Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Many alternatives to industrial agriculture are emerging, and small farmers have been the pioneers of one such alternative: agroecology. The term refers to ecological principles and practices related to various aspects of farming, including soil health, water management, cover crops, crop rotation, biodiversity, natural pest control, and more.
How can we secure food justice in the United States when 98% of all farmland is owned by White people? Successfully developing this future will rely on expanding access to capital for farmers of color beyond the conventional financing institutions that have, so far, failed to meet their needs.
True innovation, or that “call to revolution”, requires disruptive thinking. And you cannot do that without an open mind. To meet the challenges of producing food sustainably, we will need innovations and we will need to think disruptively about current ways of producing food. To go back to Charles’ words – the clues are in the inherent genius of nature. We would do well to open our minds to those who try to find sustainable answers through these routes. Together we might open doors to new discoveries.
“How can the design of farms and farm buildings be beautiful, functional and express a sense of place?” This was the central question explored by Mark Hoare, Kim Wilkie and Stephanie Evans during their parallel session “Harmony Principles in Farm Architecture” at the Harmony in Food and Farming conference earlier in July.
The persistent question for me as we explore local food issues here at Strong Towns is: Could any of our communities actually survive on local food alone? Could we ever get to a point where local food makes up most of our diets and where local farmers are successfully supplying that? These questions (inspired by the Strong Towns Strength Test) have been buzzing in the back of my mind and, while I want to believe it’s feasible to live off of local food, the more I study this, the more I realize it would be pretty darn tough, if not impossible.
There is a vibrant food movement in the UK and Brexit means that there will be a national food and agriculture policy in the future. Will the UK stick to its neoliberal free trade politics or will it take the opportunity to re-shape its food system? A People’s Food Policy want it to be fundamentally transformed.
Wendell Berry’s astute statement that “eating is an agricultural act,” uncontrovertibly connects food back to the land and back to the soil. As he reminds us elsewhere, the soil is where we begin in the most fundamental way: it is “…the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all… Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life.”
Revitalizing the practice of seed saving is vital for the world’s collective food security. Conservation techniques, such as the creation of seed banks and seed exchanges among farmers, gardeners, and even nations, play an important role in not only preserving ancient, heirloom varieties of important food crops, but also in mitigating against the increasing risks of pests, diseases, and climate change.
As one of the most complex, costly, and widely disliked common EU policies, Brexit presents a once in a lifetime opportunity to end some of the absurdities and harm of the CAP – a system which has failed to support farms effectively, failed to stem the huge loss of farm diversity and failed to protect wildlife and services such as flood mitigation.
More and more Greeks move away from the cities and start over as farmers. A beekeeper, an olive farmer and a mushroom grower tell us their stories. The seminars offered at the Syngrou Ranch – home of the Athens Institute of Agricultural Sciences – are in high demand, proving that agriculture is trending in Greece.
Founded as a resource to prevent food waste, the CropMobster network has grown into an online platform for farmers, food activists, and pantries to exchange resources. Designed to “ignite food system crowdsourcing,” CropMobster empowers local leaders to connect communities interested in sharing or trading goods, labor, excess food, events, and news to help end hunger and reduce food waste.
A first-of-its-kind educational partnership between the Organic Seed Alliance (OSA) and the Multinational Exchange for Sustainable Agriculture (MESA) is training hundreds of new seed growers in organic production. Through an online certificate-granting educational platform and an accompanying structured internship program, the two groups hope to train enough farmers to help supply meet demand—and make a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) loophole irrelevant.
