“We would die from starvation. It’s that simple.” Or so TV botanist James Wong recently tweeted in response to the title question, taken from a BBC feature. In this post I’m going to make the case that we wouldn’t, that it isn’t simple, and that in fact our chances of starving are probably higher – albeit in some quite unsimple ways – if we don’t start eating more food from local farms. A good many of the comments under James’s tweet rehearsed various misconceptions about local food, so I … [Read more...]
Chris Smaje works a small mixed farm in Somerset, England, and blogs at smallfarmfuture.org.uk. He’s written on environmental and agricultural issues for publications like The Land, Permaculture Magazine, and Dark Mountain, and in academic journals. Trained in anthropology and social science, he previously worked at the Universities of Surrey and London.