A proper community is a commonwealth: a place, a resource, an economy. It answers the needs, practical as well as social and spiritual, of its members—among them the need to need one another. The answer to the present alignment of political power with wealth is the restoration of the identity of community and economy. —Wendell Berry Every being on this …
Feeding the Future Through Agroecology – M. Jahi Chappell, Tara Ritter
The devastating drought in California, home to much of the country’s fruit and vegetable production, is spurring discussions about the future of food production in a new age of climate change. When broaching the topic of solving the future food dilemma—feeding a growing population while using the same amount of land and facing more volatile weather events—the arguments typically fall …
Organic Food Industry Explodes as Consumer Demand Spikes – Lorraine Chow
Looks like organic food has gone from a new-age trend to a staple in supermarkets and many American diets. According to a new analysis from the Organic Trade Association (OTA), organic food sales in 2014 jumped 11 percent to $35.9 billion, claiming almost 5 percent of the total food sales in the U.S. The numbers are a huge spike since the OTA first kept record in 1997, where …
Rural Rebellion in Northern California – SHEPHERD BLISS
Rural folk from four Northern California counties came in mid-April to a magical juncture where the life-giving Russian River empties into the majestic Pacific Ocean. Though the small, unincorporated village of Jenner is a popular recreational destination, pleasure was not the intention. Our mission was to preserve agrarian lifestyles and environments from further colonization by industrial wineries. Large corporate wineries–owned …
Here’s the Real Problem With Almonds – Tom Philpott and Julia Lurie
Almonds: crunchy, delicious, and…the center of a nefarious plot to suck California dry? They certainly have used up a lot of ink lately—partly inspired by our reportingover the past year. California’s drought-stricken Central Valley churns out 80 percent of the globe’s almonds, and since each nut takes a gallon of water to produce, they account for close to 10 percent of the state’s annual agricultural water …
Monsanto is the Dept. of Homeland Security for food – Jon Rappoport
“Whenever people encounter a crazy idea, a high-flying absurd notion, they reject it out of hand. That’s the first impulse. ‘No, no one would believe that. It’s ridiculous.’ But as time passes, and this crazy idea is repeated over and over again, people make adjustments to their own minds. ‘Well, maybe it’s true, a lot of important authorities accept it, …
Food, Farming and Climate Change: It’s Bigger than Everything Else – Ryan Zinn
Record-breaking heat waves, long-term drought, “100-year floods” in consecutive years, and increasingly extreme superstorms are becoming the new normal. The planet is now facing an unprecedented era of accelerating and intensifying global climate change, with negative impacts already being widely felt. While global climate change will impact nearly everyone and everything, the greatest impact is already being felt by farmers …
US Agribusiness, GMOs And The Plundering Of The Planet
Small family/peasant farms produce most of the world’s food. They form the bedrock of global food production. Yet they are being squeezed onto less than a quarter of the planet’s farmland. The world is fast losing farms and farmers through the concentration of land into the hands of rich and powerful land speculators and agribusiness corporations. By definition, peasant agriculture prioritises …
Saving Seeds: Farmers Rise Up Against Industry-Backed Laws
For millennia, the practice of saving and exchanging seeds has been fundamental to crop production in farming communities across the globe. Now, faced with a growing push on the part of governments and corporate agribusiness to limit this practice and thus threaten the food sovereignty of millions, farmers worldwide are fighting back. International peasant farmer and food justice groups La Via …
Land grab in Ukraine is Monsanto’s backdoor to the EU
The quest for Ukraine’s legendary black earth is almost complete. To the dismay of French, Polish, German farmers, the multinational agricultural corporation Monsanto, as well as DuPont Pioneer and John Deere, have all lobbied for access to the largest agricultural market in Eastern Europe. This will soon reshape the market for agricultural products in the EU and spell ruin for …