-down social and economic models are collapsing – clearing the way, as she believes, for a bottom-up and community-centred approach to begin better serving our needs.

Equal Time Radio: Gross National Happiness & happiness in Hardwick

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Tom Barefoot and Linda Wheatley explain the idea behind an upcoming conference in Vermont on how governments can measure the success of their policies using gross national happiness, not gross national product. And Ben Hewitt, author of the book about Hardwick called The Town That Food Saved, tells what he learned from the people of Hardwick about the difference between economic prosperity and quality of life.

Peak phosphorus goes viral

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Phosphorus is one of the three elements critical for modern agriculture, and hence the survival of human beings.

In 2007, Energy Bulletin published the first report in which Hubbert analysis was applied to mined phosphorus supplies, highlighting the oncoming shortage. In recent months, articles on the subject have been published by Scientific American, Spiegel, Foreign Policy and Miller-McCune. Several institutes are beginning to look at the problem.

(Excerpts from these articles, plus prescient comments by Aldous Huxley, author of “Brave New World.”)

Farming is cultural as well as agricultural

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I am sometimes asked why I spend my time writing about farming and gardening when, it is suggested, there are more important topics to which to apply my talents. That, in one sentence, indicates one of the most troublesome cultural problems that modern society faces today: the notion that food-getting is not an important enough subject to merit the close attention of all of us.

Tipping point: near-term systemic implications of a peak in global oil production

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We currently live within an integrated complex globalised economy. We have framed the process in which this occurs as a catastrophic bifurcation, driven by a series of reinforcing positive feedbacks. The final point will be a de-globalised (localised) economy of much reduced complexity.

Live from Cochabamba – the alternate climate conference

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Welcome to the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth—a massive meeting organized by the Bolivian government in response to the resounding failure of the United Nations-sponsored climate talks in Copenhagen last year.
– Video clips
– From Buenos Aires to Cochabamba (Guardian)
– Changing the Climate for Justice (ColorLines)
– “People’s climate conference” in Bolivia kicks off with ambitious aims (Grist)
– What Evo Morales wants

Dandelions: Miracles in your front yard (plus dandelion tincture recipe)

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The dandelion is a much maligned meadow plant, a native of Europe. Americans fiercely and defiantly dig out and poison this miracle plant, for no obvious reason other than they think they should. I started thinking for myself, and I have found out quite a bit about this miracle plant.

Food & agriculture – April 18

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– Inside Cuba’s urban agriculture revolution (video)
– Flight ban could leave UK short of fruit and veg
– Beating obesity
– The trouble with Brazil’s much-celebrated ethanol ‘miracle’
– ‘Biggest problem you’ve never heard of’: Peak phosphorus
– Phosphorus famine: The threat to our food supply (Scientific American)