An alert from CropMobster just called my attention to this organization:
Multinational Exchange for Sustainable Agriculture or MESA
http://www.mesaprogram.org/
They are engaged in crowd funding for some new initiatives in food justice including farmer-to-farmer exchanges and developing an on-line curriculum in global agro-ecology and local food systems.
I'm often suspicious of crowd funding campaigns, but when I saw that Ecology Action and Bountiful Gardens are supporting this one, it was a no brainer.
Showing posts with label farming; sustainability. Show all posts
Showing posts with label farming; sustainability. Show all posts
Friday, July 25, 2014
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
clips - earth democracy, non-interventionist farming, and agriturismo
Vindana Shiva interviewed in Cowbell Magazine - her radical vision of a green future, Earth Democracy...
'This inconsistency of the globalization project with democracy is something that needs to be addressed, that [globalization] is a project that can only be kept in place through lying about what’s really happening. And when people wake up, because people’s lives tell them this is not really true—when they say ,“Oh, we’re having growth” and people are running into unemployment—you can’t keep lying to people that we’re doing well. If India is told that we are shining, and half the people are starving, a starving person knows we are not shining.'
http://www.cowbellmagazine.com/home/2010/7/30/duty-now-for-the-future.html
Harry Eyres writes on Masanobu Fukuoka and his theory and practice of the non-interventionist farming that was his life’s work and philosophy,
and on agriturismo in Chianti...
http://www.ft.com/arts/columnists/harryeyres
'This inconsistency of the globalization project with democracy is something that needs to be addressed, that [globalization] is a project that can only be kept in place through lying about what’s really happening. And when people wake up, because people’s lives tell them this is not really true—when they say ,“Oh, we’re having growth” and people are running into unemployment—you can’t keep lying to people that we’re doing well. If India is told that we are shining, and half the people are starving, a starving person knows we are not shining.'
http://www.cowbellmagazine.com/home/2010/7/30/duty-now-for-the-future.html
Harry Eyres writes on Masanobu Fukuoka and his theory and practice of the non-interventionist farming that was his life’s work and philosophy,
and on agriturismo in Chianti...
http://www.ft.com/arts/columnists/harryeyres
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Burping cow is just part of the problem - & other epiphanies
Financial Times tends to emphasize market-based solutions...
Special Report: Business and Food Sustainability
Financial Times 2010 01 26
http://www.ft.com/food-sustainability-2010
How to feed people and save the planet - efforts to secure supplies in the face of increased population, climate change and rising prices
Ethics: ‘Islands of best practice in sea of poor to middling ones’
Food science: Rewards of precision farming - a promising alternative to genetic modification
Food safety: Standards set to protect reputations
Traceability in global food supply chains has come a long way, writes Ross Tieman
Multinationals: Self-interest drives new attitudes to agriculture
Case study: Congo coffee on shelves near you soon
Entrepreneurs: The importance of a local connection
Obesity: Corporate sector backtracks on fat facts
Technology: Some rubber tubing and a foot pump - the advantages of small-scale irrigation systems
Case study: Exploring a market-based approach to malnutrition - efforts to address ‘hidden hunger’
Food waste: Plenty of guilt and a very heavy footprint
Supply chains: Plan for the future from fork to farm
Agricultural pollution: Inputs that place huge pressure on the land
Livestock: Burping cow is just part of the problem
ID tags: A fresh perspective on tracking supermarket produce
Mideast supplies: Slowdown in Gulf states’ dash for farmland
Special Report: Business and Food Sustainability
Financial Times 2010 01 26
http://www.ft.com/food-sustainability-2010
How to feed people and save the planet - efforts to secure supplies in the face of increased population, climate change and rising prices
Ethics: ‘Islands of best practice in sea of poor to middling ones’
Food science: Rewards of precision farming - a promising alternative to genetic modification
Food safety: Standards set to protect reputations
Traceability in global food supply chains has come a long way, writes Ross Tieman
Multinationals: Self-interest drives new attitudes to agriculture
Case study: Congo coffee on shelves near you soon
Entrepreneurs: The importance of a local connection
Obesity: Corporate sector backtracks on fat facts
Technology: Some rubber tubing and a foot pump - the advantages of small-scale irrigation systems
Case study: Exploring a market-based approach to malnutrition - efforts to address ‘hidden hunger’
Food waste: Plenty of guilt and a very heavy footprint
Supply chains: Plan for the future from fork to farm
Agricultural pollution: Inputs that place huge pressure on the land
Livestock: Burping cow is just part of the problem
ID tags: A fresh perspective on tracking supermarket produce
Mideast supplies: Slowdown in Gulf states’ dash for farmland
Monday, January 11, 2010
Bringing It to the Table
Sometimes cleaning up your desk means you need to review a book and then put it back on the shelf.
A couple of months ago I bought a copy of Bringing It To the Table: On Farming and Food by Wendell Berry. I have to admit never quite finishing a book by Berry, but I thought I would give this compilation of short pieces on farming, farmers and food a try, and I almost made it.
The third section on food consists primarily on excerpts from Berry's fiction, which I don't find compelling or entertaining, and I couldn't quite get through all the descriptions of farm house meals of old. But the 1989 essay on "The Pleasures of Eating", which contains the famous line "eating is an agricultural act" redeems the section.
The section on farmers contains a variety of pieces which ought to be required reading for those who think sustainability and permaculture are new things. In different ways, the farmers visited and described connect the dots of frugality, sustainability and spirituality. These pieces written over a thirty year period also make the case for human scale farming. It's hard to choose just one exemplary quotation, but I think my favorite is from the earliest essay, "Elmer Lapp's Place" (1979)
"His aim, it seems, is not that the place should be put to the fullest use, but that it should have the most abundant life."
The first third of the book "Farming" has bits of wisdom along the way. One thread running through it is the understanding that smaller, diversified farms tend to create stronger communities, and that neighborliness is as important a value in farming as ecological health. Related to that "The industrial economy grows and thrives by lengthening and complicating the connection between producer and consumer." I thought about these notions when looking at the goals of our county Food System Alliance at this afternoon's meeting, and seeing the pleas to re-connect growers and eaters.
Reading Berry I was also prodded to think about industrial agriculture as an extractive industry - more like mining or clear cutting than farming.
My one beef with Berry's comments is that he sometimes uses "science" in a pejorative way, when what I think he means is reductionism or the inappropriate uses of technology. But he would not be the first, and probably will not be the last, romantic to do this.
So, one more quotation, on the tensions between environmentalism and agriculture:
"The question we must deal with is not whether the domestic and the wild are separate or can be separated; is is how, in the human economy, their indissoluble and necessary connection can be properly maintained."
A couple of months ago I bought a copy of Bringing It To the Table: On Farming and Food by Wendell Berry. I have to admit never quite finishing a book by Berry, but I thought I would give this compilation of short pieces on farming, farmers and food a try, and I almost made it.
The third section on food consists primarily on excerpts from Berry's fiction, which I don't find compelling or entertaining, and I couldn't quite get through all the descriptions of farm house meals of old. But the 1989 essay on "The Pleasures of Eating", which contains the famous line "eating is an agricultural act" redeems the section.
The section on farmers contains a variety of pieces which ought to be required reading for those who think sustainability and permaculture are new things. In different ways, the farmers visited and described connect the dots of frugality, sustainability and spirituality. These pieces written over a thirty year period also make the case for human scale farming. It's hard to choose just one exemplary quotation, but I think my favorite is from the earliest essay, "Elmer Lapp's Place" (1979)
"His aim, it seems, is not that the place should be put to the fullest use, but that it should have the most abundant life."
The first third of the book "Farming" has bits of wisdom along the way. One thread running through it is the understanding that smaller, diversified farms tend to create stronger communities, and that neighborliness is as important a value in farming as ecological health. Related to that "The industrial economy grows and thrives by lengthening and complicating the connection between producer and consumer." I thought about these notions when looking at the goals of our county Food System Alliance at this afternoon's meeting, and seeing the pleas to re-connect growers and eaters.
Reading Berry I was also prodded to think about industrial agriculture as an extractive industry - more like mining or clear cutting than farming.
My one beef with Berry's comments is that he sometimes uses "science" in a pejorative way, when what I think he means is reductionism or the inappropriate uses of technology. But he would not be the first, and probably will not be the last, romantic to do this.
So, one more quotation, on the tensions between environmentalism and agriculture:
"The question we must deal with is not whether the domestic and the wild are separate or can be separated; is is how, in the human economy, their indissoluble and necessary connection can be properly maintained."
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