agriculture – Page 8

Gleason Ranch: Risking Everything

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=IP3zeyCvxjo This short clip advertises a documentary following the lives of the people running a 5th generation family ranch. Illustrating the harsh realities of real life farming and real life struggles I encourage you to read more about the story at http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gleason-ranch-risking-everything/.

Is the farmer’s job to produce more and more food?

The idea for writing this particular blog post sprouted from an article on Farmers Weekly by Matthew Naylor available here. The article encourages debate on what the role of the farmer actually is. Naylor writes: ”Decades of discussion about grain mountains, subsidies, biodiversity, diffuse pollution and food flavour have obscured the main function of aContinueContinue reading “Is the farmer’s job to produce more and more food?”

A New Common Agricultural Policy for Europe

I have written before on the prospect of a new CAP for a new era of farming in Europe. The proposed changes were actually published about 6 weeks ago but it has taken a bit of time to sift through everything and really look at who wins and who loses out of this new approach.ContinueContinue reading “A New Common Agricultural Policy for Europe”

The Need for Food Education – not a new issue

A few days ago I had a conversation with a local historian about a subject matter relevant to some research that I have been doing for a few years now regarding my local area. One of the themes that we discovered as a result of this conversation is that ideas tend to repeat themselves inContinueContinue reading “The Need for Food Education – not a new issue”

Agroecology – a third way?

In farming, as in every other way of life, we have made a critical mistake. It is a mistake of language, assigning linguistic labels to denote ‘methods’ of agriculture and thus discouraging innovation and radical thinking. We can point to and fairly accurately describe ‘conventional’, ‘organic’, ‘biodynamic’, ‘integrated’, ‘intensive’ or ‘extensive’ ‘types’ of farming alongContinueContinue reading “Agroecology – a third way?”