Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
To what extent does the peasant way inherently impose certain kinds of social structure, to what extent can we now exercise different choices over those structures, and how might peasant societies of the future differ from or resemble ones of the past?
We can learn from the communities in and around Bristol who are defying top-down challenges by coming together at local level. Radical approaches to resilience are more important than ever, and bearing fruits for the grassroots.
Gardening on a rooftop is more than just a clever use of limited space, though. Rooftop gardens have substantial positive effects on air pollution and city temperatures.
In the face of these pressures there remains a dogged belief amongst many in the farming community that the purpose of agriculture is to produce food. A growing number of consumers are keen to buy high quality local food, produced through sound husbandry (as agroecology used to be called).
The application of True Cost Accounting can be used to re-establish farming systems that operate within planetary boundaries and produce food in harmony with nature across the globe.
I wannabe a voice as best I can for those tried and tested strategies of innumerable small-scale and peasant farmers down the ages who for the most part never left a script, never had a book to sell, a big idea or a guru to promote, but who I believe have nevertheless still left much from which people today can learn.
Eric Kampe shares experiences and perspectives on launching a small farm enterprise with a focus on both personal values and farm economics.
RIVERCIDE – a live investigative documentary on the shocking state of Britain’s rivers, hosted by leading environmental journalist George Monbiot (author of Feral, Out of the Wreckage, presenter of Apocalypse Cow, Guardian columnist) and directed by Grierson-winner Franny Armstrong (McLibel, The Age of Stupid) – will be streamed live on Wednesday 14 July, 7pm BST.
Looking out from Big Bear Landing, you can see the rice coming in strong, and the swans on the lake, huge flocks of them. A constant in our lives, the rice remains, awaiting the Anishinaabe, our prayers, our songs, and our gratitude.
Traditions are passed down through many generations of Burren farmers to maintain the critical symbiotic relationship between farming and conservation. In his first Letter From The Farm, Shane takes us through farming in the Burren, past and present.
For my part, I find the following straightforward idea most credible: We should eat what our bodies evolved to eat.
Instead of the ‘best of all possible worlds’, then, the responsibility is to identify the ‘least bad of all likely worlds’ and the ways it may be realized.
