Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
It’s time for the second monthly Transition podcast, in which we return to November’s “Round-up of What’s Happening out in the World of Transition” and go into more depth on three of the stories it contained.
– New Survey of 1,000 Young and Beginning Farmers Reveals What the Next Generation Needs
– Fruit trees coming to an Unley street near you
– Wes Jackson: Can we restore the prairie — and still support ourselves?
– Farm Bill Hackathon
I used to think a lot about starting a Christmas tree farm. Hilly cheaper land could be used and I had some, machinery investment would be low, or so I thought, and the customer would maybe do the work of harvesting. What stopped me was what I took to be the insane human desire for the “perfect” tree.
Meg emails to ask me “How much work is small-scale farming, anyway?” I want to farm and I’m planning on trying it out over the summer as an intern, but what I’m worried about is not being able to keep up with everyone else. I’m healthy and reasonably energetic, but everyone makes it sound so hard! Should I even try?”
Well first of all, I think Meg is doing exactly the right thing in trying it out. The best way to understand whether you are suited to small-scale agriculture is to get some experience, idealy on several different small farms that do the kinds of things you want to do. Interning, WWOOFing, taking hands-on classes are good ways to get a sense of the scope of things.
The current global food system is highly fuel- and transport-dependent. Fuels will almost certainly become less affordable in the near and medium term, making the current, highly fuel-dependent agricultural production system less secure and food less affordable. It is therefore necessary to promote food self-sufficiency and reduce the need for fuel inputs to the food system at all levels.
What would it be like to invest in—not just eat from—the veggie farmers, cheese artisans and ranchers at the local farmers’ market?
Farmers have been through this before — our lives and livelihoods falling under corporate control. It has been an ongoing process: consolidation of markets; consolidation of seed companies; an ever-widening gap between our costs of production and the prices we receive. Some of us are catching on, getting the picture of the real enemy.
What do we understand by the term food justice? Is it the search for accessible, affordable and healthy food for all? Or is there a role for food in tackling today’s larger-than-self problems?
– The empathy of rats, and their urge to liberate companions
– Localization v. Globalization: A False Dichotomy
– Food for Thought: Food Sovereignty in Europe
– The Water, Energy and Food Nexus
– Dan Ariely on Defying Logic (new)
-The New Agtivist: Edith Floyd is making a Detroit urban farm, empty lot by empty lot
-A citizen activist forces New Mexico’s dairies to clean up their act
-Citywatch: Food’s a trip, Actually a Baker’s Dozen of Trips
-Amish Farms to Hippie Co-Ops Fight FDA Inquiry
-Industrial-Sized Rooftop Farm Planned for Berlin
-Small farmers crave horse power
For the rural Maya, the community being considered was not merely a single group of humans denoted by geography and culture, but rather the ecological community of all life forms, and generations still to come. What sane economic system would even consider forgetting these, a Mayan might ask. An economist might call what the Mayans are acquiring social, cultural, and ecological capital. To these people, and many others in the intentionally pre-industrial world, they are just good sense.
This land will live again. It will live in America’s countryside, in her mountains and rivers, as well as in her cities. To me, that’s what the Occupy movement is all about—finding ways for all living things to thrive. And for those of us in the grassfed farming community, that’s what we’re all about too, even if we don’t all agree with protests.
