The just food debate – Sept 10
-The Problem With ‘Eat Local’
-James McWilliams’ over-hyped and undercooked anti-locavore polemic
-Just Food
Food & Water
Solutions & sustainability – Sept 10
-Transition Towns project helps kick oil addiction
-Cuban Ambassador visits Cloughjordan
-In a small patch of land, hope reborn for Sudanese refugees
-Community Supported Agriculture thrives around Osceola, Wis.
-Celebrating the abundant growth of the farmers market
-Algae biofuel propels a braves’ new world
-Transition towns
Deep thought – Sept 9
-The beauty and terror of science
-Human Resource Use: Timing and Implications for Sustainability
-Crisis and Hope
Scale
Within the span of a couple generations, we abandoned a durable, finely textured, life-affirming set of living arrangements characterized by self-sufficient family farms intermixed with small towns that provided commerce, services, and culture. Worse yet, we traded that model for a coarse-scaled arrangement wholly dependent on ready access to cheap fossil fuels.
An Offbeat Way To Make Good Hay
An intrepid new garden farmer has been asking me lately about the details of making hay. I can tell by his questions that he is very intelligent but has never experienced the culture of the hay field. Until now, it had never occurred to me how difficult the situation has to be for him. I was unceremoniously handed a hay fork about seventy years ago, and in a sense never let go.
Agricultural Economic News Update September 4, 2009 (comment)
It seems to me that there is a growing momentum of thoughtful debate over the realities of local food production versus industrial agriculture. A book review from Bloomberg news provided the inspiration for a needed discussion on this subject here this week.
Deconstructing Dinner: The Local Grain Revolution X (Retail Supported Agriculture? / Sprouting Grain)
What is Retail Supported Agriculture? As far as the North American local food movement is concerned, it’s not a concept that has yet been coined in any notable way. The Kootenay Grain CSA (community supported agriculture) project located in the Kootenay region of British Columbia is now changing that.
Solutions & sustainability – Sept 4
-How on Earth Can We Feed 8 Billion People?
-Solar Power from Space: Moving Beyond Science Fiction
-Johnson announces awards for ‘low carbon zones’
-The Cruel Cost of Clunkers
-How to Grow Democracy
-Bike-o-rama: A Roundup of the Best in New Bikes, Bike Infrastructure, Blogs, Books and More
India and its agriculture: in peril? – Sept 4
-Climate Change, Drought and India’s Looming Food and Water Crisis
-Half India’s land degraded: agro-chemicals partly to blame
-Delhi trade talks face familiar foe as India’s farmers prepare to protest
Globalization – Sept 7
-UK lags behind as global economy emerges from recession
-UN: Rich countries will suffer unless they help poor on climate change
-‘Job not done’, Darling tells G20
-Doha Round: it’s important to have some clarity on a road map
Food & agriculture – Sept 2
-Big stores counting the cost of ban on GM food
-Climate tipping point defined for US crop yields
-The promise and limits of local food
-Organic Farmers Seek Healthier Future
-U.S. farmers warm to community agriculture model
Deep thought – Sept 1
-In control? Think again. Our ideas of brain and human nature are myths
-Brain changes may have led to Stone Age tools
-How cooking makes you a man
-Cogito ergo sum, baby
