Growing a Green New Deal: Agriculture’s Role in Economic Justice and Ecological Sustainability

We focus here on two proposals for a Green New Deal that are politically viable today but also point us toward the deeper long-term change needed: (1) job training that could help repopulate the countryside and change how farmers work, and (2) research on perennial grain crops that could change how we farm.

Aboriginal Foodways: Towards a Return of Native Food in Australia

There is growing recognition of the value of Australia’s native produce and a need to capture what knowledge there still is of Indigenous land management practices and the cultivation and preparation of many of these foods, before it disappears entirely.

How Via Organica is Helping Local Vendors and Farmers Thrive

Via Organica, a regenerative farm in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, is more than just a place that grows and sells fresh, organic produce to the local community. Rosana Álvarez, the farm’s founder, also runs an educational center, restaurant, and store. By centralizing these operations, Álvarez is seeking to improve the livelihoods for local farmers and vendors.

The Palestine Heirloom Seed Library and El Beir, Arts and Seeds.

In 2014, I founded the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library. The Library and associated El Beir Arts and Seeds symbolize this core belief: that agriculture is truly comprised of both “agri” (traditional farming practices) + “culture” (the associated lifestyle/livelihood traditions essential to a community’s identity).

Listening to the Land

It made sense to me that that letting land “rest” would help rejuvenate it; in the wild, a plot of barren land will quickly be covered by a profusion of different species, which cover the ground, protect it from erosion by rain, bloom with many different flowers, bring many different pollinators, which feed different birds.

From Little Things, Big Things Come

But for Tlingit and other Native people who comprise the 4,000 citizens of the Sitka Tribe (2,500 live in Sitka), subsistence foods are also an integral part of their cultural tradition. The land and waters surrounding them are the provenance not only of the Tribe’s sustenance, but also its soul and spirit.

How Native American Food is Tied to Important Sacred Stories

As a scholar of environmental history and Native American religion, I have looked at how indigenous people find religious meaning in the natural world and traditional foods. This latest Supreme Court case coincides with a resurgence of interest among a new generation of scholars and activists who are learning about and reviving indigenous food systems.

Supporting Organic Agriculture “Is Truly Putting America First”

As organic agriculture is the fastest growing agricultural sector—the majority of new farmers are choosing to farm using organic practices and organic farm management offers a long list of environmental benefits—I am hopeful Congress will incorporate Farm Bill policies that allow for continued and supported growth of the industry.