Food and Farming
Local Food: More Than a Nice-to-Have
While this Sustain report focuses on the UK, many of its findings are relevant to communities everywhere. — Local Futures Local food isn’t just a nice-to-have. It’s an essential ingredient of UK economic resilience. Food prices in the UK are rocketing, showing just how exposed our food economy is to global shocks – from geopolitical…
Read MoreColonisation Never Ended
Seed patenting laws are a global threat, but people are fighting back. For over 10,000 years, seeds have been the bedrock of human civilisation. From the moment our ancestors traded their nomadic hunter-gatherer ways for a life rooted in place, communities have freely collected, cultivated, saved, exchanged, and sown seeds as acts of sustenance and…
Read MoreThe Food You Eat Is Poisoned
The Food You Eat Is Poisoned: Decolonizing Agriculture and Reviving Ecological Knowledge in Kurdistan. Farming in the mountains and plains of Kurdistan has always been more than a way to feed families; it is a way of life, a form of resistance, a connection to land holding deep memory. Long before industrial agriculture and state…
Read MoreRooted in Place
What Farmers’ Markets Teach Us About Relocalization, Food Sovereignty, and Public Spaces The Broken Food System We’re Facing The longer I work in the local food world, the less I mince my words. From farmers to consumers, the globalized industrial food system is failing many of the people it’s meant to serve. The author posing…
Read MoreWhy Agroecology Needs Social Movements
Women in Nigeria grow and sell orange-fleshed sweet potatoes. Image by Sonii David/Community Eye Health via Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0) The 2nd East African Agroecology Conference was a three-day event, from March 25-28, and according to the organizers’ report, over 700 people participated. Alongside a range of side events, there were exhibitions showcasing everything from…
Read MoreLand, Culture, Farming, and Movements in 2025
To work in agriculture in the current economic and social context can look and feel foolish. The average cost of farmland in the U.S. has doubled since 2009. The cost of housing has increased 47% just since 2020. You’d be lucky to find a small house for half a million dollars in many parts of…
Read MoreTechno Feudalism Takes Root on the Farm in India and China
– Techno feudalism: a term first coined by Yanis Varoufakis in his 2023 book Techno Feudalism: What Killed Capitalism, describes a rent-driven, technology-dominated society—echoing conditions similar to those that existed before capitalism, known as feudalism. The largest tech corporations have all launched initiatives in agriculture in recent years. But, among these tech giants, Microsoft is…
Read MoreThe Globalized, Industrialized Food System Is Destroying the World
The Globalized, Industrialized Food System Is Destroying the World — We Urgently Need to Support Local Food Economies Our food system is linked to an economic system fundamentally biased against what’s good for people and the planet. Introduction We can thank small farmers, environmentalists, academic researchers, and food and farming activists for advancing ecologically sound…
Read MoreResisting US-India Agri-Imperialism
A “high-powered US trade delegation” recently visited India to “explore opportunities in the country’s huge agribusiness sector and further promote American products among India’s rising middle class.” So reads the opening line of one of a few recent articles (see others here and here) in the Indian elite press announcing this momentous visit, and in…
Read MoreFood Inflation
Food inflation: the math doesn’t add up without factoring in corporate power – Large farmers’ protests broke out in at least 65 countries over the past year. From India to Kenya through Colombia and France, desperation has hit a breaking point. Farmers warn that without better prices and more protection, their future is at risk.…
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