Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Besides embracing cooperatives and community land trusts, Jubilee Justice is dedicated to an open-source, climate-friendly type of rice farming and to courageous “transformational learning journeys” for racial healing.
During their American stopover, the crew of the Nomade des Mers went to the rolling plains of Virgina to meet the Living Energy Farm. An intentional community of a dozen people who have achieved an impressive level of energy and food autonomy thanks to low-tech!
It certainly feels as though some new ideas are needed to overcome the ecological, political and socioeconomic troubles of present times. There is a way to address these troubles, not so much through an old book as through an old political movement, namely distributism.
But with time, our lives as consumers in the capitalist economy will appear frail when compared to a life in the home economy. And eventually, we’ll come to understand that this is about more than making cupcakes. A lot more.
When it comes to applying these lessons to agricultural history in Britain or elsewhere with a view to creating a just and renewable agrarian future, what I take from Sahlins’s thought is almost the opposite of what a superficial reading of ‘The original affluent society’ might suggest.
To wrap up this series on accessing fresh, affordable food in an urban setting I’m focusing on food waste. Could we eat better by changing what we consider “waste”?
The imperative is not to stop farming, but to phase out fossil fuels very quickly. Cavalier polemics that cast primary responsibility for our predicament elsewhere are a dangerous diversion.
Community Supported Agriculure (CSA) can transform the way producers and consumers relate to food as a local commons.
And that was bean week. All in all, there are worse ways to spend your days!
This week I’m looking at foraging local plants and animals. Vancouver is a coastal city with beaches littered with Pacific mussels and varnish clams, and lush parks overrun with rabbits and Canada geese.
Integrating Indigenous food systems like forest gardens into today’s urban setting will take some work. But we can look at models of food sharing and community building in Indigenous societies to help us reimagine what is possible in non-Indigenous urban centres…
As Carver, Kimmerer, Stamets, and many mystics and shamans have written, life (god, plants fungi, trees, and grasses) sings all around us. The question is, are we listening?
