Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
As COP26 draws to a close, this blog offers some reflections on the fraught relationship between the mainstream process and the social movements, and what this means for the fight for a just and agroecological transition.
EcoAraguaia Farm of the Future is a former cattle ranch in the Amazon rainforest with a big mission: to show the world how producing food, restoring nature, and creating livelihoods can go hand in hand. The key to all of this? Regenerative agriculture: a holistic system for managing the land that integrates people, planet, and profit.
Growing mushrooms on woodchip can be done under trees in the field or garden, or you can put the chip into containers and grow either inside or outdoors. Scale of production, available facilities, and time at one’s disposal are things that might affect your choice of system.
So my plan for meeting the climate apocalypse is to keep thinking, keep writing, keep farming and keep being hopeful (but not ‘optimistic’) as best I can. What’s yours?
I of course had very limited exposure to the thousands of simultaneous events. But my sense was that there was little meaningful interchange between different positions. Two worlds talked past each other or – because of restricted access, problems with visas and the high costs of attending –- never even met.
Beyond our local context, the Food Sovereignty movement provides a global political framework for change based on social justice, solidarity, empowering women and re- organising international trade and economic relations.
Those who choose to pursue this line of work will understand localised decision-making for the Earth’s survival and bringing back species that are on the brink of extinction. Furthermore, everyone outside of these cooperatives will be additionally grateful for their existence, for the goodness that is extended to everyone will be shared by all of life.
How do we move away from a historically based, commodity-focused system that barely covers the cost of growing food to one that is more supportive of diverse small- and medium-scale farms? How do we ensure tasty and nourishing food, vibrant rural communities, and a range of farmer backgrounds?
The Dallas Food Justice Coalition provides a simple but powerful model. By bringing together community advocates from different areas of food justice, they’ve begun cultivating a grassroots solution to our broken food system that focuses on empowering and educating the community rather than simply providing aid.
And so we come to the thorny issue of landownership and property rights in a small farm future, which I discuss in Chapter 13 of my book.
When choosing what to eat, it is important to consider where and how it has been grown. Buying locally, seasonally or direct from producers is often a good way to ensure you know the true story of the food you are eating.
Going local is remembering the old ways, the ways in which all our ancestors used to live. Going local is about reconnecting to place, people and self. It is the ultimate reconnection our planet is calling for. A slower pace and more gentle way of being on this planet.
