Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Yet again, now is supposedly not the time to do the very things that would reduce our exposure to destructive inputs. There is a fear that this terrible war in Ukraine will give European business-as-usual forces one more excuse turn the EU Green Deal into that potentially perfect but always elusive pie in the sky.
Health is a human right, not a privilege, which is why Herbalists Without Borders work to deliver health justice to displaced and disadvantaged people via the powerful medium of herbs.
A return to mixed farming would bring with it numerous blessings: reduced water pollution, greater agricultural biodiversity, healthier soils, reduced reliance on pesticides and herbicides, more farm jobs and more varied and interesting work.
There are exciting opportunities for using land on the edge of cities – the peri-urban (areas adjacent to urban settlements) fringe – to provide more agroecologically produced food and to connect urban and rural economies through food growing.
To complete my present mini-series of posts on rural and agrarian gentrification, I want to talk about what I’ll call the internship problem. This relates to the practice of employing young or new entrant people at low or no wages, usually on the basis – or at least the pretext – that the opportunity gives them experience that will enable them to get more gainful employment in the future.
So now that we have the evidence of the risk of excessive reliance on feeds, fertilizers and fossil fuels – what are we going to do to adjust to this reality?
To not manage land involves letting go, giving that control and responsibility back to nature and instead adopting an approach to work with it – a fundamental shift in practice and mindset.
I’ve long argued that if the world survives great power warmongering and eco-apocalypse then the future it faces is most likely a small farm future. Heavy death taxes would be one way to expedite that future…
Plant-based’ is the new ‘sustainable’. Marketed as the remedy to many of our crises, on closer inspection the label means little.
Everyone should have the right to high quality, health promoting milk from ethical and sustainable dairy farms.
When a vegetable grower tells me he wants the cook to know what it is to pull cabbages in February in the rain – we have to find a way to communicate that.
Public finance has a key role to play in agriculture. Instead of propping up corporate interests, it should learn from local producers.
