Food insecurity – Oct 8
-Moore decries buying up third world for food security
-How to Feed the World in 2050
-Climate change: Impact on agriculture and costs of adaptation
-Crying Wolf: Climate Change Will Cost Farmers Far More Than a Climate Bill
Food & Water
Sustainable, local, and urban ag just keeps on growing – Oct 8
-The First Review of ‘Local Food’
-Eat Locally Grown Food All Year
-Rethinking the Front Yard: Cities Make Room For Urban Farms
-Growing a Revolution
-Smaller cities seen leading the way in urban agriculture
-Planting The Seeds For Sustainability
Biochar: the debate goes on – Oct 8
-UK researchers aim to prove farm climate cure
-His dark materials: The man behind Green & Black’s chocolate wants to save the planet – with charcoal
-The Biochar debate
Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization by Lester Brown
Lester Brown released a new book this week called Plan B 4.0, Mobilization to Save Civilization. The book is for sale, but it can also be downloaded free as a PDF.
I participated in a conference call with Lester Brown, in which he talked about the book, and several of us asked questions. In this post, I will give you at least a brief introduction to the book.
Nations & resources – Oct 7
-UN sees rise in ‘land grab’ for food security
-The Coalfield Uprising
-Jumpin’ Jack Verdi, It’s a Gas, Gas, Gas
Peak Oil and the Necessity of Transitioning to Regenerative Agriculture
As global energy availability begins to decline over the next several decades, energy-intensive industrial methods of food production will have to be transitioned to regenerative practices that 1) sponsor their own energy, 2) build soils and 3) produce in abundance.
Urban Right-to-Farm Laws
One of the things I’ve been saying for a long time is that we’re going to need to address zoning questions early in the process of adaptation. In an increasing number of rural areas, “Right-to-Farm” laws are in effect – that is, there are laws that protect farmers who are engaged in the normal practice of agriculture, when suburbanization or urbanization enters the picture. The assumption is that if it is part of the normal practice of agriculture, the neighbors can’t complain.
Linking the past with the present: resources, land use, and the collapse of civilizations
The human role in extinction of species and degradation of ecosystems is well documented. Since European settlement in North America, and especially after the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, we have witnessed a substantial decline in biological diversity of native taxa and profound changes in assemblages of the remaining species…We have, to the maximum possible extent allowed by our intellect and never-ending desire, consumed the planet.
Deconstructing Dinner: Pedal powered groceries/Tom Stearns on Hardwick, VT
This episode features Martin Gunst is an active cyclist in Vancouver…who went on to launch Grocer Gunst – a bicycle delivery service for freshly harvested biodynamic produce from three Demeter certified farms in the Lower Mainland and the Okanagan…and Tom Stearns, of Hardwick Vermont’s, High Mowing Organic Seeds who joined Deconstructing Dinner’s Jon Steinman and shared the history of Hardwick and the future of food security work both there and throughout North American communities.
Harvest Art
It is no surprise that gardening and farming inspire art. The partnership between nature and humans in the act of producing food can’t help but produce beauty too. A shelf full of home-canned vegetables means food security, but the real reason we delight in them is that the food just looks so pretty sitting there in rows in the cellar. The act of laying by food is its own reward even before we eat the stuff.
Food & agriculture – Oct 2
-Will investors show an appetite for local food?
-Can farmland be saved without the farmer?
-USDA grant program benefits farmers market producers
-Grass-finished beef market sees exponential growth
-County to hear local food plan
Norman Borlaug: Saint Or Sinner?
The father of the “green revolution” in agriculture, Norman Borlaug, recently passed away due to cancer, at the age of 95. Borlaug didn’t approve of the “green revolution” moniker, dubbing it “a miserable term” (what he would have made of “The Agrichemical Revolutionary” isn’t clear) but his work has had a far-reaching impact on the course of human development.
