Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Only rice, wheat, corn, beans, and other grain crops are productive and durable enough to provide the dietary foundation of calories and protein. Grains made up about the same portion of the ancient Greek diet as they do of ours. We’ve been stuck with grains for 10,000 years, and our dependence won’t be broken any time soon.
A big reason for eating locally — it tastes better.
Cuba’s agricultural decline sparks major reform
India’s rice farmers abandon paddies, deepening global shortage
Grain prices grow, but so do risks
Amartya Sen: The rich get hungrier
Food banks squeezed by prices, demand
Soaring energy prices ‘force up cost of food’
Monty Don: gardeners of the world must unite
Incentives for farmers to grow organic in Australia
Advice to teens and parents about peak oil
Sustainable Bellingham – grassroots organizing is key
Brazil: Ethanol vs biodiversity
Despite doubts, Brazil pins hopes on sustainable sugarcane ethanol
Report: Effects of ethanol on Texas food and feed
The pace quickens. The signs are more numerous. We need even more than food security; we need food sovereignty. Who controls your food? Growing at least part of one’s own food–and having something to trade–will be essential to survival.
U.S. studies: Energy firms routinely abusing carbon offset fund
Crisis talks on global food prices
For Texas farmers, production costs are spiraling along with crop prices
Lofty prices for fertilizer put farmers in a squeeze
Energy giants smell windfall from sulphur
It’s the meat-eating, stupid
Sowing the seeds of a global revolution (guerilla gardenering)
Sustainable communities (otherwise – “dead doors that lead to nowhere”)
Transition Town sprouts in Peterborough, Ontario
With corn prices triple the historical levels, growing corn for your own table use looks more sensible than ever, especially when it is not easy to find organic corn to buy.
Garden centres are crammed with the most pointless unnecessary clutter, very little of it of any use to anyone who actually wants to garden, to grow anything useful. They are temples to a lost generation so removed from the land and from seeing gardens as something essential and as something productive that it beggars belief.
