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If It’s Profitable, Is It Really Sustainable?
If It’s Profitable, Is It Really Sustainable? That an economic activity has to be profitable is considered a truism, something taken for granted and not reflected upon. But what if the opposite is the case? When I first took up small-scale organic farming in the 1970s, I spent a lot of energy in developing new methods […]
A life on our planet – review
A life on our planet – review I watched David Attenborough’s film A life on our planet the other evening. The first, and largest, part of the movie was very well made. Perhaps not much new, but very well presented and with excellent footage and narrative. Some images are very strong, even brutal, such as a lonely […]
Is the Green Deal a card shuffle trick?
Is the Green Deal a card shuffle trick? (NOTE; this is not an analysis of the US New Green Deal, it is about the “green growth” narrative with the European Green Deal as the point of departure.) The European Green Deal is a ”growth strategy that aims to transform the EU into a fair and prosperous […]
What a milk carton can tell us
What a milk carton can tell us On the package of organic milk from Coop (Sweden) I can read the plastic cap is made out of oil. For some reason they can’t use biodegradeable plastic made from renewable sources. Instead they “support the production of the same quantity of renewable plastic somewhere else”. In addition […]
Do we need farmfree food?
Do we need farmfree food? Because of how badly we humans have treated soils and animals and how we destroyed bio-diversity, it is understandable that people are looking for other ways of producing food. The food tech sector hosts legions of entrepreneurs (mostly with background in the IT sector) seeking venture capital and researchers looking for […]
There is no such thing as a business as usual scenario
There is no such thing as a business as usual scenario The discussions about how much it will cost to mitigate climate change is a smokescreen. What constitutes a cost is not an objective fact, but laden with assumptions and subjective values. How much does it cost to stop climate change, to keep within the […]
Small farms don’t produce most the of the worlds food – but they could produce all
Small farms don’t produce most the of the worlds food – but they could produce all Recently, I wrote an article about how difficult it is to survive as a commercial smallholder and floated some ideas of why that is and what can be done about it. I want to follow up with two articles. This one […]
Towards a landscape diet and communal landscape management
Towards a landscape diet and communal landscape management Lately I have read two articles which both claim that small scale farming is (self)exploitive and that even with direct marketing such as farmers markets, there is no profit, hardly even survival. What nobody told me about small farming: I can’t make a living, by Jaclyn Moyer […]
Beware of the N-bomb
Beware of the N-bomb There are good, and frightening, reasons to closely follow the changes in the nitrogen cycle. We should not be surprised if the effects and costs of disturbing it turn out to be as dramatic as those for the carbon cycle. In addition, greenhouse gas emissions from nitrogen fertilizers are around 3% […]
Five dollars is not enough for five a day
Five dollars is not enough for five a day In discussions about food, environment and health, a resource perspective is often lacking. For more than half of the global population what ends up on their plate is mostly a function of their economic and energetic circumstances. If one want to change what people eat it […]
The Planet of the Cows
The Planet of the Cows Five years ago my wife, Ann-Helen, and I bought this small farm, Sunnansjö, in Sweden, some 30 km east of Uppsala. I have all my life been keen on growing vegetables and lately my interest has been more into trees and perennial plants. So the main idea was to use […]
Why did local go global?
Why did local go global? When discussing the food system, I find that few seem to understand why the system is like it is. Some discuss the system in a way where it sounds like Big, Bad and Ugly corporations made the system into what it is today, and all we have to do is […]
A regenerative food system is both a means and an end
A regenerative food system is both a means and an end The land-sparing argument is mostly flawed when it promises to save land for wildlife or for carbon sequestration. Continued intensification of the food system will lead to increased pressure on nature as well as the continued erosion of food culture. A regenerative food system […]
The Singularity is already here – it is the market
The Singularity is already here – it is the market The market economy exhibits most of the traits of the much hyped – and feared – singularity, where an artificial intelligence takes over the show and humans are enslaved. We have all heard the stories of the powerful algorithms. They control our choices and they […]
Food self-sufficiency – does it make sense?
Food self-sufficiency – does it make sense? Global food production increased with over 50% between 1986 and 2009. Meanwhile the trade in food for direct human consumption has increased from 15% of total production in 1986 to 23% in 2009, thus about one fourth of food production is traded. Half of the net exports 2010 […]