Feeding the soil and avoiding fossil fuels is the Holy Grail of sustainable farming. Techno-solutions aside, this will entail working with nature by mimicking nature – and harnessing the capabilities of ruminants. In the final installment of this series, Stuart Meikle outlines solutions for fossil fuel-free farming. […]
We’re back on Shane Casey’s farm in the Burren, Ireland. It’s nearly time for the reverse transhumance drive – or ‘winterage’ as it’s known locally. Grazing over the winter allows the Burren’s unique mix of flora to thrive. It’s a quintessential example of farming for conservation, explains Shane. […]
Our weekly Twitter round up of great content from our kindred network: a Friday treat for your weekend reading pleasure. Enjoy what we’ve found for you on twitter. […]
On 11-12 October 2021, the agri-ministers from all over the EU will be invited to share their views on design and approval of the CAP Strategic Plan, with emphasis on transparency and inclusion. With no sense of irony, this meeting will be held behind closed doors. […]
Seeds for hope were sown this summer at the Seeds4all seminar, when cereal farmers and breeders from several countries gathered on the island of Pellworm in July to discuss the future of local organic seed production. Off the German coast in the North Sea, Pellworm faces its own challenges as an island below sea level. In this weirdly rainy and burning summer, it was a fitting location for talk of sustainability and resilience. Report by Seeds4all. […]
A new book – Rebugging the Planet – has just come out. Its author Vicki Hird tells us all about insects and other invertebrates, their role, what ails them, and how looking after the small creatures means looking after ourselves too. […]
After more than 2 years of negotiations since June 2018, the three EU co-legislators found an agreement on the regulations for the future Common Agricultural Policy post-2022 (CAP). Much of the attention is now moving on the 27 Member States who will be in charge of implementing these regulations via the future National CAP Strategic Plans 2023-2027. […]
Despite the climate change mitigation emphasis on carbon sequestration, building soil carbon is first about food security, second about atmospheric carbon drawdown. By working with nature’s natural cycles to provide nutritious food with a low environmental footprint, Regenerative Agriculture will provide the transition from fossil-fuelled agro-chemistry to utilizing the farm’s natural resources, argues Stuart Meikle in the second part of this series. […]
Are we beginning to see carbon – the fundamental building block of all life – as a pollutant? Instead of demonising carbon as a cause of climate breakdown, we need to restore balance in the natural carbon cycle that has been disrupted by the use of artificial fertilisers. In advance of his upcoming series on farming within planetary boundaries, Stuart Meikle offers a primer on the complex role of carbon in our soils. […]
A new e-book published by ARC2020 documents one community’s inspiring response to the COVID-19 crisis. An antidote to the doom and gloom, “Bristol Bites Back: Fruits & Roots of Radical Resilience in South-West England” is tangible, practical proof that ecosystem-based approaches to food, farming and sustainability do indeed bear fruit for their patient protagonists – in some cases after decades of going against the grain of a productivist mindset. […]
Our weekly Twitter round up of great content from our kindred network: a Friday treat for your weekend reading pleasure. Enjoy what we’ve found for you on twitter. […]
Our weekly Twitter round up of great content from our kindred network: a Friday treat for your weekend reading pleasure. Enjoy what we’ve found for you on twitter. […]
Patrick Worm’s sets his sights on the armyworm, and how to cope with it. Turns, out, providing patches of natural and semi-natural habitats around farms can attract some of the many critters that are the armyworm’s natural predator. Trees are a handy technique to better manage crop and, bonus, not poison people the water or the soil. Patrick Worm’s is the Senior Science Policy Advisor of World Agroforestry (ICRAF) and the President of the European Agroforestry Federation. […]
The Common Market Organization (CMO), insufficient grazing subsidies and eco-schemes. An explainer about how EU dairy exports could increase rural unemployment and food poverty in Japan. […]
Why should farmers consider community, cooperative approaches? What are the benefits to doing so – and what happens when more individualistic approaches are taken instead? In the first of our occasional contributions from Patrick Worms, this testing topic is grappled with. Patrick Worms trained as a molecular geneticist and is the Senior Science Policy Advisor of World Agroforestry (ICRAF) and the President of the European Agroforestry Federation. These rants however, are 100% Patrick’s own personal opinion, and are not necessarily the views of any of the organisations he works for or represents. […]
Agricultural and Rural Convention