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Farmers are to be rewarded for protecting the environment, improving access to the countryside and boosting animal welfare under proposals outlined in the government's Agriculture Bill. Currently, British farmers get around £3.4bn a year in subsidies under the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), with the money distributed in the main on the basis of the size of the farm.
In a hall filled to the rafters with agroecological and regenerative farmers, a man approaches the podium.
Most already know what he’s going to say, but they’ve come to listen anyway—only half believing that what they’ve seen and heard about his assault on farming and farmers could be accurate.
George Monbiot is a journalist and author specializing in environmental issues. His work is read all over the world. You could be forgiven for thinking that he might be on the side of agroecological farming. But increasingly he isn’t. And if there was ever any doubt of this, Monbiot’s performance at the UK’s prestigious Oxford Real Farming Conference, following the debut of his TV documentary, “Apocalypse Cow,” was enough to remove any last shred of that doubt.
Dirt matters.
So says a growing body of scientific evidence pointing to the link between healthy soil, healthy humans and a healthy ecosystem.
According to a recent article in Force of Nature:
The complexity of the soil microbiome, and the way it affects the health of all other creatures in the ecosystem and the food chain, is simply stunning.
The authors of the article argue that though “the health of most of the planet’s soil is currently in dire straits,” there’s an obvious solution:
Only by changing our agricultural system, by reverting to a system in which all organisms in an ecosystem—a diversity of plants, animals, insects, and microorganisms—are recognized as crucial to the survival of the ecosystem, can we ensure that our soil, crops, animals, and even our digestive health, will thrive.
Like the human body, the environment involves multiple systems and complex interrelationships among them. It is next to impossible to trigger an effect on one system without it affecting several others. From the smallest living organisms in the soil and water to the largest mammals in the sea, a ripple effect is often felt through the food chain with any type of change.
I hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday and that your 2020 is already off to a great start. For our annual look-ahead piece, I asked several leaders of organic-related non-profit organizations to discuss this upcoming year. More specifically, what needs to get accomplished and what they would like Organic Insider readers to know about.
The Green New Deal resolution that was introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives in February hit a wall in the Senate, where it was called unrealistic and unaffordable. In a Washington Post article titled “The Green New Deal Sets Us Up for Failure. We Need a Better Approach,” former Colorado governor and Democratic presidential candidate John Hickenlooper framed the problem like this...
Beyond the media smog, the 24/7 fixation on the Trump cesspool and the endless distractions of the holiday season, I probably don’t have to remind you that the end of the modern era is at hand.
As most of us realize, even as we repress this thought in order to maintain our sanity, we are fast approaching “the point of no return,” whereby our 21stCentury Climate Emergency and societal meltdown begin to morph into global catastrophe.
Even in the midst of enjoying a break over the holidays and celebrating with our family and friends, it’s hard to avoid thinking about the “Emergency”—and the climate criminals, indentured politicians and climate deniers who have dragged us to the precipice.
Our common house is “on fire” as Greta Thunberg reminds us. And as Arundhati Roy laments: “It is becoming more and more difficult to communicate the scale of the crisis even to ourselves. An accurate description runs the risk of sounding like hyperbole.”
To start off the year, we’ve compiled a list of 120 organizations to keep an eye on in 2020 that are working towards a more sustainable food system. Have a happy, safe, and delicious New Year!
Densified wood is stronger and more resistant than titanium steel or carbon fiber composites. It could be used to build wind turbines, bridges, shipping containers, and even cars. Each ton of the material contains 500 kg of carbon. Since those products are made to persist, they can be viewed as carbon sinks.
It is a wild understatement to say it has been a hard year in agriculture. It has been a year of loss, heartbreak and stress. As a frontpage Washington Post article captured, “Farm bankruptcies and loan delinquencies are rising, calamitous weather events are ruining crops and profits are vanishing during Trump’s global trade disputes.”
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