In recent years, the voice and visibility of movements opposing land grabs and displacement, and demanding land reform, are increasing. Though relatively little land has been redistributed, organized movements of small farmers, indigenous peoples, and landless people are developing in size, strength, and organization. They are uniting across borders to break the nexus between land, agriculture, power, and profit.
Category: Culture
Why Vegan? Because Every Death Is a Tragedy
Despite the big numbers, the awfulness of statistics of farmed and slaughtered animals is a matter of flesh and blood—an inescapable onslaught of pain, suffering, and thoughtlessness. The statistics become terrible every single day, whether we are standing in the midst of a slaughterhouse, or walking down a grocery store aisle, or watching a fast-food commercial on television.
Harvesting Justice 21: Food for Body, Food for Thought, Food for Justice – People’s Grocery in Oakland, California
The neighborhood of West Oakland in California has long been without a large grocery store, let alone one that offers healthy, fresh food. With unemployment at about 10% and nearly half the population of 30,000 residents living at or below the poverty line, West Oakland is a neighborhood that grocery store chains have claimed isn’t able to sustain a full-functioning store. People’s Grocery aims to prove traditional grocers wrong.
Five Environmental Lessons We Can Learn from Buddhist Monks
My friend Julia recently visited Buddhist monasteries in Nepal and India and was deeply touched by the Tibetan Monks there. Living on less than a dollar a day, the monks she met were models of spiritual humility, happiness and simplicity. She came back from Nepal and the monastery full of life, and more dedicated than ever to service, simplicity, and meditation. In our discussions afterward, we reflected on the following 5 eco-themed lessons we could learn from the Buddhist monks.
Harvesting Justice 20: More than Just Food – Connecting Farm to Community
Just Food in New York City is doing what its name suggests: working to make the food system more just. It does this, first, by making community supported agriculture (CSAs), farmers’ markets, and gardens, more accessible and affordable in the city. Second, it helps small farmers survive, and even thrive, in the process.
World Population Day: Let’s Celebrate?
On World Population Day, Population Connection president John Seager offers ideas on how we can turn this event from a day meant to raise concern to one for celebration.
Harvesting Justice 19: “The Revolution is Going to be Fought With The Hoe”- Agriculture and Environment in New Mexico
Miguel Santistevan and his partner Margarita García are helping youth reclaim knowledge about traditions behind lands and waters. Sol Feliz Farm, Miguel’s grandfather’s house east of Taos, is an acre of spiral gardens, rock gardens, and straight rows. The farm’s Agriculture Implementation Research and Education (AIRE) project is capturing the imagination of an impassioned group of youth in northern New Mexico.
Art From Scrap: Ptolemy Elrington’s Hubcap Creatures
Ptolemy Elrington makes sculptures from scrap material and runaway hubcaps. He lives in the British seaside town of Brighton, and has been crafting his Hubcap Creatures for twelve years. In this time Ptolemy has built a name for himself, and now there is enough demand for his work that he’s able to do it full-time. He is known for his animals, particularly fish, but can make just about anything, and sells to all kinds of people.
Five Weird Ways to Go Green
You care about the environment, you shop at farmers markets regularly, and you’ve even invested in low-flow toilets for every bathroom in your home. There’s more you can do… if you’re willing to get a little weird.
Harvesting Justice 16: Putting the Culture Back in Agriculture – Reviving Native Food & Farming Traditions
Native peoples’ efforts to protect their crop varieties and agricultural heritage in the US go back 500 years to when the Spanish conquistadors arrived. Today, Native communities throughout the US are reclaiming and reviving land, water, seeds, and traditional food and farming practices, thereby putting the culture back in agriculture and agriculture back in local hands.
Mexico City Bed and Breakfast a Green Oasis
Bed and breakfast El Patio 77 offers a sustainable getaway in the middle of Mexico City in a repurposed building replete with solar hot water, and other eco-friendly comforts.
Recycling: Kinda’ Like Punching Hitler in the Nose
Can appealing to patriotism get more conservatives recycling? Perhaps… there’s evidence it’s worked before.
Harvesting Justice 14: A Penny a Pound, Plus Power – the Coalition of Immokalee Workers Changes History
For most tomato pickers in the US, a bucket brings in 50 cents, a piece rate that has remained virtually unchanged for more than 30 years. Because the rate is set so low, a worker has to pick more than two and a quarter tons of tomatoes per day – the weight of a young elephant – to make the minimum wage. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers is transforming all of this.