Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Security is not built with barbed wire, but with wells, seeds, and justice. As Wanjira Mathai, president of the Green Belt Movement, reminds us: “Every tree planted is an act of defiance against despair.”
There are multiple reasons for why food prices are on the rise. There are major similarities between the FAO food price index and energy prices. This is also quite natural as energy is a major input in the whole food system.
Africa’s history is not just one of suffering—it is also one of resilience, ingenuity, and renewal. Across the continent, ordinary people are accomplishing the extraordinary. They are fighting back against desertification, reclaiming barren lands, and bringing life back to the soil.
A lot of people have a peculiar horror for the idea of a lower energy and more local world, necessarily involving more people working the land – whereas the idea of living in a suburb and working in an office tends to get a free pass. I think there will be more of the former and less of the latter in the future whether we like it or not, but it’s a bit odd that our culture is so resistant to the possibility that the former might have its plus points.
Bristol food producers have had hopes of lifeline-funding dashed after the UK national government abruptly closed subsidy applications.
The Filière Nantaise stands as a model of how such policy ambitions can be put into practice on the ground. It is proving that small-scale, local, and rare can also mean ambitious, forward-thinking, and economically viable.
Honest gardening requires that we take stock of and work within existing conditions, that we don’t try to make the garden something that it isn’t or couldn’t be. Honest gardening is a kind of truth telling, the way art or literature can be.
So learn where your water is flowing from and where it is flowing to. How do you affect groundwater viability when you turn on the tap?
As glaciers melt upstream, Pamiri farmers are engaged in regenerative agriculture and saving seeds, while strengthening their culture and biodiversity.
How do we get from the current system to the desired one? How do we influence people to change their way of life so they engage again with practical activities linked with their own needs? How do we not target just privileged people but also people from popular classes?
In this blog, part of our Food Sovereignty and Spirituality series, AgroecologyNow interviewed Siddharta, founder of Pipal Tree India, about the role of spirituality and religion in social action for climate justice, gender justice and interfaith peace.
In this last article in the series, I turn to what a resilient, sustainable food system could look like. I will first discuss the agronomic side of the system and then the socio-economic part. In my view they are just two aspects of the same system.
