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Tag Archives: food production
Can organic farming feed the world?
Can organic farming feed the world? I discuss various aspects of so-called ‘alternative’ agriculture at some length in Chapter 6 of A Small Farm Future1, and I don’t intend to retrace many of those steps here. But there’s a couple of further things I do want to say in this blog cycle. Here, I’ll focus on […]
Here’s the catch
Here’s the catch The journey of an agricultural pollutant from its source, along its flow path (often in surface water flooding across fields), to its end destination, where it has the potential to do damage to the natural environment, is an essential concern of Catchment Sensitive Farming officers (CSFOs) on every farm they advise. Understanding how pollutants […]
Permaculture
Permaculture A design system that offers a radical reimagination of the possible Permaculture is a design system that mimics the patterns of flourishing ecosystems to create ecologically regenerative human societies. First developed by Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in the 1970s, permaculture takes inspiration from Indigenous and ‘traditional’ agrarian practices. Mollison and Holmgren created […]
Home is not the house but where the garden is
Home is not the house but where the garden is My title is a quotation from archaeologist Francis Pryor’s book about ‘prehistoric’ Britain, but it serves well enough as a summary of the general argument in my own book about our likely global future, and the need to refocus the household from a place of […]
Is Farming the Problem?
Is Farming the Problem? Here is a story that we tell ourselves. From The Good Ancestor: “Consider the immense legacy left by our ancestors: those who sowed the first seeds in Mesopotamia 10,000 years ago, who cleared the land, built the waterways and founded the cities where we now live, who made the scientific discoveries, won […]
Letter From The Farm | Three Years In: Realism And Planning For Utopia
Letter From The Farm | Three Years In: Realism And Planning For Utopia We are back on Chiara Garini’s forest farm at the foot of the Italian Alps. Three years in, her mushroom farm and forest garden is at a crossroads: should she expand or diversify? In any case Chiara is determined to bring utopia […]
Citizen power: A force for change
Citizen power: A force for change During the run up to the COP 26 meeting which will take place in Glasgow this November, the discussion about food related policies and practices is livelier than ever. Currently, there are several government consultations taking place – gene editing, bovine TB, the Welsh Agriculture Bill, food trade and more, some […]
Regenerative Agriculture part 3 | Working With Nature, Not Suppressing It
Regenerative Agriculture part 3 | Working With Nature, Not Suppressing It In the third and final installment in this series on regenerative agriculture, Peter Dunne explains how regenerative agriculture is about working with nature, not suppressing it. We’re often told nature and agriculture can’t share the same space. But we urgently need a paradigm shift, […]
Sustainability Metrics
Sustainability Metrics There is growing evidence that agriculture and food is one of the most significant contributors to the transgression of ‘planetary boundaries’, especially in the area of greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity, soil, water, and nitrogen use. As Professor Johan Rockström pointed out at the World Economic Forum, “A transition to sustainable agriculture and forestry […]
Co-op says #NotInMySupermarket
Co-op says #NotInMySupermarket After a joint letter organised by Beyond GM and Slow Food UK, and signed by a wide range of organisations, including the Sustainable Food Trust, Co-op is the first UK supermarket to say it will not stock products made from untested and unregulated ‘gene-edited’. In response to a civil society appeal […]
Comparing Organic, Agroecological and Regenerative Farming part 1 – Organic
Comparing Organic, Agroecological and Regenerative Farming part 1 – Organic In this new three part series we present an analysis by Dr. Andrea Beste on the similarities, differences and synergies between the organic, agroecological and regenerative farming movements. Part one here outlines the history and current status of the organic movement. A German version of […]
New research challenges scientific orthodoxy on the role of grazing livestock in relation to emission reduction targets
New research challenges scientific orthodoxy on the role of grazing livestock in relation to emission reduction targets This week we are highlighting the announcement of what we think is one of the world’s first soil carbon sequestration offsetting partnerships, between Microsoft Corporation and the Australian Wilmot Cattle Co. The reason we are drawing this news […]
Are glyphosate-based herbicides poisoning us and the environment?
Are glyphosate-based herbicides poisoning us and the environment? A new study, published on 27th January in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, conducted by an international team of scientists led by Dr Michael Antoniou of Kings College London, found that exposure to glyphosate and its commercial Roundup formulation, can disrupt the function of gut microbiome (bacteria and […]
Agricultural Elephant in the Room
Agricultural Elephant in the Room Abandoned dairy barn, Willamette Valley, Oregon. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair. I find it strange Americans and, especially, scientists and politicians talk to little, if at all, about agriculture. And yet agriculture gives us food and, surreptitiously, threatens the future. Vast number of Americans live in large cities like New York, […]
UK | Urban Food Revolution Gaining Ground In Bristol
UK | Urban Food Revolution Gaining Ground In Bristol All hands to shovelling compost. Image © Sims Hill CSA Small-scale urban farming is a key piece of the food resilience puzzle. In the face of crisis, local growing has proved a reliable ally. For the city of Bristol, a turning point in the local food […]
