Interest is mushrooming in the power of fungi to feed and heal people and the planet. On one urban farm in Bristol, England, mushrooms upcycled from wood chip are building topsoil as well as feeding the local eaters. Meanwhile another nearby mushroom growing initiative is giving wealthy landowners an incentive to preserve their woodland. Ursula Billington reports. […]
40 scientific experts have come together today to release a paper on the role CAP plays in trying to make farming sustainable. Below we republish the summary of this paper, and provide a link to download the paper in full. Led by Guy Pe’er, and including our own Matteo Metta, the paper is critical of both the initial CAP proposal by the Commission from 2018, and more critical again of the positions taken by the Council and Parliament in October 2020. Important reading in the current trilogue context. […]
Livestock farmers Jen and Andy of Fernhill Farm in Somerset, England have been practicing regenerative agriculture since before they had a name for it. Twenty years ago their “extensive nomadic ways” were dismissed as too traditional; now it’s clear these pioneers of sustainable agroecology were ahead of their time. Ursula Billington tells us more. […]
In the third and final installment in this series on regenerative agriculture, Peter Dunne explains how regenerative agriculture is about working with nature, not suppressing it. We’re often told nature and agriculture can’t share the same space. But we urgently need a paradigm shift, because true resilience only comes through diversity. […]
In the second installment of an exclusive series on regenerative agriculture, Peter Dunne unpacks the rise of agrochemicals and the noxious legacy of the Green Revolution. He argues that regenerative agriculture is a reason for hope, if only we can put soils first in our farming and food policy.
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Woody Harrelson and Kiss the Ground may have brought the approach to a wider audience, but regenerative agriculture is nothing new. In the first installment of a three-part series, Peter Dunne explains what regenerative agriculture is, and why we should extract with the knowledge and intent to replenish. […]
If remote rural communities want to be part of the conversations that will shape their futures, the ability to connect with other projects and stakeholders is a crucial skill. For one island community, the coronavirus crisis was a crash course in online networking. Hannes Lorenzen reports on Eco-Week 2020 and the digital leap forward on his home island of Pellworm, Germany. […]
From the ashes of Portugal’s devastating wildfires in 2017 rose Reflorestar Portugal, a national network for forest and ecosystem regeneration. In this interview for ARC2020, Susana Guimarães, coordinator of Reflorestar Portugal, speaks to Antonieta Lopes about empowering local communities to be guardians of the forest, moving from an extractive to a regenerative economy, and letting go of what has proven to be of no use to us. […]
When it comes to carbon storage, a new peer reviewed publication shows the benefits of digging a little deeper. Researchers from University of California, Davis, found that compost is a key to storing carbon in semi-arid cropland soils. The key to this study is the significant carbon storage benefits found below 30cm. […]
Record droughts across Europe have been compounded in the Czech Republic by a plague of bark beetle that has jeopardized the nation’s forests. In a country where forestry and farming go hand in hand, every tree lost is a blow to the land, scuppering the soil’s capacity to store water and leaving it more vulnerable to erosion. To make matters worse, the vast fields of rapeseed that have become ubiquitous to Czech agriculture in recent years thanks to generous EU subsidies for biofuels have left the topsoil in a sorry state. […]
Its Earth Day Monday 22nd and to celebrate we’ve selected our twenty favourite, most appropriate, most thought-provoking and compelling reads to get in the mood. From rewilding to climate change, pesticides bans to the role of livestock in climate-friendly farming, and a gripping personal account of front line action in the Paris COP 21 climate change talks….it’s all here! […]
Kieran Sullivan, our Man in Muddy Boots, is keen to regenerate the soil on his sheep farm in Ireland. Here he reports on his journey to understanding the soil and implementing some measures to improve soil health. This is no small feat, he finds out. […]
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. […]
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