Posts Tagged ‘farming’
Active Networks for a Rapid Global-to-Local Transition
It’s too easy to get depressed by the daily news cycle of wars and the threat of A.I., and to assume that nothing at all is going on to take the world in a more life-affirming direction. The truth is, there are thousands of grassroots projects on every continent challenging the bigger-is-better, high-tech trajectory of…
Read MoreLocal Food for Rapid Transition
As a nature-loving child growing up in the 2000s, I was debilitated and depressed by the idea that we could either save species and ecosystems, or provide a reasonable quality of life to human beings. Everything I was implicitly taught about ‘development’ and ‘progress’, at school and in the media, pointed to one seemingly inexorable…
Read MoreRevitalizing Indigenous Ecosystems
Oaxaca, one of the most biodiverse and culturally rich states in Mexico has, over the last two decades, rapidly exploded into a booming tourist destination. Visitors find themselves lost in the beauty of its diverse cultures, artisan crafts, vibrant cuisine, and its most famous beverage – mezcal. Tequila and mezcal have witnessed a remarkable surge…
Read MoreFive bad arguments against agrarian localism
Perhaps incorrectly, or even arrogantly, I’m anticipating that my soon-to-be-published book Saying NO to a Farm-Free Future might elicit pushback from those unconvinced by its arguments for agrarian localism. If it does, obviously that’s fine. It’s a polemical sort of book, so counterargument is only to be expected. But my hope is for thoughtful, engaged…
Read MoreThe Well is Running Dry on Irrigated Agriculture
Too much rain, but not enough water. That’s the title of a recent article about the massive rainstorms that hit California last December. The US state got a lot of badly needed rain, but, as pointed out in the article, this was nowhere near enough to save it from the severe drought the region is…
Read MoreThe Cuban Paradox
Landing in Cuba is like approaching a vibrant emerald in the middle of the sea. Fields full of shades of green are scattered throughout the island’s territory in orderly plots; various grids of all sizes, some with small groups of cattle. Among these farms, several vacant lots stand out, demarcated despite not having much vegetation…
Read MoreHin Lad Nai: A Successful Model of Indigenous Resistance
A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of spending a couple of days with an Indigenous hillside tribe here in Thailand called Hin Lad Nai, and I wanted to share some of that story with you today. It’s the story of a small community who, when faced with a multitude of challenges to their…
Read MoreChak Chok: a campaign against junk food
Transnational corporations have been spectacularly successful in their profit-driven quest to hook the world on junk food. The global sale of packaged foods swelled to US$2.8 trillion by 2020, and is estimated to balloon to $3.4 trillion by 2027. Soda (soft drink) sales have exploded globally, reaching $995 billion by 2002, and are predicted to…
Read MoreLow-tech solutions
Most mainstream responses to climate chaos today rely heavily on high technology and big business. We rarely hear about solutions – often rooted in the past – that are localized, low-tech, and don’t advance the interests of large corporations. These are precisely the kind of technologies explored in depth on Low-Tech Magazine. What follows is…
Read MoreGetting out of the food-energy-climate crisis
On 11 October 2022, the International Monetary Fund’s head of research, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, warned that today’s high energy prices were not going away any time soon. The “energy crisis”, he cautioned, “is not a transitory shock”. The same could be said for what he called the “food crisis”. As Gourinchas noted, today’s high prices for…
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