Our agtech series – agtechtakeback – saw a troubling story of corporate takeover and of disempowered, indebted farmers. But we also encountered empowering and inspiring examples of farmers embracing the best, most appropriate, of technologies to grow agroecologically. […]
We are back in Greece on Mazi Farm with Tash Foote who talks us through the thinking behind the farm design. […]
What were the most popular stories we published in 2018? While we tend to specialise in CAP and agri-food policy matters in the EU institutions – someone has to, right? – soil, agtech, agroecology, food sovereignty, milk and letters from the farm have proven to be popular. […]
Stuart Meikle takes us back to the future, to the poorly named green revolution aka the origins of industrial farming, to the humus farming of just before that, and up to today with the huge challenges farming faces. Agtechtakeback: Tech Revolutions, Retro-Innovations and Humus Farming. […]
A UK supermarket chain’s anti-palm oil advert has been banned, it’s focus habitat destruction caused by deforestation deemed too political for public television. Stuart Meikle reports on the past and present global obsession with palm oil and whether a plea to changing Western food habits is really the way forward. […]
After years of debates and wrangling, provisional agreement has been reached between European Parliament and Council to place limits on cadmium in fertilizers. The agreement places a 60 mg/kg limit on the toxin and carcinogen, to apply three years after entry into force of the new rules – most likely in 2022. […]
Cancer is an emotive topic, so when a team of French researchers say a higher frequency of organic food consumption was associated with a reduced risk of cancer people will inevitably take note – and try to take apart the study. Meanwhile, Roundup, a tool of conventional farming and land management is in the dock – and loosing – over it relationship with cancer. Oliver Moore reports, adding some broader and historical context. […]
The starkness of the IPCC’s most recent climate change warnings – of 12 year window before runaway impacts – has focused the minds of many. What role – if any – for livestock in this brave new herd? […]
Welcome indeed to Mazi Farm, a regenerative agroforestry farm run by a team brought together by a common goal – to restore degraded farmland in the Mediterranean. Natasha Foote introduces our next letter from an agroecological farm. […]
A farm hack movement has emerged to really take the power back on the land in rural areas. In France this is especially developed, with L’Atelier Paysan empower farmers, using participatory methods, to devleop appropriate, affordable open sourced tools of the trade, machines and even buildings. Plus they throw great parties. Julien Reynier tells us more. […]
In the dreary drizzle several hundred gathered this Sunday for the Good Food March in London’s Parliament Square calling for an ambitious UK Agriculture Bill. They wound up for tea and talks at the We Feed the World exhibition, a photography project which celebrates small farmers the world over. […]
A totally new understanding of bacteria as a realm that we must live within, from which it is foolhardy to think we can escape, is needed. An important step in that direction is describing the destructive ways of thinking about bacteria that have stepped in between us and these necessary cohabitants of our planet. […]
Meet Brindusa Birhala and Anselm Opdebeeck who live in the west of rural Romania. For four years, the pair have been slowly turning a small patch in the village of Stancoiva into an agroecological holding. Brindusa introduces the story, from strawbales to horticultural sales… […]
‘Farm land could work as carbon sinks,’ said Dr Jan Mumme, an agricultural engineer at the University of Edinburgh in the UK. ‘This probably wouldn’t work with intensive livestock farming, but sustainable crop production and integrated farm systems (a balance between crops and livestock) could do it – and biochar is one way to help.’ […]
This is #AgtechTakeback. L’Atelier Paysan is a French cooperative that works with farmers to design machines and buildings adapted to the specific practices of small farm agroecology. In addition to distributing free plans on its website, L’Atelier Paysan organizes winter self-help training sessions, during which farmers train in metalworking and build tools which they can then use on their own farms. […]
Agricultural and Rural Convention