production

Forging an Agriculture for All

Here is my latest ‘Activisionary’ article, getting to grips with engaging people in a food culture and analysing current (and future) opportunities for people to get involved with food localism. For more of my work at activisionary please visit http://activisionary.org.uk/author/ben-eagle/ The farmer-philosopher Fred Kirschenmann wrote an essay entitled ‘On Becoming Lovers of the Soil’ inContinueContinue reading “Forging an Agriculture for All”

Why Soils Matter in the Global Food Security Debate

Some of you may know (although I have to confess that I was personally unaware until yesterday) that last week was ‘Global Soil Week’ when more than 450 scientists, policy makers and practitioners from 71 countries gathered together in Berlin to discuss the role of soils in society. The theme of the week was ‘LosingContinueContinue reading “Why Soils Matter in the Global Food Security Debate”

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?”

How We Can Eat Our Landscapes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=4KmKoj4RSZw&list=PLa5_CCZ0k9jHQtKYDl1c1vmhRaKP15dDE Pam Warhurst is a very inspirational speaker in this, a TED talk on possible ways for communities to make use of land. I would certainly recommend you spare ten minutes or so to watch this and think again about how we can structure our communities,using food production as a common purpose.

The Future of Wheat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=QZz86KgoM_E It is estimated that in the next 50 years we will have to produce more wheat than we have over the past 10,000 years. Innovation is apparent in the agricultural sector. From engineering to plant science, specialists have been steadily moving forward. But are we moving forward quickly enough to sustain a rapidly growingContinueContinue reading “The Future of Wheat”