Peasant movements in Asia marked March 29 as the Day of the Landless. The day pays tribute to the founding of the Asia Peasant Coalition (APC). About 15-million strong, the APC was established in 2003 by more than 20 organizations from 11 countries representing farmers, landless peasants, fishers, agricultural workers, Dalits, indigenous peoples, herders and pastoralists, and rural women and youth. This year, the annual commemoration by peasant groups and advocates took cognizance of the upcoming Food Systems Summit (FSS) […]
Young farmers in Ladakh: the future of our food
Ladakh – high on the Tibetan Plateau at the northern extreme of India – is the place we call home. The vast majority of Ladakhis are villagers, who have, for centuries, provided for most of their physical and emotional needs through interdependent webs of relationship with the land and with community. We remember running through fields as children, picking freely from the orchards of apples and apricots that we came across as we played. Significant changes took place when Ladakh [...]
Making the Case for a Small Farm Future
For a good stretch of the last 20 years, I’ve tried as best I can to be a small-scale farmer. The results have varied from the worthwhile to the hapless, always constrained by a world geared to treating the efforts of farmers in general, and small-scale farmers in particular, with indifference at best. But my story isn’t about those efforts, or that indifference. Instead, it considers what may be impelling humanity toward a small farm future; what (in broadest outline) […]
Lockdown in Ladakh
I returned to my village in Ladakh when the Prime Minister announced the first lockdown in late-March. I ended up spending the whole lockdown period in the village assisting my family with various agricultural and pastoral tasks. This was the first time I had spent so much time in the village since my childhood. This made me reflect on the idea of development itself. For over 10 years I have worked in the tourism sector, like most of the young […]
What does self-reliance really mean? Amazing stories from India’s villages
Not so long ago, Dalit women farmers in Telangana used to face hunger and deprivation. Today, they have contributed foodgrains for pandemic relief. Farmers on the Tamil Nadu-Karnataka border have been sending organic produce to Bengaluru even during the lockdown. And Adivasi villages in central India are using community funds to take care of migrant workers who have returned home. These inspiring stories show the potential of empowered rural communities to cope with crisis. And they expose the tragedy of […]
Convenience, Community, and Late-Stage Capitalism
Yesterday I went to the post office to mail a package to my daughter overseas. She’s been in the military for years, so I’m familiar with the process. Hauling the big box on my hip, I greeted the post mistress and asked her for a customs form. “Oh, you have to do that online now,” she said. “Because of international regulations, we aren’t allowed to use paper forms anymore.” So I wrestled the box back out to the car and […]
Adopt a Local Business
Many of us show our compassion and generosity through acts of adoption. Adopt a tree, adopt a baby giraffe, adopt a schoolchild, etc. For the last two weeks, my partner Audrey and I adopted a lovely four-legged pooch named Annie. Her “person,” a close friend, had to travel to Western Massachusetts to be with her dying mother. I’m not exactly a dog person – I didn’t grow up with dogs, and throughout my adult life my travel schedule has made me reluctant even to adopt a cactus. But Annie’s visit lit up […]
Comparative Resilience: 8 Principles for Post-COVID Reconstruction
This past weekend, a bright Georgetown undergraduate asked me how I squared my passion for localization with the theory of comparative advantage. For economics newbies, he was referring to David Ricardo’s argument that every community should find one product to specialize in and trade for everything else. I gave my usual response that the theory is great – except for the thousands of goods and services that are cheaper to produce locally – but that answer left me uneasy. Once […]
The Folly of Farm-Free Food
This blog is also available in Russian and Spanish. “Beware of simple solutions to complex problems. That is a crucial lesson from history; a lesson that intelligent people in every age keep failing to learn.”[1] Having wisely counseled thus just 5 years ago in a trenchant critique of ecomodernism, environmental journalist George Monbiot’s recent op-ed in The Guardian surprised a lot of people. In fact, one is left dizzingly disoriented by Monbiot’s recent about face, in which he promotes farm-free, […]
The Real Economy
An essential element of a functioning community is that all roles are filled, that people individually and together do what is necessary for the success of the community. In this era of climate change and contracting energy resources, one important and potentially divisive issue is household roles. Many American households these days are just fueling stations for people who sleep and microwave in order to return to work or school. When both parents work and the kids spend all day […]