Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
A Growing Culture believes “that farmers should be at the forefront of agriculture,” aiming to reshape the food and agriculture system starting with farmers. Through projects for farmer-to-farmer exchange, collective learning, and farmer-led research, A Growing Culture wants to advance innovation and farmer autonomy to create a more just and sustainable food system, and one inclusive of smallholder farmers.
Leftists are told that we have to be realistic, and I agree. But how realistic is it to expect solutions to human injustices and ecological crises to emerge from the systems that have created the problems? If you want to be realistic, get radical.
With the decision by the Trump administration to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement on climate change and reverse many of the prior administration’s climate change policies, it seems that federal action on climate change will be unlikely in the next few years. However, the US system of government gives individual states broad powers to regulate CO2 emissions within their borders, with many states actively moving forward with their own mitigation strategies in absence of federal action.
There is a satisfaction in being able to walk the farm and snack or harvest in any season. Whether it is greens in deep January or wild chanterelles in late July, the real “movable feast” is there for the taking (with a little bit of sweat and labor). Even the sassafras trees make a contribution; I gather and grind their leaves to a fine powder in my annual production of gumbo filé.
Once we experience ourselves as inseparable part of the web of life we realize that true well-being for us can only happen in harmony with the whole and all of its parts. When other humans or living beings suffer, we cannot stay untouched. This is what Arne Naess meant when calling for an “ecological self”.
When we temporarily quiet the cognitive activity of the mind to allow these imaginative functions to be activated, it’s easier to recognize the living connections that exist between ourselves and all other forms of life. I call this felt-sense of connection our ‘ecological imagination,’ because it has the capacity to liberate distorted beliefs about our control over nature and our separation from the natural world.
The commons is an emerging paradigm in Europe embracing co-creation, stewardship, and social and ecological sustainability. Commons perspectives could help to reinvigorate Europe with constructive and concrete policy implications on many terrains.
This summer, get outside, roll up your sleeves, and take a stand for public lands. Here are 5 ways to do this. Use them or lose them!
Sustainable agriculture needs to be integrated throughout the entire learning system if all our future farmers are to embrace the sustainability agenda. Young people are a sponge for information and what they are told now will impact on how they farm in the future.
A new world based on community and collaboration is closer than you think. We can steward resources together, in fact, millions of people are doing just that. And not just in the history books. This week, from Kingston, NY, author and activist David Bollier, Co Founder of the Commons Strategy Group, explains what it means to Think Like A Commoner.
Craftivism was coined in 2003 by Betsy Greer. I always say Craftivism is like punk music. Under that punk umbrella label you’ve got the Talking Heads, the Ramones, the Sex Pistols and the Clash, and they all sound completely different but they’re all under that banner. So you could say Craftivism is anything that links craft with activism.
In a sharing vision of a local renewable energy system, many households will generate their own renewable energy (as in solar photovoltaic or solar thermal systems on their rooftops), but many more, for whom this is not an option, will share in the ownership and operation of off-site renewable energy generation infrastructure such as wind turbines.
