Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
What organic farming and agroecology have in common is that they reject synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, use organic fertilizers and stabilize their farming systems through diversity.
And this simple principle proves true in nature in a broader sense. Rest is necessary. The dying leaves in autumn, the cutting back of branches, the ushering peace of winter, the times of restfulness: all of these are necessary to eventually come back to life again.
In this three part series we present an analysis by Dr. Andrea Beste on the similarities, differences and synergies between the organic, agroecological and regenerative farming movements. Part one here outlines the history and current status of the organic movement.
Time to talk about peasants, who I claim in Chapter 3 of my book A Small Farm Future will soon be returning to tend (or create) a small farm near you. Or may in fact include you or your descendants.
If a local food movement is about consumer empowerment, isolating from the complexity of global forces of injustice, increasing buying choices, or unchecked nostalgia and romanticization, then it is just another space where whiteness is prioritized and reproduced, and it cannot, in good faith, be conflated with ethicality or justice.
The vision of a food commons seeks to embed economic relations into society and the natural world, through utilising the various forms of ecologically available resources in sustainable ways.
Watch Gaia’s latest film – Llafur Ni (Our Grains)– about a farmer’s 20-year quest to find and revive the Welsh black oats his grandfather once grew.
Small-scale urban farming is a key piece of the food resilience puzzle. In the face of crisis, local growing has proved a reliable ally.
As more and more of us are turned on to the idea of small-scale self-reliance and seek to build resilient local communities, one of the most serious challenges we face is basic access to affordable land.
And so, as we emerge blinking into the light, from behind our lockdown screens, it is with an invigorated vision of the world we’re collectively striving to build. We have much to do, but grounds to be positive.
The protests by Indian farmers against three laws initially passed as ordinances have gone from sporadic in August 2020 to the biggest peaceful civil society protest in the world.
As I see it, the case for a turn to peasant farming today is about trying to meet the challenges of the present, not about trying to recross that unbridgeable and silent river of history.
