Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Our years of leisurely critique of neoliberal capitalism are over. Now we need to take action to escape from its pathologies and develop new types of governance, provisioning, and social forms.
On July 3, the High Level Panel of Experts of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) released its much-anticipated report on agroecology in Rome. The report signals the continuing shift in emphasis in the UN agency’s approach to agricultural development.
Europe’s precautionary principle is being challenged in the name of innovation. What might at first seem like a battle of words could, however, have profound impacts on the future of food and farming in the UK, across Europe and beyond.
This post explores rapid rise to prominence of the term ‘Innovation’ within agricultural development, and presents some reasons why it is an inadequate framework to address the deep injustices in contemporary food systems, especially as they relate to family farmers and other small scale food producers.
See that thing up there? It is an autonomous security robot, something that’s becoming fashionable nowadays. Obviously, for every problem, there has to be a technological solution. So, what could go wrong with the idea that the problem of homeless people can be solved by means of security robots? After all, they are not weaponized…. I mean, not yet.
The god term I have in mind is, of course, “innovation.” The word derives from the Latin innovare, which means “to renew” or “to restore.” In everyday speech the word has come to mean something like: the activity of bringing new things into being that will generate sweeping renewal throughout the world.
The solar revolution will continue to unfold, meanwhile, and the better that innovation teams in the clean energy industries deploy their design magic – in the broadest possible sense of that word – the quicker it will all accelerate.
Progress acts as a kind of meta-narrative, an incredibly potent and pervasive trope that is woven through stories ancient and contemporary, and forms a core part of our culture.
